PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic discussion: excellence vs equality

folks just a general comment.
you know what is so sad in todays society ??.
not just the greed in some quarters, but people have become disconnected.
heres what i mean.

i remember when i was a kidlet growing up in cockney london uk
in the 50's. my granparents lived on an interesting street
which had its own ethos of folks helping each other.
heres how it worked.
if a family was down for the count via job loss or whatever ,
the hat would be passed around up n down the street to help em
get back on their feet.
neighbors would help each other etc etc.
the understanding implicit, being, once the family got back on its feet
then they would help others if the need arose.
it was sorta everyone on the street pulling together to help each other.
it was the "cockney way".
tears come to my eyes thinking of the generosity of the cockney spirit
in those years. and how people helped each other.
looking back i remembe sooo darn many fine people with great hearts.

as i became older in my teens i had two choices,
either become a "spiv", or get educated.
the spivs were very interesting people.
altho' they often operated in shady areas of business..
"psst mate want a watch cheap"..lol
once again many had golden hearts.
one always knew when a spiv had "made it".
viz they got a jaguar car. or a "roller".
(cokney for rolls royce..often a used vehicle.).
whats interesting is the spivs would often help the very poor and
the poor elderly. as i said golden hearts often.

i decided not to become a spiv. but went off to uni.
and received a top notch education.
but there is a problem with the education i received.
i went from being a somewhat "naive innocent" teen sheltered
by my family from the crazy world to being extremely
knowledgeable about the world (includeing the internals of the atom )
courtesy of brillant profs.
within the space of 3 yrs at uni i basically grew up.
it was a sea change for me. vaulted from cockneyland in
london to study with all these brilliant minds.
but there is a downside to such education.
in later years i came to realise in many respects i was over educated.
what i found in the real world of work was a zoo.
employers wanted one to often "dumb down" and be acquiescent.
many employers often wanted also the brains/training but didnt want to pay for it.

just life experiences i'm relating.
for example my first job after uni, a team of us were picked
to work on a complex technical project.
our small team was told
we had been chosen from a cull of a large number of grads.
we were told we were englands "finest technical minds".
and the best england had to offer.
well heres the joke of what we were paid after all the uni n studying n degrees
n education etc etc. in dollar terms about 3k a year.
i remember thinking at the time..
"i shoulda become a spiv..would have made more". lol.
in summary uk employers never wanted to pay.

i mention the above to possibly explain why todays young
(many i talk to tell me this..) arent too keen on
the daily grind. in summary, they have seen what their parents went thru ,
and are leery whether all the education n training pays off.
certain disciplines yes. eg every doctor ive known is well off.
but typically in todays large corporation, heres how it works.
the CEO's raking in millions want tek people on the cheap
to maximise profits and their own stock options the best they can.
ie..greed. to further maximise themselves they off shore engineering to
cheap labour countries where highly educated engineers and teks are cheap.

so lets take the usa as an example, and correct me if i'm wrong..
i perceive that lots of usa corps have offshored the tek jobs.
but this comes back to bite the american economy.
cos laid off brains in the usa arent buying stuff in the usa economy.
this is what the foolish CEO's dont realise.
they are impacting negatively their own economy.

looking back frankly many times in my life i wonder
if i shouldnt have remained in cockneyland.
some of the best kindest people i ever knew compared to the dog eat dog arena
of working for corporations and their lust for the bottom line.
yes folks my heart still belongs to cockney land.