Every Child Is Special - George Carlin

The self-esteem movement revolved around a single notion, the idea, the single idea, that every child is special.

Boy, they said it over and over and over, as if to convince themselves.

Every child is special.

And I kept saying fuck you.

Every child is clearly not special.

Did you ever look at one of them?

Did you ever take a good close look at one of these fucking kids?

They’re goofy.

They’re fucking goofy looking.

They’re too small, they’re way too fucking small.

They’re malproportioned.

Their heads don’t fit their bodies;

their arms are too weird and everything.

They can’t walk across the room in a straight line.

And when they talk, they talk like they got a mouthful of shit.

They’re incomplete, incomplete, unfinished work.

I never give credit for incomplete work.

Now, PT Barnum might think they’re special, but not me, I have standards.

But let’s say it’s true.

Let’s grant this.

I’m in a generous mood.

Let’s grant this proposition.

Let’s say it’s true as somehow all…every child is special.

What about every adult?

Isn’t every adult special, too?

And if not, if not then at what age do you go from being special to being not-so-special?

And if every adult is special then that means we’re all special, and the whole idea loses all its fucking meaning.