Tall Poppy Syndrome

I'll admit that I often envious of other people's successes even if they worked hard to do it. It isn't as though that you didn't work hard achieve your objective, it is just that person has a talent and has some quality that you lack. Whether we like or not, there are some people who are just plain better at some things than everyone else. Most of us like to think that we are special only to realize that we are not and we might be just mediocre. We envy those who are able to do the things that we cannot do and we have in some manner bring them down to our level.

Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron deconstructs this by having everyone be the same especially the title character who was given the most binds in order to stop being so unique. I am not sure about everyone else but I am sometimes envious of those you can do things better than I could while I am mediocre. What you guys think of the Tall Poppy Syndrome and its effects?

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

I come from a culture in which tall poppy syndrome is the norm, so I can say that yes , I have experienced tall poppy syndrome.

I was always jealous of my best friends art skills when I was younger as well as her extensive knowledge of Tudor history (which fascinated her as much as it did me). I would often spend nights up just so I could draw something as good as she could, and was probably the most critical of her artwork. I also took up an interest in ancient Egypt, in which I could school her in.

I must say, my art skills have most certainly improved thanks to my TPS. And now I'm on the way to becoming an Egyptologist, as a year ago I had the epiphany that this was my passion and I wanted to pursue. So I say thanks TPS for shaping me into the person I am now.

A snarky, envious, Egyptologist :D.

I'm having to learn to pay the price

TPS is not about helping the weak become stronger, it's about making the strong weak to match. I am all for equality, but the Bed of Procrustes is not the answer to giftedness.

So-called "gifted" people frequently have deficiencies to match their abilities. A higher IQ is positively correlated with mental instability, for instance. "Savants" are at the edge of the bell curve in this respect, but I think that everyone who has a gift of some kind has problems in other areas. The human brain only has so much capacity, and excepting the brain-damaged, everyone makes more or less full use of it. So if you have a cognitive gift, that's not being better than everyone else, that's just specialization.

Tall Poppy Syndrome would have us all be as tone-deaf as the worst singer, as klutzy as the clumsiest ditz, and as socially inept as the most timid wallflower. That doesn't sit right by me. We should all embrace our respective gifts, and use them to benefit one another.

Smile for me!

Don't even get me started on TPS, I feel like you Yanks across the ocean are infinitely more cultured than some of the louts I see at the bars I get dragged to by my friends who are about on my level I guess, but there's this eerie lack of respect for reading/literature that I don't like about Australian culture, or lack thereof. We probably won't get a real Australian culture until we get ourselves a Republic, and that lazy arse Queen gives us a Bill Of Rights.

Especially with that Tony Abbott mongrel chomping at the bit to become our latest PM/international embarrassment.

Hell Hasn't Earned My Tears

The irony being that many Americans envy the rest of the 1st world.

You're all know for having better penal, education, and healthcare systems to start.

I laughed when you said we were cultured. We get people twerking for attention, names like La-A (The mom can't spell Ladasha) or even #. That is some culture. Not even bringing up our "reality" shows. This is a country where people think debate is strange and inaccessible to "normal" people and spelling is unhurd of.

Probably. :O

edited 3rd Sep '13 8:52:22 PM by Ringsea

The most edgy person on the Internet.

Ringsea; Really dude. I think that is a bit over generalized.

I can promise the US has the louts at the bar just as badly as the UK or Australia. Pretty much any bar anywhere will have louts of one variety or another.

edited 3rd Sep '13 8:54:24 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Or rather, every nation has its bogans.

I have not heard an American use the term "bogan" ever. I almost want to inquire where you picked it up :V.

I'm having to learn to pay the price

Well I think NGP overgeneralised, but in terms of literature Australia is pretty impoverished.

I also think we tend to like intellectuals from overseas, but see intellectuals who rise from our own ranks as pretentious wastes of space, which is a bit weird. TPS at its worst. Then again our current PM got in the first time seemingly with a lot of help from his nerd cred, so I think this is changing.

Don't worry, we copy those as fast as we can.

I think the US deserves credit for things like Silicon Valley and other brainpower initiatives that are pretty lacking in a lot of other developed countries. Tall poppies are encouraged to grow. Of course the US is the biggest developed country by population, so you have a lot of brainpower to put to use.

I held the kitchen knife my parents were making me stack in the dishwasher tonight aloft like a warrior's blade, quoting King Leonidas from 300, "No retreat, no surrender!" in an attempt to motivate my family to vote against Tony Abbott, but they just laughed at me, and said I came off like an extremist, "and nobody wants to know the extremist". They laughed at me, because I dared to care. Yet they say they do this to stop themselves from crying. Australians are so fucking defeatist, no wonder I have to borrow American mythologies from Hollywood to get the people going.

And the saddest thing is, my Mum was talking to my brother about how he should listen to The Magic Pudding audiobook he had from when he was a kid, because he's worried his imagination is starved. And here I am, channelling fucking King Leonidas, actually USING my imagination, and they laugh at me like I'm a loser. That's Australia, and that's TPS.

Hell Hasn't Earned My Tears

I'm well-traveled. Occupational necessity.

Nah, I've always wanted to visit Australia for a tick, but I used to hang out with some of the Aussie troops when I was in Afghan. I tried to go out of my way to hang out with the foreign troops if I liked how they acted.

On TPS: I experienced this a lot at the beginning of my career, and from time to time I still do. As an Airman I was smart, well spoken, and well educated. This got me into loads of trouble.

As a Staff Sergeant I am smart, well spoken, and well educated. This has made me rather successful.

Apparently some of the people around one or two stripes above me when I was an Airman either felt threatened by me, or felt that I was way too confident at the stage of my career was in. Something like "Oh no, you're supposed to be a nervous shaky robotic Airman who never thinks for himself! KNOW YOUR PLACE TOOL!" That same independent thinking has done a lot of good in the latter stages of my career, though some of those same NCO's don't like me even more now, because I'm less lazy than they are and it makes them look like a bag of ass.

edited 4th Sep '13 6:25:08 AM by Barkey

I am not really an intellectual (or at least I don consider myself to be one) but I do like read about books and some history. There are people who are better than me in that regard so I am not a tall poppy.

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

@Editerguy: thats how it is in america too. a lot of people respect intellectuals who they dont know personally. But they absolutely despise anyone who tries to rise up from the low end of the scale if they actually know them

I had to read up on what Tall Poppy Syndrome was and I see it most prevalent in discussions of unions, where people who earn less than unions believe that union workers should earn as little (or less) than them. I find that silly. They should be fighting to be earn more money regardless of what union jobs pay.

I've personally tried to operate in a manner of "I'd like to earn as much as that guy" or "be as skilled as that guy" instead of "I want that guy to suck as much as me" :P Not sure if it actually made any difference in my life but I think trying to improve your lot is a better way to think about things.

One problem I've seen a lot of people bitch about when it comes to unions is that there isn't as much emphasis to shine.

What you mentioned is definitely valid in a lot of cases, but on the flip side, I know guys who've been part of unions and worked hard while dudes who were practically impossible to fire were earning lots of money to just waste oxygen at work. Definitely an issue.

The Federal Government can often be similar that way, as federal jobs are very well protected.

Are there Unions that have a lot of members employed by the Federal Government?

Keep Rolling On

Not really, those tend not to mix.

There are overall associations from certain professions that lapse into federal jobs though. Federal cops don't have any department specific unions, but congress does often listen to the input of the Fraternal Order of Police. It's how HR 218 was amended to include Do D personnel.

That's strange, I would have guessed that knowing someone personally would make one more tolerant of how they came into their status, whereas with some stranger the attitude could be like "Well how do I know what makes you qualified?".

It's a "how dare you be better than me!" type thing.

Not Three Laws compliant.

This.

Its essentially what is also known as the Crab Bucket Phenomenon.

If everyone worked together, they might be able to get someone out of the bucket. Instead, all the other crabs intentionally pull down the ones trying to get out, dooming everyone.

less flowery, people have an odd tendency to view someone trying to rise in social rank above them as someone to be attacked for daring to think theyre better than you.

And people you don't know get a pass because it's difficult to make that kind of connection with someone you don't know.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help that there is that feelings of envy and resentment that lingers when you discover that no, there is someone who is better than you at this task.

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

Yup, either you're envious of the best, or you are the best and therefore Surrounded by Idiots.

At a Leadership seminar, the presenter defined the human ideal of greatness as "Like me, except X", where X is something that people admire.

However, it's a delicate balance. The more alien and unknowable the person is to others, the less they're seen as a leader and more like an "Other". And the more "like me" the person is, the less people accept their leadership, because they see absolutely no reason they should listen to that person over themselves.

@ Barkey

If government jobs are anything like in Canada, it completely depends on the department. On average though, Canadian government workers do around 15-20 hours overtime per week. Most are unionised but not all (many crown corporations have no unions but they pay fairly well because they're professional jobs like accountants and such).

I'd say that corporations and government are one and the same in terms of efficiency and work ethic. People say that corporations fire quite heavily but the ones that do, perform very poorly and collapse anyway. Interestingly, it's really bad to aggressive get rid of bad apples unless you're very very accurate because even a low bad-fire rate completely tanks morale.