Something else

I imagine you sat in class in school and listened to how wrong people were about simple things. In hindsight these simple things seemed very obviously wrong. This blindness, based on conventional wisdom and some times supported by the science of the day, exists even now.

In our culture we subscribe to the philosophy we are all basically even in terms of innate capability. There are some recognized exceptions, such as the best athletes. Observational evidence suggests the opposite is true of the general population. There are people more gifted in all spectrum of endeavor. There is no such thing as a level playing field.

I first came face-to-face with this some years ago. My company hired a Consultant that had been the CEO of one of the largest transportation firms.  I was taken aback when I met him. He was not the stereotypical top corporate executive. He was about 5 feet 10 inches, very balding, a little bit portly, and maybe in his early sixties. He did not have a dazzling conversation of any apparent charisma. He was the kind of person you passed without noticing. I wondered how he had gotten so far?

He had been hired by my company at the senior executive level pay in the ranks just below the CEO. He was given a living expense account. In that account was a weekend travel allowance. The amount he was paid astounded us. He told us he was working to pay off the vacation home he was building in cash. The home was next door to the vacation home of the previous head of IBM at the time. As I worked around him, I watched how he matter-of-factly interfaced to the very top level in the corporation and the board of directors. He seemed to have no personal agenda. Yet he was unbelievably successful in terms of esteem he achieved with the top of the corporation. It was UNNATURAL.  It finally dawned on me, that because he was so atypical, he was a gifted person with some hidden type of innate ability.

I look at the people that rise in politics. Some are happenstance or sponsored, but a significant number seem to be like the consultant my company hired. These people have some mystic ingredient that places them heads and shoulder above peers.

Why do we not recognize the fact we live in an unequal world? The answer is conventional wisdom of our culture. In the future some student will be sitting in class and wonder how we were so stupid.