The Pursuit Of Intelligence

Intelligence is a gift, a privilege. Many teenagers feel like they are not blessed with this remarkable trait and even fewer live to see it fulfilled to its true potential.

This essay will focus on the application of intelligence or knowledge, rather than merely studying and memorising. I see too many schoolboys who spend their life reading and studying, failing to see that real genius is only earned by using the knowledge you possess in a unique and inventive way. Acclaimed genius’s such as Einstein, Mozart and Shakespeare did not waste their intelligence, preferring to spend hours dedicated to perfecting their craft and experimenting with their available resources. They practically invented their own ‘knowledge’, and should be an inspiration to anybody hoping to make it intellectually.

There is a well-known phrase which states:

It is not who you are underneath, but what you do, that defines you.

In the context of fulfilling the capabilities of intelligence, this quote is correct. In its most simple form, I believe intelligence can be fulfilled by doing exactly what I am doing at this very moment, writing about the things that inspire you into deep thought. Mental thoughts are the healthiest hobby that a person can practise. Plato once believed that thoughts or non-material abstracts (ideas) are the most definite, complete and incredible entity in our universe, and this simple belief formed the basis to his ‘Theory of Forms’. After careful consideration, I am inclined to agree.

Famous scientists such as Einstein and Newton were both well educated in their respective academic disciplines, understanding as well as recognising the facts that form the basis of their subjects. This understanding, as well as perseverance and motivation, led them to take these ideas to the next level, for the benefit of mankind. Without their dedication and thoughts, our world would most likely be significantly less developed than it is today.

Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets have captured the inspiration of millions of people around the globe. If he had not had the motivation to sit down and write all of his 38 plays, the world of literature would be infinitely times worse off.
We can now pose the following question: How many geniuses have passed through their life without realising that with dedication, they could help to benefit the human race? My answer is; everybody that has ever lived or breathed.

This seems contradictory to my earlier comment that states that intelligence is a gift. Both statements still stand, and complement each other perfectly. Intelligence is the gift given to you by yourself, your soul or conscience. It is the ability to look past the petty issues that plague our existence and lifestyles in today’s society, and the ability to want to know more. Intelligence stems directly from a desire to know everything, or as much as possibly feasible. This trait is present in every human brain, yet is hardly ever recognised or fully understood. It is always existent, and never disappears, silently begging its owner to allow it to fly freely. Literally speaking, this gift cannot be referred to as an emotion, or a physical property. It is merely a form of passion or a trait, that helps keep the human brain at just that, human.

Too many people say that intelligence is naturally occurring, me personally still being a teenager respectfully disagree. There are different forms of intellect, and the underlying common factor is desire. A desire to know has been evident in humans since the dawn of civilisation. Why else would we be so focused on answering science’s fundamental questions of the universe? Answering questions such as ‘Why can we think?’ and ‘When did the Universe begin?’ would most likely not benefit our lifestyles directly, but simply add another part of the puzzle to our brains.

If everybody opened their minds, our race would be answering the questions to these fundamental questions quickly, and with conclusive evidence. While our minds and their capabilities are technically limited, the passion in our soul is not. It is my belief that everybody has the capability to benefit mankind in an intellectual and creative way, but among other factors, our school systems continue to take the wonder out of learning and turn it into a chore. Teens no longer want to continue studying as adults, for the added burden of paying bills and working in dead-end jobs has contributed to removing the motivation required. My personal concerns about the mistakes of mankind, especially in the area of politics, will be covered in depth in another essay. But I can safely say that it is our own actions that are limiting this desire for intelligence, and the creative freedom that it brings.

Most people in school after witnessing an apparently very bright pupil would probably just account the pupils brightness to him being ‘smart’, but the thing about being smart in school is that it’s not just an attribute you simply have due to your acquired personality or attributes but it is actually something in which you must work towards, They don’t seem to realise that you actually get smart by working hard and studying intensively, very rarely its due to natural occurring common sense.

Intelligence is not just a sought after trait, but a fragment of the soul, the underlying desire for knowledge and understanding, which is present in us all. With a little motivation, perseverance and dedication, we can all help to achieve knowledge in areas currently unknown to our race. The future of our planet and species is not in our own hands, but our minds.

Ola

Education and its diminishing standard in youth culture

The value and status of education as recently plummeted to a ridiculous all time low in the past current years, a larger group of people now just don’t seem to care about their education and are blissfully unaware of the privilege they have been entitled to by the developed nations in granting them the potential to have a decent education free of all costs.

People’s perspectives of the value of education has rapidly declined, and the group of people who lead this sheer ignorance and unappreciation of education are sadly also the people who it matters to most, the youth.

The youth’s mentality on the importance of education has declined due to a variety of different environmental and social circumstances. The most important being class and race. Children who are born of working class families tend to severely undervalue education as they often are inclined to go to a school with like minded and similar classed peers who draw their disinclination and lack of interest towards education from the jobs and roles that their parents play in society.

The parents of white working class pupils generally tend to not fuss as much or try to motivate their children to break out of the cycle off social inadequacy and uneducatedness and are normally just concerned about their child’s immediate ‘happiness’ instead of their long term success.

Youth nowadays are more interested in earning money than in studying and some usually resort to being illegal school vendors and often sell sweets and fizzy canned drinks to make extra money during class time instead of paying attention to the lecture they are being provided. Some kids are even allured to the prospects of immediate and fast money to the extent that they would often take jobs working at the local market on school days in order to make extra money; the sad thing is that this kids although they are from a working class background they are not subject to poverty so there’s no actual need for them to waste their school days in which they could be doing relevant things that supports their education such as homework or revision.

School children also play cruel games on each other in which they alienate and deter smart pupils by name calling and treating them as social outcasts, this process of psychological and physical bullying can easily deter even the most potentially smart pupil to turn bad and disregard their education in order to plainly fit in with their peers.

This process of peer pressure I believe is residue to the child’s traditional mind frame of hating and being absolutely terrified of school and education, this is shown expressively on every child’s first day of school where they often plead with their parents to not send them to school and they try every trick in the book to avoid school. Some parents foolishly fall for this trick and ‘lovingly’ allow their kids to stay at home instead, this is often very damaging and often potentially gives the child the opinion of their parents weakness and stabilises the foundation of their truantism culture in which some days they might choose not to go to school simply because ‘they don’t feel like it’ and which of course ultimately deters their attitude towards learning.

Statistically it has been proving that the state mixed sex comprehensive school method of secondary education is the least effective one and provides the smallest percentage of A-C grades than all other types. The single sexed grammar school method is clearly one of the best methods of providing a good and undistracting education to children, statistically they are proven to get at least 30% higher grades than the state schools. This is because of the absence of the simple physiological desire to want to attract the opposite sex and sadly the opposite are being attracted by the thuggish and ‘bad’ boys or the slutty and ‘dirty’ girls. This desire to be wanted and attractive to the opposite sex has resulted in teenagers lacking concentration on their education and focusing their wit on the other sex, the government could potentially reimburse the process of sexually segregated schools in the hope that it would improve children’s grades but this might be deemed as  devolutionary and against political correctioness by some critics; so the government wanting to stay out of the negative limelight would hardly consider doing this.

Most teenagers after finishing secondary school and/or college would often not go to university as they feel like higher education is not required as they could be making ‘good money’ by just going straight to work; although this ‘good money’ is often highly below the national average wage and they could potentially be making more money by going to and graduating from university. Naively because of the current fall in available jobs for newly qualified graduates, non university graduates are using this as an excuse for not going to university as they see it as a waste of time and money. This is frankly not true as although not all graduates get a job immediately, a large percentage of them get jobs in the course of three years and do often earn significantly higher salaries than non-graduates.

Education is by far the most important and nurturing thing the government could have provided us with but sadly it’s taken for granted by the few who can’t see the long term value behind it. The reward of a good education will still always be one of the most rewarding and valuable thing a person might have and those who slacked and didn’t concentrate on their education often live with regret of the missed opportunity in which they have let pass them by; People need to open their eyes and see the amazing prospective an education could provide them without judging it as this tedious and long process of merit attainment but as the once in a life time ticket to prosperity and ultimately a better life.

Ola

What Is the Purpose of the law?

The subject of law is a very interesting and complicated one and many questions have arised regarding it; The most common being what exactly the purpose is; What is the law there to do?

A lot of people have different opinions and views regarding the purpose of law, its philosophy and its relevancy. In order to better answer the topic question I must go back to the original history of law and how it first started and then I will be better able to answer it.

The formal system of law originated over 800yrs ago as a way to settle disputes over feuding citizens and lords in addition to formally and bureaucratically trialling accused felons of their crimes and punish them effectively.

This ancient courts included the modern day equivalent of judges called ‘wandering justices’, the wandering justices in order to fulfil their physical and bureaucratic duties go to various places of dispute; resolve the dispute then they make a record of the cases and the decisions that arise from it on paper, this was the first method of case law and was by far the most common way of jurisprudence hence the title ‘common law’.

This is the first instance of law although there have been a similar system of punishment around different ancient cultures and religions, most notoriously being the ancient roman custom of stoning and crucifixion. This system of punishment was unfair, unjust and did not provide the defendants the opportunity to prove their case fairly and without pre-bias and prejudice.

Although the law has constantly changed and evolved in definition and principle over the ages from the ancient Romans to the modern day British jurisprudence system; the purpose of it has hardly changed; it is required to provide order and prevent a system of anarchy and lawlessness which we are aware could potentially cause the fall and declination of civilization.

The law as often been described people as ‘a system of justice that prosecutes and defend parties’, although this has some truth in it; It doesn’t necessarily represent the system of law as a whole. The law is not just about prosecuting and defending it also covers a wide range of our life, from forming contracts to the validity and requirements of setting up a marriage. The law goes hand to hand with the government in setting out the rules we are meant to follow or otherwise we face prosecution from the state (criminal law) or from our peers (civil law).

The law also to most critics has nothing to do with justice and is simply a bureaucratic method of punishment and detainment. We have seen a lot of stories in the news of families of murdered or severely brutalised people being irritated at the law for not delivering a harsh enough punishment to the perpetrators of the heinous crimes and stating ‘It’s simply not fair!’. Their minds are clouded with hate and grief, that they feel like the law is not doing enough for them; the families of the victims. What they don’t understand is that the system of law is now becoming more and more utilitarian in sentencing, so the sentences are not just there simply for the typical ‘an eye for an eye’ retributional causes; The sentence is also for the development of the perpetrator and the government are trying to rehabilate them and prepare them for re-entrance to society, this is a humane and cost effective way to deal with criminals, instead of the traditional draconian methods of execution or imprisonment until death.

  To the dismay of the victims’ family the law has evolved from its traditional harshness, to fairness for both the society and the perpetrator. So in the opinion of the victims family ‘Justice has not been served’, therefore finalising my claim of the law not having a lot to do with ‘justice’.

The law is there to maintain and implement order in society; To preserve people’s rights and enforce them acting upon their responsibilities and social duties of care, To punish felons and compensate individuals who have had their duty of care and human rights breached; To support the bureaucratic process of our daily lives which includes marriage and inheritance for the average individual to mergers and acquisition for corporate entities.

  Sadly for all the things that the law is there to do; there is one vital thing that it forgets to do and that is to provide justice for the perished and the grieving, this inconsolable flaw of failing to provide the one thing of importance and relevance  have made critics right in the assumption that the law is far too bureaucratic and lenient to be truly effective and suitable for its purpose; I agree with this and personally feel that the abolishment of capital punishment as been the greatest legal mistake of the 20^th century and its consequence has seen the fall of true justice and the rise of youth crime culture.

Indeed after all the negative things said about the law, we all still require the law greatly and are in need of its protection and the deterrence it provides for the potential  criminals and the incentive it provides for the noble citizens to be even more righteous in their acts. It defends peoples rights and obliges their responsibilities and the dignifying thing about law is that just as Atticus Finch said in the Harper Lee classic ‘To kill a mockingbird’, “there is only one human institution where all men are truly equal, and that is in the court of law”, sadly this fact of law applies to criminals and felons but thankfully it also applies to thousands of people who could have been potentially falsely imprisoned due to the immediate assumption that they were guilty or for the frank severity of their crimes. This bilateral fairness which allows both party to state  their case without prejudice and for all accused people to be considered innocent until proving guilty beyond reasonable doubt is true testimony to the evolution and growth of our system of law and makes us the envy of less human rights cautious countries and makes Britain the nation it is today.