This is about an interesting but generally unexplored aspect of concultures: what (type of person, actitivy) pairs allow you to say that "My favourite (type of person or people) can/has done (activity) to an objectively greater degree than your (type of person or people) so clearly I am a superior person than/have larger gonads than/deserve more respect than/and so on you"?
Here are some examples from contemporary and recent popular culture:
- Sporting team: has won (trophy) more times
- Guitarist: can play faster
- Actor/actress/film: has been nomimated for more awards
- Baseball player: has scored more home runs
- Phoneme: is stable in more enviroments
- Programming language: allows me to write faster, cleaner, and more obviously intelligible code
- Guru: can meditate longer without needing to eat, drink, or sleep
No doubt you can think of many more. But the point here is: what about other cultures? From Roman times there are plausibly:
- Charioteer: has won more races
- Gladiator: "interfecit" more opponents
and in a particular type of religious context:
- Prosleytiser: has converted more unbelievers
What other non-Western examples can you think of? How about your own concultures? To start with:
- Legendary figure: has performed more impossible acts
Self-referential signatures are for people too boring to come up with more interesting alternatives.
