they will tell you you are exceptional and give you money and connections and power and then you will say thank you for the opportunities i really appreciate it.
it will feel magical and it will feel good, but being exceptional requires an outgroup from whom you are excepted.
some people call them "normies," others politely say "average people." the names differ but what remains the same is that they are young people seen as less smart, less accomplished and less interesting, and that we are terrified of being grouped with them.
this exceptional label makes us perform smartness to prove ourselves as worthy. if everyone else is intelligent and special in this intelligent and special community, we must maintain our image of being intelligent and special. because what happens when we admit to mediocrity? we become one of the "normies" that the community tries so hard to insulate from.
i suspect this elitism originates from a deep, malignant form of self hatred. this seems unintuitive- after all, tks/hypsm/atlas/sparc/espr goers are meant to be the most self-confident, self-improvement focused and ambitous young people around.
to quote rayne fisher quann's excellent essay no good alone, "aspiring to construct a perfect self [implies] a desire to destroy the current one."
i want anyone that reads this to take a deep look at themselves and question why they love being part of exclusive groups so much. then i want us to try and imagine what being in the outgroup feels like.
we must overcome this utter incapability to understand failure. i dont mean the cheap, humble-bragging "failure" of failing to medal at the imo or-- to get a little self-critical-- failing to make debate team canada, for being in those failure situations requires a level of personal privilege and success unimaginable to the vast majority of the world.
i mean failure in the real sense of the word. in the intractable, permanent failure of poverty or disability or racialization, the failure of being in an outgroup.
look. i understand that people can be stupid sometimes. i know that people can be lowbrow, annoying, that i love conversations that can only be had with others of similar educational backgrounds.
i also know that i love my "normie" friends and that i hate the way talking to certain people in EA/rat adjacent communities makes me want to debase them.
we should strive to hold ourselves with grace. we should give others dignity regardless of their “expected value” contributions. we should destablize the discrete boundaries of in/outgroupness until being in or out is no longer something that suggests a power difference but simply a difference.
the world is not a magical, frictionless world of asymptotic technological progress and group homes of highly independent stanford dropouts. the world is complex, full of diverse environments outside the glass ceiling and ivory tower with personalities and thought-patterns that do not map rationally.
we must learn to live in this world and we must be kind in this world.
the good life involves a world of difficult patience. and i believe the good life is a world where we are intentionally empathetic and learn to be people in relation to other people. and perhaps most optimistically, i believe the remarkable, exceptional people in these exclusive groups can live the good life.
thank you janet guo for your contributions on grace <3
ur normie friends love u too
incredible writing as usual from crystal