Mediocrity, at work and in jest

Abstract

Departing from different contexts’ understanding of mediocrity as “average” or, by contrast, “below average”, this essay goes on to consider some aspects of the ethical and political challenges posed by the fact that mediocrity, quite simply and independently of its definition, exists. Among those challenges are difficulties posed when making distinctions between discernment and mediocrity in the other and in oneself, together with the problem of accepting that there is a duty of consideration toward those who are mediocre. The nature of those challenges is explored through attention to the work of Alexander Pope, George Eliot and Hannah Arendt, with references to Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Mediocrity and Delusion (1988) playing a particularly important role in the analysis. The article concludes with a series of reflections on the strange affinities between mediocrity and its opposites.