Social media is funny, especially when older people get on it. I’m not much of a Facebooker but I do use LinkedIn occasionally. recently I saw this quote being shared aggressively.
Most people would think, “well no sh*t.” The idea here isn’t that unique at all. Why would that get millions of likes?
These viral virtue-signaling posts actually have nothing to do with their point taken face value. What we have here is an extremely simple thought but it’s getting an insane amount of praise. Are these words really that unique? No.
The reason? The meaning behind this an attempt to take quantitative analysis of an individual and turn it into qualitative… and guess who does the qualitative judging, the other person.
Quantitative (fact)
- I’m the mayor of Detroit
- I’m married and have 2 kids
- I weight 185 pounds
Qualitative (opinion)
- I’m a nice guy
- I’m an attractive person
- My hair doesn’t look funny
So shifting one’s worth from quantitative to qualitative really means, “you don’t determine your worth, I do.”
“Take away the indisputable facts and let me judge you how I want.” Cruel, huh?