Sydney Spies and the Curse of Beauty.

Sydney Spies is, in most eyes, a beautiful girl. She is also, alas, seemingly quite unpopular at her High School. The reason? She wants to be seen in a certain way – and the authorities, and it seems, her fellow students, don’t want her to be seen in that way.

Sydney Spies is suffering from what I call the Curse of Beauty. This is the counterpart to the hostility that very intelligent people often receive from their more ordinary fellows. Truly beautiful people are rather loathed by their same sex colleagues (except the gay ones I expect). An instinctive enmity exists between people of ordinary looks, and people of exceptional looks, of the same sex. This is, in my view, what Sydney Spies is experiencing. Basically, the ugly people around her, can’t stand her. (Let’s be blunt.)

Sydney Spies attempted to have a picture of her in a yellow skirt and black off the shoulder top placed in the Durango High School yearbook as her Senior Year photo. This was refused by Durango High School, whose authorities were of the opinion, in the words of Brian Jaramillo, that it would be unprofessional. He said: “We are an award winning yearbook. We don’t want to diminish the quality with something that can be seen as unprofessional.”

My reaction to this is quite simple: the Durango High School is run by conformist, narrow-minded morons. The rejected photo is not too strong for inclusion, in my view. It just shows something that is not allowed in Durango High School: a personality. Sydney Spies is showing her innate personality in the construction and composition of the photograph. She is showing herself as she would like to be seen. However, at Durango High School, it seems that everyone must conform to an ideal of what is “professional” - that is strait-jacketed within a narrow set of rather dull rules and limitations about what is an acceptable photograph.

A school yearbook should show the people of the school as they really are. It should show them in all their diverse character. It should not be a robotic showpiece in which everyone is presented in the same set of limited ways to create an overall “look” that is deemed “award-winning”. It should be true to the personalities in the school. Quite clearly, the Durango High School yearbook is not true to the personalities of the students. It is actually a constructed lie, that seeks to present the Durango High School students in a certain way that is deemed “acceptable”. It is a photographic fraud, thereby. I would suggest that the only truthful photograph in the Durango High School yearbook may be the very ones they rejected of Sydney Spies. In fact, they rejected three of her submitted photographs – all for pretty much the same reason one intuits – she is just too attractive. (Though they said the last one missed their deadline). Instead, they used her school ID photograph!

There is one positive side to this controversy, from Sydney Spies’ point of view. She wished to be seen in a certain way. She wished to present her personality through a particular kind of image. Well, now she has, to the whole world – for one of those rejected yearbook photos has been run by news agencies around the world. So, the wish for Durango High School to censor their student, Sydney Spies, has had the unintended effect of making her much more famous than a yearbook would have done. That strikes me as suitably funny.

There is a not so funny side to this though. Sydney spies has experienced considerable bullying from her fellow students at Durango High School since all this fuss began. This is characteristic of the Curse of Beauty, as I describe it. I am certain...100% certain that ALL the bullies are ugly in comparison to her. This controversy around her yearbook photograph is just giving an excuse to the ugly ones to take out their resentment for her beauty, on her. A beautiful person would understand her position and viewpoint and would, in my view, be very unlikely to bully her. I am sure that the resentment she has experienced at Durango High School has come from those who are challenged in the looks department. This is parallel to the kind of resentment gifted kids often receive, from their less intelligent colleagues. It is always the dumb ones who hate the smart. Just so, it is always the plain, or even ugly ones, who hate the beautiful.

I wish Sydney Spies well and hope that she becomes the successful model she aspires to be. No-one should ever be in the position of being bullied because of their innate gifts as Sydney Spies is being – not if that gift is beauty, intelligence or any other gift. All who are gifted, in whatever way, should be welcomed for their gifts – for those gifts make the world a better place. Durango High School has forgotten that. It has proven itself, in this “scandal”, to be an ugly place – ugly at heart and, no doubt, ugly by sight, too.

Best of luck Sydney Spies. I hope you get to be seen as you wish to be.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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On the ordinary and the extraodinary.

He Pingping, the shortest man in the world (at 75.6 cm) has died. He was just 21. Now, he is the second person to die, within a year of shooting a series in which Ainan also appears. The other was Kim Peek. That is pretty uncanny in its own way. Yet, that is not what moves me to write, today. What does is more chilling, than uncanny.

I came across a site, today, reporting on the death of He Pingping. One comment leapt out at me. It went a bit like this: "It's awful that these "different and unusual" people get to be rich and famous, when us "normal" hardworking people find it almost impossible to become rich and famous". I could barely believe my eyes. The young man had just died, but some commenter was expressing jealousy at his fame and how it was acquired. What a callous world we now live in. Let us, however, look beyond the callousness, to the core of what the commenter is saying. He is saying that "different and unusual" people should not be famous, but that "normal" hardworking people should be. He is actually begrudging the fame that attends difference. That he does so, shows that he fails to understand what fame, traditionally, was a sign of. To be famous, was to be special, in the sense that one is famous because one is special, and not special because one is famous. There is a key distinction there that is usually overlooked in the modern world. It used to be that ONLY special people became famous - that is why they became noted, talked about, written of and ultimately famous. Now, however, there has been a subversion of that. The ordinary, undistinguished, uninteresting, even BORING person, can become famous through reality shows, and the like. Fame has lost its connection with distinction. Yet, the commenter goes beyond the modern fetish for the ordinary and the dull - he is saying that it is the ORDINARY person who should be famous and NOT the special person. This goes one step beyond the present state of affairs in which not only can the special person become famous, but the ordinary person, too. He would have it that only the "normal" person should be famed and that the "different" or "unusual" would not be given any regard at all. This, I think, is a kind of madness. It is the ultimate end of dumbing down the world in which standards become ever lower. His standard would not allow the special any regard, at all - and only those UNWORTHY of regard, would be regarded. It is, if you like, the ultimate revenge of the proletariat over the natural aristocrats. It is the elevation of the idiot, to the highest status in society: that the utterly ordinary should be held in the highest regard and the extraordinary ignored. It is, of course, bonkers - but it is the logical end of those who think jealous thoughts that would tear down anyone or anything greater than themselves.

Yet, I am led to a darker understanding. The world we now live in is not so far from the world which this envious commenter would wish upon us. Now, people of great quality do not necessarily receive the recognition that would once have been theirs. The heroes of our time are not geniuses, but footballers, pop stars and "glamour" models. Already the elevation of the ordinary has proceeded to overwhelm our society. If present trends continue, it may not be long, indeed, before we become a world incapable of appreciating the best among us and only able to praise the lowest common denominator, the basest among us all.

Were fame apportioned with justice, many of the "names" today, would not be known and many people of which we have never heard, would be household names. The scales have become inverted such that those of least merit, often gain most attention, perhaps because the masses are comforted by their closeness to themselves in talent and natural gifts - that is little or none. Yet, for some, at least, even this situation has not gone far enough. One man today, begrudged the fame of a man who had just died, because his fame had come from his difference. Think about that, for a moment. What a life He Pingping must have lived, in which he was set apart from all, because of his size, yet he may have encountered people who resented the little compensatory fame, it won him.
Given this, one cannot help but feel that not only is the culture of the world in decline (for making famous the worthless, and making unknown the worthy), but that the people themselves are in decline.

Jealousy at NUS High School

As you may know, Ainan attended NUS High School for a time. As you probably won't know, we took him out after three weeks because it was clear that he wasn't going to be learning much there. The class offered was not of a level to teach him anything new. They also weren't willing to give him practical chemistry classes, they said: "All our classes are full: we have twenty-five students a class and can't take one more." That is what the Vice-Principal Suresh said to us. So, we didn't send him again.

Anyway, today someone from NUS High School, of about eighteen, wrote a very jealous blog about Ainan and my children. He attacked Ainan, 7, Fintan, 4, and Tiarnan, 1. He said we weren't "decent people". Is this a racist attack, I wonder, given that my children are half-Malay? (The boy in question is Chinese and so this is a potential factor, since "racial harmony" isn't perfect here. His comments were also rather strong.)

I am not going to refer you to the blog. If you have come from it, you should know which I mean. It is clear that he has no idea what a prodigious child is - or how it is defined. A prodigy is a child of adult capability, in an adult area, by the age of 11. By that criteria, Ainan, 7, should be considered a prodigy - for his studies are equivalent to an American Bachelor's degree (A level equivalent - for that is the academic standard of an American Bachelor's degree).

The funny thing is, Ainan is doing a subject at a level of someone the boy's age - yet he argues that Ainan is not "prodigious" for doing so. Ainan is ELEVEN years younger than this boy appears to be. I have not yet read a more jealous piece of writing on the internet.

I am glad, given this boy's attitude, that we took Ainan out of NUS High School: for one boy like that one, is one too many, in a whole nation.

He argues that education is not about allowing children to reach their peak capabilities. He says it is about teaching them to be "decent people" - so stating that my son, and all of us, are not. That is a libel, in itself, and no doubt actionable.

Ask yourself, is this boy an example of a decent person, when he attacks 7, 4 and 1 year olds - and their parents - on the internet? If that is what a decent person is considered to be, what an horrendous society he must come from.

(Note inserted: January 2008. I felt this post was necessary because I had been receiving a lot of traffic redirected from his libellous and offensive post. A defense of the situation was therefore necessary.)

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Are gifted children offensive?

"Are gifted children too offensive?" These were the search words of a net searcher from Australia, a few days ago. In itself, it was one of the most offensive searches I have seen in a long time.

Australia is a country that has coined a phrase called the "tall poppies syndrome". This expresses the observation that, in certain quarters of the country, it has been traditional to cut down the "tall poppies". That means to attack the gifted among them. I understand that this is not the universal treatment of the gifted in Australia - for there are some programmes that address their needs - but the very fact that a culture actually has a phrase for this phenomenon is not actually a good sign - except of one thing, of course: that the society is open enough about its own nature to actually have labelled the situation. That, at least, is a step forward. In some societies, there is no name for it - but they do it anyway.

Clearly, though, this tendency still exists in Australia - otherwise the searcher above would never have searched as they have.

Let us look at what the searcher is actually saying. They are saying that gifted people offend them. How could this be? How can the possession of merit be, in any way, offensive? Only dark emotions could lead someone to be offended by giftedness. Jealousy, envy, spite and rage - these emotions are the ones that lead someone to be offended by the gifted. The question is which is more beneficial for society: giftedness - or jealousy, envy, spite and rage? Which do we want to encourage? Do we want to encourage the gifted in our society - or do we want to encourage those filled with dark emotions? Only one choice leads to a better world.

We all need to understand what is happening with regards to the gifted - how they are welcomed and how they are not. It is an issue for us all - because a society that enables its most gifted to flourish is a society that will flourish as a whole. Anyone who fails to see that, is unable to see the big picture. It should matter to all of us, if the gifted are not nurtured - for in failing to do so, the society as a whole is being undermined. Societies that do not nurture their gifted will inevitably fail to thrive. That is obvious.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, or Tiarnan seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults, in general. Thanks.)