Glorifying the Mediocre

There comes to mind a three-word phrase—Glorifying the Mediocre—which is indicative of a practice whereby young and old are schooled in a world of unreality. In its mildest forms, in casual conversation and in the recounting of experiences to our friends and acquaintances, it may be recognized by a tendency toward exaggeration—placing emphasis where id doesn’t belong; adding color to what really happened; speaking of quantities that are beyond the facts. On its more aggravated forms this practice glorifying the mediocre goes beyond mild exaggeration to the extreme and deceptive use of extravagant words. We do not, by any means, use the English language exhaustively; thousands of words lie buried in the dictionary, never seen, never heard, never known by most men. But a few hundred words, some of which are most extravagant, are greatly overworked. Indeed, there are those who have lost the art of understatement, and with whom sensationalism is worn and weary—whose only regret is that there are not more grant and superb and incomparable and stupendous adjectives for the glorifying of the mediocre. But calling something that is common place the greatest whatever-it-is, is much like crying, “Wolf, wolf!” If every performer comes on with fanfare, there isn’t much left for the real star. If everything is great, if everything is colossal, if everything is unprecedented, or indispensable, or the chance of a life time, or an opportunity that will never come again, language soon takes on the dullness that comes with overuse. After using a superlative, there isn’t much more to be said to add emphasis. It is no wonder, then, that our youngsters sometimes become loose in their thinking and immoderate in their speech. They have been so much exposed to the prevalent practice of glorifying the mediocre. If everything commonplace is clothed with glamour and garnished with words, and propped up with unsupportable claims, it is going to be difficult for any generation to be straight and sound and sure in its thinking. This business of glorying the mediocre and misrepresenting the commonplace is basically unethical is making it difficult for our young people to distinguish between the gold and the glitter. And it may make it difficult to recognize the real thing when it does come along.