The Land Of The One Eyed Men

Yesterday I was watching the opening of the new Congress and I was reminded of a saying I heard many years ago; “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.” Not to say that this congress has any more one eyed men than the one’s that preceded it, but I do feel that with every election the one eyed men become more prevalent.

I have thought about this for some time now and I have come up with some personal conclusions. But first I would like to include something written by David Brooks of the New York Times that caught my eye, the one that I have. I’m not a big fan of Mr. Brooks, but I must say he does have two eyes. The problem is that his glasses sometimes distort his vision. Before I go on, I must confess that I am a very liberal democrat and very proud of it, but I am an equal opportunity hater and I feel that some of the most egregious one eyed men are democrats. Any way this is what Mr. Brooks wrote:

“Howard Gardner of Harvard once put together a composite picture of the extraordinarily creative person: She comes from a little place somewhat removed from the center of power and influence. As an adolescent, she feels herself outgrowing her own small circle. She moves to a metropolis and finds a group of people who share her passions and interests. She gets involved with a team to create something amazing.

Then, at some point, she finds her own problem, which is related to and yet different from the problems that concern others in her group. She breaks off and struggles and finally emerges with some new thing. She brings it back to her circle. It is tested, refined and improved.

The main point in this composite story is that creativity is not a solitary process. It happens within networks. It happens when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge.

Now imagine you are this creative person in the year 2010, 2025 or 2050. You are living in some small town in Ukraine or Kenya or some other place, foreign or domestic. You long to break out and go to a place where people are gathering to think about the things you are thinking about, creating the things you want to create.

If you are passionate about fashion, maybe you will go to Paris. If it’s engineering, maybe it’ll be Germany. But if you are passionate about many other spheres, I suspect you’ll want to be in America.

You’ll want to be in the U.S. because English has become the global language. You’ll want to come because American universities lead the world in research and draw many of the best minds from all corners of the earth.”

I have thought about this piece by Brooks and I have tried to adapt it to America itself. So let’s say you come from Tulsa, Oklahoma, not to disparage Oklahoma, but it is in the middle of the country. Let’s say you are very smart, creative, aggressive high school senior. You are the best and brightest, something I was not, maybe Brooks was. Having been a teacher for 20 years I am sure that your school, if not your parents encourage you to leave Tulsa and go to one of the elite schools in the US.

Now not all, but many of the elite schools are concentrated on the coasts. Yes I know there are elite schools throughout the country, but generally speaking the major urban centers are where someone like this ends up. As Brooks says they meet people like them and they exchange ideas. More times than not, and I am generalizing here, they don’t go back to Tulsa.

So what you have in Tulsa is not the best and brightest, they’re gone. What you do have is the blind and the one eyed men. I do not want any blind or one eyed person to take umbrage, I am using this metaphorically. Moreover, when it comes time for elections the blind scream out, “Let’s elect the one eyed man, at least he can see something”. They elect them and send them to Washington or to the State Capitals and what you have is not the blind leading the blind, but the one eyed man leading the blind and therefore he or she is KING.

Unfortunately, with the dumbing down of the American society we are doomed to be run by one eyed men, and actually, more and more by the blind themselves. This is not my opinion. We are losing educationally to the rest of the industrialized world more and more every year. Good luck friends