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Aug 16 2010

August ‘10 Socrates Café

Posted by: Todd Marrone in Socrates Café

This month’s Socrates Café question:

“Has mediocrity become the norm in the U.S.?”

Throw your best bell curveball.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Socrates Café. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “August ‘10 Socrates Café”
  1. brad rothman says:
    August 16th, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    mediocrity has not become the norm: but the accepted norm. there is a difference.

  2. Randy says:
    August 16th, 2010 at 10:34 pm

    Here is a link to American exceptionalism.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Exceptionalism

  3. Bruce says:
    August 17th, 2010 at 1:43 am

    Brad,
    What is the difference between “the norm” and the “accepted norm.” And how long is there a difference?
    It seems to me, if there is a difference, one is the herald of the other.

    A shout out to one of our missing ‘regulars,’ Candice, you were missed.
    Hello to Lara and Sebastian — hope you join in again.

    I wonder if mediocrity has ever not been the norm?

  4. Candace says:
    August 17th, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    Hey, all. I am disappointed, as always, when I can’t finagle my schedule so that I am able to attend the “cafe.”

    I wish I had had the opportunity to benefit from your collective wisdom last night, as the question this month is one that I’ve been pondering recently. Also a related one: whether striving for excellence, or perhaps even striving at all, is requisite to living a “good life.”

    I wish you all an enjoyable passing of the remaining weeks of summer. I’ll see you in September.

  5. Brian says:
    August 18th, 2010 at 1:02 pm

    I’d have to say that sub-mediocrity has become the norm.

  6. Randy says:
    August 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am

    “mediocrity has not become the norm: but the accepted norm. there is a difference.”

    Isn’t mediocrity by definition the same as average? If you mean what used to be average is not what it is now, I agree, and so what. How could anyone fairly pick one arbitrary point and call is “the standard”.

  7. Randy says:
    August 19th, 2010 at 10:26 am

    “whether striving for excellence, or perhaps even striving at all, is requisite to living a “good life.””

    I think the potential for happiness is proportional to the level of self-responsibility. Whether that happiness occurs or not (a “good life”) is only about the decision (to resent or enroll oneself) about the responsibilities chosen.

  8. P. Hone Williams says:
    September 12th, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    I’m pretty sure the norm bar has always been vacillating at the mediocrity level, as sure as I’m sure there have always been exceptional people and efforts who have actually moved our society and culture ahead… *as there are today* perhaps at higher levels in the sciences and humanities than ever before in history.

    I’m involved in the realist branch of painting, and I have to say there are an incredible number of exceptional painters working today … not one could be described as mediocre.