Bill Gates gave a speech at a high school recently in which he talked about how feel-good politically correct teachings had created a generation of kids with no concept of reality which sets them up for failure in the real world. He outlined eleven rules students would not learn in school but should.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

My first instinct was to file this under The Emperor. Because he is all about de rules. But after thinking it over I decided to file it under The Hierophant instead. Bill Gates can’t make the kids do anything. It’s more that he uses the idea of rules to shake the kids up. To teach them to change their attitudes. And I think that goes to the core of the difference between the two cards. The Emperor is about rules, the Hierophant is about attitudes.

Do you think Bill Gates is being too hard? Or are parents and teachers today too soft?