Assignment: Write an essay of no more than 600 words on this theme:

"What the crowd requires is mediocrity of the highest order."

Auguste Pr™ault

 

Essay: "What the crowd requires is mediocrity of the highest order."

Mediocrity - the word conjures up images of the ordinary and the average. It is often associated with the lowest common denominator; it is the level at which all may safely attain. Pr™ault also believes that it is what the crowd demands from its members. But believing in Pr™ault's adage is a dangerous thing to do; it denies humans can attain anything higher than themselves, and it allows one to always maintain society's status quo.

To believe people expect the average, even to the point of punishing those who exceed beyond it, is to ignore half of the story. If this were true, then music, poetry, painting and sculpture would never have been developed. Advances in science and mathematics, as well as the progression of thought in philosophic disciplines would never have occurred. These represent the highest that human beings can attain. They certainly do not represent the mediocrity of the masses.

For example, if the masses did demand the ordinary, then how does one account for the grace of a performance of "Swan Lake," or the soul wrenching sounds of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," or the music in the words of a poem by William Wordsworth. Dante's words of passion for Beatrice were not mediocre; neither are the swirled strokes of Van Gough's "Starry Night." All the beauty that these people and their works represent is anything but mediocre; instead, they are symbols of the highest human intellect can attain.

One may say, however, that these were extraordinary people, whose talents transcended the crowds. They were beyond the reach of the masses. In fact, they were regarded as strangers to the society of man - Beethoven's company was shunned, Van Gough had a reputation for being an exceedingly nasty man, and Wordsworth was regarded as if a leper in polite society. Therefore, it would seem as if the masses, in retaliation for the sin of breaking their code of mediocrity, punished the wrongdoers by excluding them.

Yet these very same crowds read their words, listened to their music, absorbed their paintings. The very act of enjoying that which defies mediocrity allows one to transcend it as well. Also, not all who went beyond the ordinary were punished for their crimes - Victor Hugo was so beloved by the French people for his novels and essays that they crowded the streets around his apartment when he died, and refused to leave for four days. He certainly did not represent the average - one need only to pick up a copy of Les Mis™rables to understand that.

To put faith in Pr™ault's adage is to ignore those who represent something higher. It is an act which denies a human being the recognition of something higher than itself. It also allows one to preserve the status quo of society. Totalitarian rulers play on the notion of mediocrity when they force their citizens to come down to the lowest common denominator. To believe that they are merely enforcing the crowd's requirement of mediocrity is to belie the notions of justice and humanity. Humans, by their very definition, are beyond mediocrity. We can reason, we can feel, we can experience beauty. All of these actions are not mediocre - they are extraordinary. The artists, poets and thinkers we love only represent the highest of what we are all capable of attaining. And that proves Pr™ault's doctrine false - humans can never be mediocre.