Ecclesiastes said it best:
The race is not to the swift.
McLuhan tried to back him up: The medium is the message.
The message of the bell-shaped curve seems to be that intellectual mediocrity is superior to all other possibilities in the struggle for existence and that the most literate or intelligent 2% of the population is less successful than the 3% which is known as morons, idiots and imbeciles.
According to the book "How to Beat Personality Tests", the business world does not look for applicants with high intelligence scores, it prefers those who score slightly above the average. As a matter of fact, the book continues, the too brainy applicant may be disqualified as not fitting in with the happy mediocrity of the team. You do not have to be too bright.
I spent many a school day wondering if there were other people out there - like me. Will I live and die without ever meeting them? I used to wonder why school teachers talked all day, when I preferred to read books.
I used to wonder why a shoe store staffed by an IQ of 120 would be less successful than a shoe store staffed with an IQ of 100.
After 50 years of wondering and reading I have uncovered absolutely no explanation of any kind to explain the advantages of a mediocre IQ score, but the advantages of a mediocre knowledge of language are everywhere.
The advantage, then, is with those who are understood and not with those who understand.
There is more to the one size fits all aspect of medium messages than this world suspects. Colliding head-on with the fact that success is the leading indicator of a mediocre ability with words could turn out to be an even greater surprise for humanity than Columbus' accidental discovery of the new world.
Mensans could be about to discover that there will be much more to the future of their social club than the occasional social or 'normalcy' competition.
Science will sooner or later uncover the fact that the most literate 2% of our population is unknown.
Science has two rules according to Carl Sagan.
First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless.
Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
For a free color postcard of the bell-shaped curve send mailing address to George Noviss (http://www.gnoviss.com).
HOME
http://www.gnoviss.com
McLuhan tried to back him up: The medium is the message.
The message of the bell-shaped curve seems to be that intellectual mediocrity is superior to all other possibilities in the struggle for existence and that the most literate or intelligent 2% of the population is less successful than the 3% which is known as morons, idiots and imbeciles.
According to the book "How to Beat Personality Tests", the business world does not look for applicants with high intelligence scores, it prefers those who score slightly above the average. As a matter of fact, the book continues, the too brainy applicant may be disqualified as not fitting in with the happy mediocrity of the team. You do not have to be too bright.
I spent many a school day wondering if there were other people out there - like me. Will I live and die without ever meeting them? I used to wonder why school teachers talked all day, when I preferred to read books.
I used to wonder why a shoe store staffed by an IQ of 120 would be less successful than a shoe store staffed with an IQ of 100.
After 50 years of wondering and reading I have uncovered absolutely no explanation of any kind to explain the advantages of a mediocre IQ score, but the advantages of a mediocre knowledge of language are everywhere.
The advantage, then, is with those who are understood and not with those who understand.
There is more to the one size fits all aspect of medium messages than this world suspects. Colliding head-on with the fact that success is the leading indicator of a mediocre ability with words could turn out to be an even greater surprise for humanity than Columbus' accidental discovery of the new world.
Mensans could be about to discover that there will be much more to the future of their social club than the occasional social or 'normalcy' competition.
Science will sooner or later uncover the fact that the most literate 2% of our population is unknown.
Science has two rules according to Carl Sagan.
First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless.
Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
For a free color postcard of the bell-shaped curve send mailing address to George Noviss (http://www.gnoviss.com).
HOME
http://www.gnoviss.com