What do increasing educational standards for professions, the mania for sports leagues to expand the size of their playoffs, the worries about increased commodities prices, and the desire of quantum physicists to posit the theory of multiverses and parallel universes, all have in common? All are different aspects of the same problem–an inflation problem.
Why do we have all of these inflation problems existing more or less simultaneously? And why is inflation so much more common than deflation whether it is in politics, economics, education, sports, or science? Let us reflect upon these things as we deal with the inflationary climate we live in on a variety of fronts, so that we may come to terms with our own responsibility in the declining worth of achievements and the growing worthlessness of that which we have.
There is more in common between an ESPN commentator talking about the latest worthless college football bowl game (or the play-in games for NCAA basketball), an economist at the Federal Reserve trying to inflate our way out of economic trouble, a mother of a schoolkid demanding generous grading so that her precious can get into a good high school (or college), and a physicist dealing with the unpleasant implications of information theory [1] than meets the eye. All want to deal with unpleasant realities by increasing the resources at hand. All are attempting to get something for nothing, and all devalue achievements by lowering the criteria for meeting them. The value of any achievement, sadly, is inversely proportional to the difficulty and rarity of that achievement.
As human beings we face an eternal war between two tendencies that are impossible to harmonize. We all desire respect and honor, but we define that achievement in terms of scarce positional goods whose scarcity makes them impossible for the majority of people to reach. The desire for high status is impossible to square with the desire (and demand) for equality. Our desires to be supreme (or at least elite) conflicts with the growing desires of people to share in the benefits of economic growth, which dilutes its gains by spreading it in a wider population. In some ways, this is not bad, but it clearly has serious implications. That which is free and available to all is essentially without value–since there is nothing special about something that everyone can have without effort.
Though the processes are the same around the world (and were evident as early as de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America), their full implications are not widely recognized. If money is printed (whether physically or digitally) in order to pay taxes or pay down debts, then that money becomes worth less. If the process goes on in too much of an extent, it becomes worthless in the sense of the Weimer Republic or Zimbabwe. If everyone gets an A or B in school so that no children are upset with “failure” or even mediocrity, than grades become worthless, because there is no difference in result between someone who studies and works diligently and someone who does just enough to get by. Likewise, if almost every college football or basketball team can make it to the Humanitarian Bowl or the CBI Tournament to end the season, then the threshold of a “successful” season is lowered such that most teams meet that standard, making it much less worthwhile. After all, if you have enough spots on a bracket to fill, the teams that fill those brackets don’t have to be very good [2].
It is an easy thing to complain about other people–but let us turn the pointing fingers to ourselves. Are we willing to accept failure or a lack of success in an endeavor, with the pain and hurt that entails, or do we too wish to participate in the removal of the consequences of failure and therefore in the value of success? This is a question we have to ask ourselves–if success is to mean anything, it must entail risks and costs and standards. If we wish to prevent failure, we abolish success.
We might not desire either unlimited success or failure, but might wish to frame reasonable limits–a certain guaranteed minimum to allow for survival and human dignity as well as certain maximums to prevent inequality from getting out of hand. Nonetheless, to the extent that we make success worthwhile we make it inegalitarian. It requires, at any rate, that we address the issue and define where we stand–so that we face the question squarely and honestly. We might not like the answers we have for the questions–we might not like what those answers say about ourselves, but we need to be honest with ourselves before we have the right to demand that others be honest with us.
I suspect that the reason why our age is so inflationary is because we cannot handle or accept failure. Whether that is being judged as immoral for failing to meet a moral standard engraved in stone carved out by the finger of God Himself, or the failure to accept one’s favorite team is unworthy of a playoff spot, or the failure of a rapidly bankrupting nation [3] to pay off its debts and “entitlements,” we are unwilling to pay the price of failure in order to strive towards a worthwhile standard of achievement. And yet we still rail against the mediocrity that results, not realizing that we have chosen mediocrity as the lesser of the evils. And if we don’t like it–then we have the responsibility to do something about it. If we do accept it, we have done so with eyes wide open, and our honor intact.
[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/usa-inc/
Edge Induced Cohesion 