The Mediocrity Principle
The Mediocrity Principle belongs to the following groups:
Short stories - Spherical ScriptingsLong ago, in a far distant land, there lived a man named Nicolaus Copernicus. You may wonder how we know of a man who lived so long ago and so far away. Well, Nicolaus Copernicus made, quite literally, a revolutionary discovery.
Now, as anyone will tell you, for revolution you need three things: oxygen, fuel and heat. Nicolaus Copernicus lived in a time with plenty of all three. But we are getting ahead of the story.
Nicolaus Copernicus was a stargazer. Not the kind of stargazer you or I think of when we think of that word; he wasn’t the type to lie lazily about, staring up into the firmament, dreaming of romance or adventure: quite the contrary in fact. Nicolaus Copernicus would never look at the stars unless he was holding his notebook, a pencil and some instrument that looked more magical than mathematical.
You see, in Nicolaus Copernicus’s time, people believed that the World was the centre of the Universe. They believed that Earth was fixed in space, and our sun, our moon, and all the other stars and planets danced around us in a joyous celestial twirling motion. Nicolaus Copernicus wasn’t sure this was true. What started as a quest for the arcane, soon revealed a startling truth: Earth revolves around Sun.
Well, Nicolaus Copernicus understood that this discovery, this revelation if you will, might upset a few people, and so, for the most part at least, he kept his ideas under his zucchetto.
Meanwhile, the man on the street was under pressure. The ancient Greeks, with their rosy sunsets and myriad gods, had set the stage for the world being, well, a stage. You might think, and I would agree with you, that being the centre of the Universe would make one feel pretty good about oneself. But people were sick of being looked down upon, of always being watched. It was time for the gods to step back a few light-years and let the world wheel as the world would wheel: around the sun.
When Nicolaus Copernicus’s ideas finally got out into the public arena the world was ready for revolution.
Before Nicolaus Copernicus died he speculated that, since we aren’t at the centre of the Universe, what had happened once, that is to say: you, me and the whole World, could, given the right conditions, happen again. He said this in a nice way, so people didn’t get too upset with him. And so it was that Nicolaus Copernicus made mediocrity not only okay, but a Universal truth, and a good many people breathed a huge sigh of relief.
iAN Derrick
By my stars, thou art a most remarkable fellow Matthew, ...There I was this merry morn, contentedly munching upon my breakie bowl of steamed zucchetto, then I experienced a mediocre revolutionary thought, that only last week I read, that Nicolaus’s mum had her nicus in a knot because her good mate Nostro predicted, 28th October 2009, was probably the day the apocalypse, was to arrive in Perth. Look ye at a large crater on the moon he said
and if you see a flashing light ….........RUN.
Matthew Dalton replied
Thanks iAN. May I suggest you switch to mediocre tapioca pudding and keep your zucchetto for talking out of?
As for the 28th of October, I will be saying my ‘Pater Nosters’ in New Zealand (if my stars align correctly).
Thanks very for your comment, and the chuckle that came with it.
lianne
What a delightful read with quite a profound point at the end – over which I laughed out loud! I should think that history taught just this way – a little tongue in cheek – would make it far more palatable for most students, who seem to abhor it! Wonderfully well written.
Matthew Dalton replied
Thanks very much Lianne. I have become very interested in the concept of mediocrity and the negative connotation of the word. No one wants to be mediocre and yet, in some ways at least, it is inescapable. There really is a “Mediocrity Principle” sometimes referred to as the “Copernican principle”. The rest of the story may be slightly historically shaky.