Most people are familiar with the “Bell” curve which represents a normal distribution of most things in life. It accounts for approximately 20% of ‘extremes’ for both “tails” (ends) of the bell shape (80%) with a gradual upwards slope (from the left tail-10%) its mid-point and then a gradual slope downwards to its far end (“tail”-10%). There is absolutely no need to go into the statistical proof of such things like “standard deviations” but suffice to say that it is extremely well tested and proven.
Like I mentioned in my very last blog, I have had reasons to “bereave” the current state of our Society due to the erosion of the United States’ Culture. No one ever said that life was “fair” and if the “Creator” designed it as ‘unfair,’ it hardly seems incumbent upon America to do any more than “make it as fair as Humanly possible”(NOT divinely/perfectly fair). Our ‘track record’ would indicate that America has ‘won’ the “fairness” competition over the course of human history, but fair should never be synonymous with “foolish.”
If you take a “Bell Curve” and turn it completely upside down, you would get what I am calling a “Hell Curve.” For those of you without your “mind’s eye” working, it looks like a two-dimensional drawing of a “punch bowl” with a wide brim. The reason for creating such an image is simple: our traditional values have been turned upside down also. That is to say that the ‘extremes’ have become the predominant ‘rules’ in our lives instead of minority ‘exceptions.’ Too much of anything makes life just as “unbalanced” as too little of anything. In mathematical terms, while we should be at an 80%/20% split between healthy/unhealthy living, we are now more like 20%/80% and THAT my friends is reason for plenty of concern!
I have decided to break down such a substantial topic into four more manageable ‘bites.’ I am more than happy to do this because if I were a tree, I would be an O-Pine!
Material/Physical-
In most instances, people came to the USA because they were ‘suffering’ from a lack of “material” resources/possessions. That could range from basic necessities like food all the way to excessive greed whereby people just wanted more than they had but less than they felt they ‘deserved.’
Since the “Land of Opportunity” had streets “Paved with Gold,” anything and everything seemed possibly within reach of all ‘newcomers.’ Unfortunately, while all immigrants began at the left tail (nothingness) of the “Hell Curve,” very many have ‘sailed’ right through a healthy level of material ‘comfort’ into the right tail of conspicuous consumption and excessive waste.
A telltale sign of the “nouveau riche” materialistic behavior in this country is the possession of external and highly visible (flashy/showy) symbols of wealth. Examples are cars, jewelry, fashion and other deeply depreciating items of materialism; instead of appreciating assets such as education, health and home environment real estate. With our ridiculously forgiving “bankruptcy” protection laws, the incentives are built in to take on debt and more debt until it becomes totally unmanageable debt (both individually and nationally). Do we really need a “new” dishwashing detergent that only takes two wipes instead of three wipes to ‘clean’? AND what is the ‘cost’ of such ‘essential’ (sarcasm intended) convenience?
Physical Attractiveness is the next area of superficiality that has gone from genuine ‘needs’ (like eyeglasses) to appearance ‘wants’ (like Lasix surgery). The vast majority of people are just averagely “attractive.” As earthly species go, humans are not exceptionally beautiful as compared to many beings in nature. Yet, we have been compelled to judge and e-VALUE-ate each other more and more on the shallow criteria of “attractiveness;” NOT natural, sensual beauty mind you but simply on the basis of outward appearance (right tail). The compulsion to be “sexy” and NOTICED!
Those levels of appearance have gone right past healthy, scientific levels of evolution (e.g., dental care/hygiene) right over to the far right tail of “artificiality.” In many cases, this is at the expense of INWARD/INTERNAL health. I had a student once who could not sit in class due to a bad toothache. When asked about going to a dentist, he said that he had spent all of his money on a new tattoo. I explained about the options of free dental care, and he was clueless about that but knew all about the discounted tattoos from “apprentice” tattoo artists. ‘Nuff said, tight?
What the physical and material obsessions of our society have in common is that, neither of those things carried from the extremes of ‘plain’ looking and modest means all the way over to the left tail extremes of debt-laden and plastic-looking are not beneficial. They do not contribute much to happiness, health, personal development, God’s favor or better Culture. Yet, that is exactly where we find our Society on the “Hell Curve.” Starting our ‘poor and ugly,’ then overshooting/missing the ‘mark’ of personal “balance” and ending up with artificial looks (like big, phony-looking, overly white smiles) and being stressed and miserable trying to ‘juggle’ too many ‘things.’ Bottom line Cultural costs here: varying levels to our individual and collective ‘souls.’ (E.G. Homelessness and Obesity). Many other societies have NOT made these same choices and have much ‘healthier’ Cultures to show for it.
Intellectual-
The classic Bell Curve is one of I.Q. whereby the “average” Intelligence Quotient of 100 is symmetrically distributed (from the lowest to the highest) around it. I suggest (though never measured), the Common Sense Quotient would be more like the Hell Curve whereas a few people truly have little common sense at all and also a few would be measured as having a great deal of common sense. The vast majority have much less than they should, however. This is especially true among people as they accumulate more and more ‘power.’
Most humans acquire the bulk of their common sense from experiential living. (I.E. The “School of Hard Knocks.”) Usually, this is not a fatal process as family, schools, churches and other social institutions provide help and guidance along the way. The problem, as I see it, results from excessive intellectual emphasis from ‘higher’ education at the expense of practical instincts/intuition AND pragmatic living. I heard that some groups like the Amish, limit ‘formal’ education to the 8th grade; I can see the wisdom in that. Beyond grammar school, the individuals might actually ‘suffer’ more than ‘benefit’ from the world’s ‘agenda’ and the educational system’s ‘power.’ “Everything I ever needed to know; I learned in Kindergarten.”
As I see it, the common ‘culprit’ is the continuous “objectification” of Human subjects. As we reduce people to ‘numbers,’ we gradually but steadily de-humanize them by de-emphasizing and de-valuing common sense as compared to educational “degrees.” This seems unavoidable as we do not have/take the time to get to know people beyond their ‘statistics’ as produced by the more formal, intellectual accomplishments that one receives. I have Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees (NOT in English :-D) and I can attest to the process which increases from a practitioner to a theorizer along the way. (I.E. Having “answers” to only being able to ask hypothetical “questions.”) The challenge becomes while chasing the ‘ideal’ and the ‘perfect’ on that ‘journey, it is really easy to lose sight of the good, workable and best practical solutions.
So, we have become a Culture of stupid and foolish intellectually educated people who like to be stimulated/satisfied by progressive pursuits. This is especially apparent among society’s leaders who are most visible/apparent to the average citizen. Maybe things will change with the mandate of the 2024 election, but it remains to be seen whether political “Leaders” can resist the temptation to become political “managers.” You see, Students will always be more than their Grade Point Average; Workers are always more than their Full-Time Equivalency production; Athletes are more than their Analytics and Artists are greater than their ‘product’ sales. If we continue to REDUCE God’s children to ‘numbers,’ (by not taking the time to know them) our Culture will be Hell on Earth as measure by Society’s Hell Curve. The results are things like continual litigation and all Realities becoming VIRTUAL like fake news, scripted media and opinions being passed off as “facts.”
Emotional/Psychological-
Americans used to be considered somewhat “reserved” emotionally. There was social value in being rather “modest” and less expressive/demonstrable than other ethnicities. Being of Italian ancestral origin (like other southern Europeans), I had to learn to modify my “feelings” to better fit with the more stoic, Puritanical behaviors of America’s Founding Culture.
I suppose critics can find fault with the “left-tail” repressions of the normal Bell Curve as well as the “right-tail” over-emotionality of certain immigrants like Italians (I was well criticized before I learned more ‘control’) and certain professions like artists/entertainers. Although the Establishment Culture certainly tolerated such deviations for their own purposes (amusement) but never gave them main-stream “acceptance.” I would say back then that most people found their own expressing-level “sweet spot” safely under the normal “Bell.” Those variations seemed to serve the United States’ Culture most successfully up through our post-World-War-II “golden age.”
More recently, however, our level of psychological self-serving and the ‘anything-is-permissible’ license to express has turned the Bell Curve into that aforementioned Hell Curve. There can be multiple reasons for this wholesale ‘flipping’ of acceptable behavior. I am not suggesting either correlation or causation but: the population is no longer dominated by such a high percentage of WASP-manifested values; economic security frees people to be less beholden to any increased sources or amounts of income; liberal educators have given both explicit and tacit permission to say, write and do whatever one “feels;” there is less family/community oversight to supervise and sanction behavior and most significantly, the Media (especially Social Media), has distorted the importance of individual opinion as being way more meaningful than in reality.
Bottom line here is that our society is exploiting Human Nature to the point where a large number of people have been silenced (left-tail Hell Curve) and a large number of writing/talking-head people dominate the Cultural expressiveness while the Silent/Moral majority express themselves much less/worse than is healthy for the overall Society. Here’s just one personal example: When I was learning to drive windshield wipers were either on or off. When two speeds came out, I was impressed and pleased. When the 3-level intermittent feature came out, I was ecstatic. With my newest 5-speed variable, I am miserable! Why? Because between any two settings, one is always just a little too slow and the next setting is just a little too fast for my demanding and unrealistic expectations.
Lesson? Human Nature is addictive, and we easily get spoiled into thinking that we should have EVERYTHING EXACTLY the way we want it EVERYTIME. The flip side of the ambition/achievement ‘coin’ is to hardly ever be satisfied/grateful for life’s “blessings.” There is a reason why “Ignorance is Bliss” and eating from the ‘tree’ of knowledge gets you in trouble. Since our Society is hardly ever content with any status quo, our Culture is weakened, and we live with a preponderance of emotional extremes and psychologically manipulated events. What can result from such exclusively intellectual living? An abundance of Mental Health crises such as depressions and suicides.
Spiritual-
This dimension of our existence has the most predominant impact upon the Hell Curve. It is aptly named since “hell” is symbolic for all of the misery that life has to offer as well as the eternal punishment for a life ‘sinfully’ lived. There used to be a somewhat normal distribution of those few faithless souls on one end of the spectrum and the small minority of religious zealots who believed things completely outside the realm of reality. The other 80% of us were God-fearing and faithful to diverse but relatively healthy degrees.
As with the case of the other three facets mentioned, the distribution of spirituality has been turned totally upside down as of late. This simple means that a great chasm exists between a larger and larger number of agnostic/atheist types who only believe in those tangible and scientifically-provable aspects of life. On the opposite extreme are those people who retreat from the world to a place whereby they abdicate all responsibility for living and completely turn over control for themselves to THEIR Creator (terrorists?).
It seems to me that the vast majority of we Americans for sure (and maybe the World) have diluted their faith quite a bit from past generations. Along with that is the absence of the concept that life’s actions and behaviors might someday result in a “Judgment Day.” That concern had a powerful influence on how people lived their lives and conducted themselves in relation to their “fellow man.” The principle of “shame” (while can be overdone) seems missing from the United States these days along with the conscience ‘manager’ that kept us on “the straight and narrow” with an ‘inner’ guidance.
I am not talking “legality” here (which is an intellectual pursuit subject to major manipulation/interpretation) but rather things of personality/institutional governance like “morality” and “ethics.” While ”right and wrong” has always been subject to narrow definition by each individual within various Cultures, it seems those definitions have grown wider to include ‘everything’ goes! While I classify morality as mostly an individual responsibility, I categorize ethics as those ‘acceptability’s’ of organizations. We saw the breakdown of business ethics in the 1980’s with a pretty strong condemnation by the consuming public and the Media that followed. It seems like the same type of breakdown of political ethics has recently transpired but it remains to be seen what the public and Media reaction will be that follows. The result of such degradation is the absence of any genuine Leadership from those “in charge.” Without that Leadership, the “Followers” lose more and more hope, faith and charity resulting in societal chaos (crime) and a Culture becoming more animal and less divine. Great Flood? Apocalypse? Rapture? Hell Curve on Earth? Second Coming?