Character Analysis: Blue Collar Brilliance
Lisa Nguyen
Professor Homer Simms
English 101:1008
19 September 2014
Society Misguiding People’s Perspective on the Measure of Intelligence Guy de Maupassant once said, “It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.” Deciding on which person to associate with can be based on many different reasons. Some people desire a comedic quality within their friends while others seek intelligence. However, how does one person determine another person’s intelligence? By what measure can one person judge another person and his or her capabilities? Mike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” does an excellent job of raising the point that society unfairly judges people and their intelligence by a selective lens; in this case, the years of education …show more content…
Society fails to include the extremities of life and its circumstances when considering a person’s value. Not having the opportunity to continue school is very common. One example is Rose’s mother who had to “quit school in the seventh grade to help raise her brothers and sisters” (98). Another example is of my parents who were born in another country and who did not have the level of formal education past high school. This made it very challenging for my parents to go to school because they had many varied responsibilities, including going to work to the family. Another example is my friend Catherine who gave birth to her first newborn, who also watched her father pass away two months before her son’s birthdate. These life-changing events influenced her inability to afford time and money for college. All these people are deemed less intelligent because they do not fit the given model for society to judge them …show more content…
Society has always valued experience equally, if not more, than a degree. Joe from Rose’s essay is an example as “he lacked formal knowledge of how the machines under his supervision worked, but had direct experience with them, hands-on knowledge, and was savvy about their quirks and operational capabilities” (99). Society must be open minded to all jobs and their demands because it is extremely unjustified to “rightly acknowledge and amply compensate the play of mind in white-collar and professional work we diminish or erase it in considerations about other endeavors-physical and service work particularly” (100). Society often appreciates doctors and tools that they use to save lives, but never stop to think of people who produced those tools in the first
Professor Homer Simms
English 101:1008
19 September 2014
Society Misguiding People’s Perspective on the Measure of Intelligence Guy de Maupassant once said, “It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.” Deciding on which person to associate with can be based on many different reasons. Some people desire a comedic quality within their friends while others seek intelligence. However, how does one person determine another person’s intelligence? By what measure can one person judge another person and his or her capabilities? Mike Rose’s “Blue-Collar Brilliance” does an excellent job of raising the point that society unfairly judges people and their intelligence by a selective lens; in this case, the years of education …show more content…
Society fails to include the extremities of life and its circumstances when considering a person’s value. Not having the opportunity to continue school is very common. One example is Rose’s mother who had to “quit school in the seventh grade to help raise her brothers and sisters” (98). Another example is of my parents who were born in another country and who did not have the level of formal education past high school. This made it very challenging for my parents to go to school because they had many varied responsibilities, including going to work to the family. Another example is my friend Catherine who gave birth to her first newborn, who also watched her father pass away two months before her son’s birthdate. These life-changing events influenced her inability to afford time and money for college. All these people are deemed less intelligent because they do not fit the given model for society to judge them …show more content…
Society has always valued experience equally, if not more, than a degree. Joe from Rose’s essay is an example as “he lacked formal knowledge of how the machines under his supervision worked, but had direct experience with them, hands-on knowledge, and was savvy about their quirks and operational capabilities” (99). Society must be open minded to all jobs and their demands because it is extremely unjustified to “rightly acknowledge and amply compensate the play of mind in white-collar and professional work we diminish or erase it in considerations about other endeavors-physical and service work particularly” (100). Society often appreciates doctors and tools that they use to save lives, but never stop to think of people who produced those tools in the first