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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4656108" data-attributes="member: 54707">The modern, developed world is obsessed with the idea that one of the chief aims of human society is equality, and the corollary of that proposition is that the liberty of the individual is paramount in importance. For much of human history over the breadth of most of the world equality was never an aim of life.Instead if one was to have equality and respect then it had to be earned, even among the nobility, and if one was to live in liberty (if there was such a thing as we moderns conceive of it) then that too had to be achieved through much effort.Obstacles in life, whereas often unfair, are the best tests of character, and the overcoming of unfair or unjust obstacles is often the best measure of maturity and so provides the basis for the most joyous personal victories imaginable.I can see how it would be both grueling and exciting to work towards a personal goal, against many unfair or difficult obstacles, and to achieve a triumph in the end when no triumph seems possible at the beginning. Mainly because I have seen it happen, though I've never seen it happen perfectly. Still it is better to be in the fight, for that is ultimately heroic, than relieved of the fight, for that is ultimately vapid and even unendurably boring. There is much to be said for triumph through hardship and far less to be said for a world free of challenge.Or, that's just another way of saying that most people enjoy not just the fruits of their labor, but the labor itself. If, that is, they are laboring towards something they think noble, noteworthy, and important.</blockquote>

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