The Manufacture of Mediocrity

Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal System on a pecuniary basis — and money is the foundation of the Social Contract.

Honoré de Balzac - Melmoth Reconciled (1835)


It’s an intriguing speculation – do governments deliberately manufacture mediocrity? Of course they do, the speculation is no such thing, it’s an observation. This is not merely cynical, governments do need mediocrity to control progress and change and keep democracy at bay.

Suppose governments were to base their actions on a dispassionate search for truth, the most objective way to assess any situation, the most practical approach, the most even-handed way forward, the system least open to corruption and so on.

All this would be highly democratic because these approaches are open to all. It would be too democratic, too open, too exposed to a change of direction when better approaches come to light, too flexible and not naturally hierarchical. Mediocrity and hierarchy are linked. Not in all hierarchies, but in government they are linked.

Government hierarchy needs mediocrity if the government answer is to take unambiguous precedence over the best answer. At least until government is able to absorb the best answer and claim it as its own. Often enough, that means never.