Lesson 21

e they are still young enough to enjoy them. The Establishment, however, has traditionaly believed that people should be rewarded according to iheir age and experience. Ability counts for less. As the Establishment controls the purse-strings, its views are inevitably imposed on society. Employers pay the smallest sum consistent with keeping you in a job. You join the hierarchy and take your place in the queue. If you are young, you go to the very end of the queue and stay there no matter how brilliant you are.

 What you know is much less important than whom you know and how old you are. If you are able, youf abilities will be acknowledged and rewarded in due course, that is, after twentj?or thirty years have passed. By that time you will be considered old enough to join the Establishment and you will be expected to adopt its ideals. God help you if you don't.

    There seems to be a gigantic conspiracy against young people. While on the one hand society provides them with better educational facilities, on the other it does its best to exclude them from the jobs that really matter. There are exceptions, of course. Some young people do manage to break through the barrier despite the restrictions, but the great majority have to wait patiently for years before they can really give full rein to their abilities. This means that, in most fields, the views of young people are never heard because there is no one to represent them. All important decisions about how society is to be run are made by people who are too old to remember what it was like to be young.

    Resentment is the cause of a great deal of bitterness. The young resent the old because they feel deprived of the good things life has to offer. The old resent the young because they are afraid of losing what they have. A man of fifty or so might say, "Why should a young rascal straight out of school earn more than I do?" But if the young rascal is more able, more determined, harder-working than his middle-aged critic, why shoutdn't he? Employers should recognize ability and reward it justly. This would remove one of the biggest causes of friction between old and young and ultimatley it would lead to a better society.

　

                               2. Officialdom

    Ancient Chinese reformers advocated selecting aiI talented people to be officiais regardiess of their #amily backgrounds. This practice is stiil significant, for it opposed appointing people by favouritism.
    But it is improper for us to think that the talented can only become officials, otherwise they are stifled.
    In the course of the current reform, China needs talented personnel in all trades. It is justifiable that talented personnei bring their ability into full play by becoming leaders.

    But the point is who can be considered talented? Some see the holders of senior professional titles are talented: some think of those who have college diplomas as taltented; some say that they are those who have made inventions or outstanding contributions to society.
    There would not be enough vacancies if all of these people were to become officials.
    It is unnecessary for all the talented to elbow their way into officialdom. They can strive to become experts in philosophy, science, literatore, art, history and education. There is never a limit to the number of experts in these fields.

    Albert Einstein was once invited by Israei to become its president. It was eonsidered a matter of course for Einstein to accept the invitation. But Einstein refused it bluntly and continued his physics study.
    I do not mean that talented people should not become officials at aII. But what I want to specify is that different people have different strengths, and that not everyone is capable of becoming an official. If people without leadership capacity are chosen as officials, they can only bungle things.

    Before Hou Yuzhu and Zheng Meizhu, two aces af the Chinese National Women's Volleyball Team, retired, they were asked by reporters if the government would assign them jobs in a leading body, just as it had done for some of their former teammates.
    Hou and Zheng, who shared the credit for the team becoming world champions, responded that they did not want to become officials, and that they wanted to study the knowledge and skills needed in society to keep abreast of its development.
    Their decision may be of some help to us.

                3. You Can Get Promoted

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