Embracing Mediocrity

Recently, I read on another blog (Dinosaurs and Robots) about NASA doing a full inflation test of their latest research vehicle, a lighter than air craft known as the Bullet 580. It is quite large; over eighty meters in length (253 feet, in fact) and designed to travel at over 128 kilometers per hour (80 mph) and should be able to carry substantial payloads.

And it was cheered.

But, as was pointed out over at Dinosaurs and Robots, why is this such a big deal, when in the 1930's we had many airships, and there were even larger craft afloat, the zeppelins. The 1930's, over seventy years ago, we were doing better than this. True, lighter than air craft were largely replaced with fixed wing aircraft in most applications, but there was truly something anti-climatic about NASA's announcement. Certainly, we can do better than this, right?

It's not that we can't, it's that we won't (or in NASA's case afford to).

Our country has been steadily back-peddling on many technologies not because they can't be done, but because they are not cheap. We have embraced mediocrity for the sake of the bottom line, discarded progress for profit. Not only are there plenty of examples that can be found in our space program (replacing the shuttle with a capsule?!?), but also elsewhere. Take the automobile, for instance. Prior to the oil spikes of a couple of years back, most Americans didn't give much consideration to mileage; usually, the only performance that was really pushed was horsepower, and most dealers only considered mileage as a measure of the car's age. During the summer of 2007, when gasoline prices hovered around $3.00 per gallon for a number of weeks, we suddenly realized the importance of mileage. We leaned on Detroit (and to a lesser degree, Japan, Korea and Germany) to produce better mileage. Of course, the scare ended and many of us breathed a sigh of relief. So did the manufacturers, though there were now hints that mileage was going to matter.

What most people don't realize is that the American automobile reached peak mileage around 1987, with most cars averaging better than 24 MPG (a 9 MPG improvement from the average of 15 MPG twelve years earlier, 1975). Then, over the next few years, MPG... dropped. It was gradual, but it sunk to a low of 22 MPG in 2000. It finally started to rise again in 2004, though slowly at first. It took a hit to our very tight wallets for us to realize that we were considering the wrong things. Mileage, as a whole, has improved.

But why was there such a huge improvement initially (1975 to 1987) and really very little since?

Because inefficient cars are cheaper to make.

And it's not just in the automobile industry that we see this. It is in everything. We embrace mediocrity not because we don't know better but because it is cheaper. Why buy a nice Swiss watch when a cheaply made Chinese watch will still tell you time? It probably won't last as long, true, but then you just go out and buy another one.

Trust me, over the lifetime of a well made Tag Heuer, you'll easily spend more for the number of cheap watches you'll go through.

And the bean counters know this. They're counting on it, in fact.

For while our collective incomes have leveled off, indeed have somewhat fallen over the past four decades, our need to meet those day to day needs have continued (and have even increased). Most of those needs have been met through the cheap; we import more items now of substandard quality than ever, because demand has not subsided while our bank accounts have. It has to balance out somewhere, after all. We spend more now on our houses and the debts we have collected pursuing the elusive American dream, we just don't have the reserves for anything else. We demand our local governments do more but not hit us with taxes, assuming that they too can cut corners elsewhere.

Yet we are the wealthiest nation on the planet, right? What gives?

It might be that tremendous gulf between the rich and the poor. Our wealthiest aren't just wealthy, they are insanely so. We don't want to say too much to upset them because they control our jobs, right? Plutocracy, anybody?

Or perhaps it's just a case of collective laziness. We no longer aim high, we aim low-ish. Easier to hit your mark that way.

Besides, when we are fat and happy, the ruling class can continue to fool us and cajole us and sleep easily knowing that the bread and circus they provide will keep us busy and out of their hair. If we don't notice their shenanigans, they can continue to shove mediocrity down our collective throats.

We Have Met The Enemy

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Remember that line? Do you remember the origin of it? It was first uttered by Walt Kelly's "Pogo" in a poster for the first Earth Day, 1970. It is easy to think it goes back further. The line is actually a play on Oliver Hazard Perry's famous quote "we have met the enemy and they are ours" (he actually included the line in a dispatch to Major General William Henry Harrison after defeating the British on Lake Erie on 10th of September, 1813). When Walt Kelly wrote those words for Pogo, it was meant as a comment on the state of the environment.

That is not what I am going to write about here. I might touch on it, yes, but the environment plays just a small part.

For the past few decades, certainly the last three, our country has been growing ever more polarized. There are those in positions of power, both within government and big business, who more than likely rely on this polarization to keep them in their lofty positions, be it in higher office or tremendously powerful. We have sacrificed common sense and, yes I will say it, our very souls, upon the edifice that these powers-that-be have erected. They have managed to get us to turn against our better judgment and to vote against our best interests by using that one truly American trait; paranoia.

That, mixed with a dash of neurosis and healthy serving of arrogance, has been our undoing.

There is really no point in going into the current political climate beyond that. Everything that has driven this country, especially for the past decade, has been particularly toxic. But even before this, we have done things that have truly been against our best interests. The last thirty years have been about gaining as much wealth as possible without even a hint of civic responsibility. We are the wealthiest country in the world and enjoy some of the lowest tax rates globally, yet still we grumble about paying it. Folks, we are in the bottom five for taxation (depending upon the source, the countries that have a lower tax burden appear to be Ireland and Iceland). On the local, state and federal level, cuts are being made to keep the budget somewhat in the black, yet spending is always being called for. We have a crumbling infrastructure across the country, replete with failing bridges, and roads that are completely unsafe to drive on. This stuff has to be paid for in some manner; sadly, there is no Infrastructure Faerie to place a new one under our pillows when the old one breaks.

When cuts are made, they are always to the things that the voters feel are superfluous to their needs. In the past, this has included things like libraries and, in some districts, schools. Cutting either of these is wrong, especially during an economic downturn. Libraries (while some might say are probably not as necessary thanks to the Internet) still provide free Internet access in many parts of the country, and given that many employers have dispensed with regular paper employment applications, that alone is a godsend. Cutting education spending is like giving your community a collective lobotomy. While you may, say, never have had children, or if you have can afford to send them to a private school, the idea that someone else's offspring is not your responsibility is misguided. The true wealth of a community is not in its houses, buildings or banks, it is in its people. It is measured by how the people of that community live, and in what conditions. What determines this is education. Not paying for education now, normally results in paying later; law enforcement, the courts and prisons are even pricier.

This brings us to the environment. Once upon a time, scientists were held in high regard in this country. Nowadays, they are held in suspicion, unless it is something that industry agrees with. Most of those who lead the charge against the scientists sorely lack in any scientific credentials, though they may be leaders in industry or carry around a good degree of political clout. We have turned one of our most valuable commodities into modern day Cassandras, who warn of impending problems but are ignored or, worse, shunned.

Perhaps the problem has to do with losing sight of the long term. We're human, we live, on average, 70 to 80 years, and that is not a lot of time. Most Americans are only looking as far down the road as a couple of years maximum, and for many of us the next few months are shrouded in a mist as we live from paycheck to paycheck. It is the here and now that governs our lives, as well as a personal quest for wealth, even if modest. When I say long term, I am not speaking just for the individual, but for all of us, our community at large. It is human nature to not look beyond the needs of our immediate clan, but in order to address the problems that are facing us today, we need to broaden our gaze.

That we excuse our behavior by calling it human nature also is something of a dichotomy. By referring to something as a human behavior, indeed as animal behavior, we are being hypocrites, especially if one is religious. Most western religions believe that we are divine, and in the case of Christianity that we should be more Christ-like. Yet not only do we accept that we are imperfect, we almost seem to revel in it when it suits our needs. Rest assured, there are certainly those who will help us fail, especially when it suits their's.

We have met the enemy and, indeed, he is us.