The gifted and the future of society

The future of a community and a society may be measured easily: simply ask how do they treat their most gifted?

It is an undeniable fact that almost all human advance depends on a few creative individuals. Without the input of these individuals, little new would actually occur. One need only look at the productivity of the most creative compared to those who are bright but less outstanding...the total productivity difference can be orders of magnitude. Think of Leonardo da Vinci - his productivity was equivalent to that of many creative people, the output of dozens of lifetimes.

Thus, how a society nurtures such people really has an impact on the future health, prosperity and soundness of that society. If the gifted are nurtured and nourished, encouraged and supported, then that society will flourish. However, if the gifted are opposed, discouraged, vilified and left unsupported, it is almost certain that that society will fail, in the long-term - it will slowly dwindle away due to lack of innovation; lack of creativity, lack of leadership.

I write this because of attitudes I have picked up around the world.

In America, if the gifted boards are anything to go by, support for the gifted is not what it should be: there is a lot of envy and intolerance of anyone more gifted than themselves (from "gifted" people themselves). I don't think this bodes well for the future of the USA. In the city-state of Singapore, however, we have so far, been greeted very well...it is uncanny really. For Singapore has a reputation for oppressiveness - on which I cannot comment - and America has a reputation for freedom. Yet, the country that is free has citizens that have attacked us, verbally - and the country that is reputedly not free has citizens who have been kind to us. It really is telling.

So which country has a future? The country that is "free" - but giftist...or the country that is not free - but is meritocratic?

It will be interesting to find out.