Iequality - Curse or Blessing?

Having been part of many AYSO soccer teams, swim teams, and other recreational sports leagues, I have had plenty of personal experience with participation ribbons and trophies.  At the end of the season, everybody would receive a participation trophy, a tradition, which always bothered me throughout my childhood.  Being an extremely competitive person, I felt that giving out awards to anybody regardless of skill diminished their value, and was unfair to those who were the most skillful or hardworking and actually deserved awards.  In soccer games, if we were winning by more than 3 goals, our coach would force us to pass and avoid scoring at all costs so as not to upset the other team’s players.  In fact, if we accidentally scored a goal, we’d be subbed out and reprimanded.  Later, when I transitioned to club soccer, “Participation” awards became “MVP” awards, and my team would often win or lose games by huge 10 goal margins.  Though occasionally the level of ruthless competitiveness seemed over-the-top, I strongly preferred it to the wimpy “everybody wins” system.  In club, I learned how to remain modest after a win and keep a positive attitude when losing.  These are important skills that kids of this generation may not learn if adults are constantly pampering us and telling us that we are all equally special.

Complete equality, such as that which existed in the society of Harrison Bergeren, is ridiculous and makes for an utterly uninteresting world.  The goals that drive us to prosper in today’s world are innovation, creativity, ambition, free thought, and dreams of achievement.  None of these things are possible without inequality.  Each person has their own individual talents, and may struggle in one field while excelling in another – that’s a major part of what makes people unique and interesting.  It’s pointless to expect everybody to be equally proficient at everything.  Bringing down each person to the level of the worst person destroys much of what makes life exciting and fun, and worth living.  Though letting kids run wild may lead to too many hurt feelings, society should not go so far as to negate the achievements of the more talented by rewarding everybody equally.

The participation trophies are meant to shield kids from failure, protecting them from the hard truths and inequalities of life, but by doing this they are also creating a generation of wimps.