This weekend was kind of a rough start to the new year. It reaffirmed my feeling that it might be a Kobiashi Maru to live the way you should in a world governed by expediency and self-service. For any human-human relationship, there seems to be a disconnect between the quest for truth and the quest for what he hope truth to be. You see it when people ask things like "Does this dress make me look fat?" or "Isn't she just the cutest little baby?" or "What did you think of my talk?" People want you to validate their worth by agreeing with their premise, so if you do not, they don't like what you do.
The Kobiashi Maru is a test in the fictitious world of Roddenberry's Star Trek franchise. It is essentially a no-win scenario that tests to see if officer candidates are possessed of sufficient character to be elevated to command level. Fortunately for those who take it in the movies, novels, etc., Starfleet is more altruistic than the world at large, and candidates who show character are rewarded with promotions, medals and opportunities.
A few weeks ago, I arrived on time to an activity. When the first late arrival reached the scene, she observed that I was always reliable and on time and that I should receive a medal for always doing what I felt was right. I told her that there are no obvious rewards in this world for doing what is right. Our society reflects the New Morality that says "You only live once, so live it up" instead of "You only live once, so live well."
The only exception to Star Trek's Kobiashi Maru scenario is Captain James T Kirk. He rewrote the rules of the computer simulation, so that it was possible to rescue the ship and survive.
Every heirarchy has a quest for the status quo, and so if you challenge their comfort, you set yourself up as a threat to their peace. They will tell you not to rock the juke box, not to make waves, to accept other people as they are (even though they don't have the same reciprocal responsibility towards you to accept you as you are) and to go with the flow. This is the path of least resistance. In the Kobiashi Maru scenario, this would mean that you failed to show character by looking out for yourself instead of what you should do. To borrow from a theme last week in The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes was promoted over Danglars because Danglars hid behind his rank to save his own skin.
When you look for truth and do what is right, in essence, you represent an attempt to reprogram the test of life to make it possible to be concurrently true and successful. Many other people, secure in their mediocrity, will cry foul and attack you or ignore you completely. You upset their utopia with an infusion of truth, and you make your way into their history books as either sinner or saint. Once you establish yourself as a threat to their comfort and ease, they will probably pretend you don't even exist.
Over a year ago, someone close to me did me a great wrong. When this person made a superfluous attempt to make amends, I told them that it is always the right time to do the right thing. Although they did not do what was right and try to make it right, they are welcome to at any time. Until then, any other relationship with a person disinterested in truth is a Kobiashi Maru for me. It is a test of character, and I know more about what the rules ought to be than what they have set the rules to allow.
The Kobiashi Maru is a test in the fictitious world of Roddenberry's Star Trek franchise. It is essentially a no-win scenario that tests to see if officer candidates are possessed of sufficient character to be elevated to command level. Fortunately for those who take it in the movies, novels, etc., Starfleet is more altruistic than the world at large, and candidates who show character are rewarded with promotions, medals and opportunities.
A few weeks ago, I arrived on time to an activity. When the first late arrival reached the scene, she observed that I was always reliable and on time and that I should receive a medal for always doing what I felt was right. I told her that there are no obvious rewards in this world for doing what is right. Our society reflects the New Morality that says "You only live once, so live it up" instead of "You only live once, so live well."
The only exception to Star Trek's Kobiashi Maru scenario is Captain James T Kirk. He rewrote the rules of the computer simulation, so that it was possible to rescue the ship and survive.
Every heirarchy has a quest for the status quo, and so if you challenge their comfort, you set yourself up as a threat to their peace. They will tell you not to rock the juke box, not to make waves, to accept other people as they are (even though they don't have the same reciprocal responsibility towards you to accept you as you are) and to go with the flow. This is the path of least resistance. In the Kobiashi Maru scenario, this would mean that you failed to show character by looking out for yourself instead of what you should do. To borrow from a theme last week in The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes was promoted over Danglars because Danglars hid behind his rank to save his own skin.
When you look for truth and do what is right, in essence, you represent an attempt to reprogram the test of life to make it possible to be concurrently true and successful. Many other people, secure in their mediocrity, will cry foul and attack you or ignore you completely. You upset their utopia with an infusion of truth, and you make your way into their history books as either sinner or saint. Once you establish yourself as a threat to their comfort and ease, they will probably pretend you don't even exist.
Over a year ago, someone close to me did me a great wrong. When this person made a superfluous attempt to make amends, I told them that it is always the right time to do the right thing. Although they did not do what was right and try to make it right, they are welcome to at any time. Until then, any other relationship with a person disinterested in truth is a Kobiashi Maru for me. It is a test of character, and I know more about what the rules ought to be than what they have set the rules to allow.
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