Admiring Einstein
Aug. 26th, 2005 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedusorAt the Student Activities Council training on Friday, we did a get-to-know-each-other exercise, a list of questions like "What's your favorite holiday?" and "If you were a color, what color would you be?" One of them was "Who do you admire?" Several people said they admired people like George Washington and Michael Jordan, and it made me think.
Admiring a person's accomplishments is not, in my opinion, the same thing as admiring that person. I can appreciate that Albert Einstein created the Theory of Relativity, for example, and I know that he made a significant contribution to science. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that he as a person is worth admiration. I have never met him, therefore all I know about him is what has been relayed to me by people who also have never met him. This is not a good way to get the truth about a person. It's painfully similar to gossip- painful because of my own experiences with the effects of gossip.
The subject of gossip has come up in several discussions I've had lately. Today I ran into Tommy and D.J. at the Democratic picnic in Swope Park, and D.J., whom I don't know all that well, mentioned that I have quite a reputation among the LEARN crowd. He also said that he didn't pay attention to the gossip, but I know that it's impossible to hear that someone is a blood-sucking child rapist without at least feeling a little wary.
I know that comparing my situation to admiring celebrities/historical figures is a long shot, but honestly, I'm not trying to create an analytical comparison or anything. I'm just writing down a few things I've been thinking over the past few days. It bothers me that people say they admire Einstein, or Joan of Arc, or even Jesus. We don't know these people. They're pretty much characters in history, and they're flat characters. People aren't like that. Einstein was a person, too, and I have a problem with people saying they admire someone they cannot objectively judge. I have a problem with people admiring anyone whose flaws they can't or don't acknowledge, as a matter of fact, and I don't count Einstein's bad grades as a flaw.
Okay, disjointed rant over.
Admiring a person's accomplishments is not, in my opinion, the same thing as admiring that person. I can appreciate that Albert Einstein created the Theory of Relativity, for example, and I know that he made a significant contribution to science. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that he as a person is worth admiration. I have never met him, therefore all I know about him is what has been relayed to me by people who also have never met him. This is not a good way to get the truth about a person. It's painfully similar to gossip- painful because of my own experiences with the effects of gossip.
The subject of gossip has come up in several discussions I've had lately. Today I ran into Tommy and D.J. at the Democratic picnic in Swope Park, and D.J., whom I don't know all that well, mentioned that I have quite a reputation among the LEARN crowd. He also said that he didn't pay attention to the gossip, but I know that it's impossible to hear that someone is a blood-sucking child rapist without at least feeling a little wary.
I know that comparing my situation to admiring celebrities/historical figures is a long shot, but honestly, I'm not trying to create an analytical comparison or anything. I'm just writing down a few things I've been thinking over the past few days. It bothers me that people say they admire Einstein, or Joan of Arc, or even Jesus. We don't know these people. They're pretty much characters in history, and they're flat characters. People aren't like that. Einstein was a person, too, and I have a problem with people saying they admire someone they cannot objectively judge. I have a problem with people admiring anyone whose flaws they can't or don't acknowledge, as a matter of fact, and I don't count Einstein's bad grades as a flaw.
Okay, disjointed rant over.
