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Being average is the last taboo

Published on 26 Comments on Being average is the last taboo

Seriously?

Fashion has done thin people. It's done fat people. And now, just to blow your mind wide open, it's doing average people. I think fashion folks have a strange idea of what a "last taboo" is.

Speaking of which, how many last taboos are there? Even the briefest scan of Google brings up dozens: incest, bladder weakness, sexual assault, money, death, race, body hair, IQ, human waste, library fines (seriously), salaries, male vulnerability, laziness, the n-word, capitalism, tattoos, Israeli treatment of Palestinians, menopause, pedophilia, ageism, job searching, suicide, atheist politicians, masturbation, incontinence, and pretty much anything else that someone thinks we don't discuss enough.

And yet, somehow all of these things seem to get discussed an awful lot. How can that be if they're all not just taboo, but the very last taboo?

26 thoughts on “Being average is the last taboo”

  1. D_Ohrk_E1

    library fines (seriously),

    Fines are counterproductive to a freely-available public resource meant to help the very people who end up accumulating fines, in a similar way that fining the homeless for being homeless does nothing to solve homelessness. Just saying, aren't you tired of going with the status quo even when the status quo is nonsensical?

    2. Lounsbury

      Typical superficial Left analysis with superficial bleeding heart aheaad of reason. Fines of course are aimed at penalising abuse of a limited resource (non return = non availability) for which there are both the physical and the financial limitation.

      There is nothing similar between homelessness and not returning library books. Nothing in poverty = can't respect a simple deadline to ensure others of equally limited resources can access the same resource.

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        I love you, my brother, but you're badly misinformed. As such, I won't hold you responsible for hurling personal insults.

        From the American Library Association:

        “Libraries that had done away with fines reported no difference in the number of materials that were returned successfully. Fines did not teach responsibility, because patrons gave other reasonable excuses for lateness, like being unable to get to the library or forgetfulness. The policy negatively affected patrons who could least afford the fine, and the libraries with fines were not even at the break-even point as a revenue stream, because the costs of collection offset the income.”

        Washington County in Oregon eliminated fees. In doing so, cited actual outcomes:

        Chicago Public Library saw a 240% increase in returned books in the month after they eliminated fines in September of 2019. Salt Lake City’s Public Library saw late returns drop from 9% to 4% after fines were eliminated.

        Hoboken New Jersey Library Board noted:

        “The Library first tried a ‘Fine-Free Summer’ in 2019” explained Pu, “and what was learned is that late fees -- as a motivator to return materials on time -- were not really working. In fact, what it did reveal is that late fines were actually a bar to some people being able to use the Library.”

        Noted in Arizona, where libraries eliminated fines back in 2019:

        Fines were always considered an indispensable part of libraries. They aren’t. They’re just tools. And it turns out that they’re counterproductive. They’re a barrier to the very people who need libraries most.

        2. Lounsbury

          Now empirical data speaks.

          However the argument is very simply that data in applied practice shows the fines are not effective in their goal.

          You can load on the Lefty social argument as desired, but the information of empirical improvement on returns from oerpational experiment speaks rather better than the original Lefty bleeding heart spin that omitted.

      2. Ken Rhodes

        No, Lounsbury, fines are NOT aimed at penalizing anything. Penalizing is a side effect of their purpose, which is to allow the potential of a very small forfeiture to motivate compliance with a common requirement--return what you borrowed.

        1. Ken Rhodes

          ... and then consider the reply of D_Ohrk, which shows that even with that very limited objective, library fines don't even do that very well. (Though I have to admit, they work for me, even though I am fortunate enough to be able to ignore the financial impact if I'm late returning books or records.)

        2. Lounsbury

          While I am quite open to the data provided supra - this is entirely senseless reponse.

          Fines are clearly penalising lateness, to indeed motivate compliance.

          Now if indeed the net effect emperically is different than intent, then one should change.

    3. xi-willikers

      It’s called a fine not a fee because you have to do something wrong (taking ages to return a book, losing a book) to get one

      Library fines are well-designed because if you get too many you are just effectively banned from the library. Not like other public fines which translate to different spaces

      Anyways, treating library books poorly isn’t because you’re bad at reading, it’s because you’re just a jerk

        2. Maynard Handley

          That's a ridiculous analysis which makes you look bad, as someone who would rather mock libertarians than understand them; and whose instinct is always to mock, never to think.

          I'm no libertarian, but library fines are clearly a case of breach of contract and throughly unproblematic.
          If you are going to mock anything library related, the libertarian complaint would be with the fact that the entire population is taxed to provide a service that's only enjoyed by a small fraction of that population.

    1. Maynard Handley

      Remember Fashion World is considered THE Patriarchy by a certain type of person.
      As in: whatever crazy thing is done by Fashion World (basically a few gay men and a certain type of uncommon woman) is immediately ascribed to all men, for example "unreal beauty standards" or "obsession with tween sexuality".

      There is a reason that very few men actually choose Vogue or Elle as their masturbation magazine of choice, but don't let that reality get in the way of a good story.

  4. golack

    Here's the thing--no one is actually average. Oh they may be in certain aspects within a defined population, but no one will be average in every thing. And if they were, that would be pretty unique.

  7. illilillili

    I think there's a strong case to be made for one particular word. "There are seven words you can never say on television: Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker and tits". Which of the taboo words is so taboo you can't even mention it in a list of taboo words?

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Arrested at Summerfest in Milwaukee over that back in the 70s.

      Fifty years later, drunk MAGA from Waukesha County come to Summerfest to fornicate, & nary a word of warning from the MPD.

  9. Maynard Handley

    Notice what isn't there (and is more or less the last taboo) -- democracy vs aristocracy and the suggestion that some people should get to vote (or otherwise wield political power) while others should not. Along with concomitant views like: some people's opinions are worth something, most are not; or some people's artistic productions are worth something, most are not.

    No comments either way as to this suggestion, but you will find precious little discussion of this in the MSM. Closest you can get right now is something like Bryan Caplan. For example the neoMonarchists aren't even considered enough of a threat to hound them down and demonize them on Twitter; they're considered bizarre harmless freaks like Flat Earthers.

    You see this blindness everywhere once you know to look for it. For example the history of "Philosophy of Science" in the 20th C is one long (and basically pointless and horribly unsuccessful) attempt to create a democratic (ie usable by everyone) "scientific method" rather than accepting the earlier, aristocratic, viewpoint that science was, at the deepest level, the ability by a few extraordinary people to see patterns that are not obvious to most.

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