Is Being Average the Norm?

<Is Being Average the Norm?>

(Questioner) Thank you very much Sunim.
I think especially the perspective on

what is important like I think I had
not thought about that before

at different stages of my life.

I have been interested in different
things like as the hobbies and

I have at that time that thing has
more important as you said.

If I may ask a follow up on the bug point
where you were talking about our understanding

as you said, there are different
heights or different abilities.

And now in this society we try to characterize
everything or enumerate everything.

So there is this concept of bell curve in
sciences and mathematics and engineering.

So where the curve looks, there is a maximum
number of people are in the middle

and then there are outliers.

So in that situation, the place where
the maximum number of people are

is called the norm which is called normal
and it's essentially called it is the reference point.

But as you also said that there is actually
no reference point. So either

if you have any thoughts about whether that
norm of the bell curve is actually a reference point

or is it a kind of a sort of a tradition
or some sort of convention.

(Sunim) Yes, just because you're in the middle
of the norm just because you're in the middle

of the bell curve doesn't mean that's
kind of the standard of reference point.

So another example is

So we have a school in kind of rural Korea
in the countryside and their 30 students

and we map their grades.

Said that the middle of
the bell curve is 70 percent

and right around there,
There's a lot of people.

Then as you go further to the right past a certain
standard deviation, you get kids getting 90 percent.

Then if you go to the left, you get
kids going as low as 50 percent.

Then so we take the 90 percent kids
from the school in the countryside

then we compare them to the
students from all over the country.

So we take the best, the 90 percents
from the countryside and we create

a separate class of 30 of 30 students
basically the best countryside school students.

And we see the same thing happening.

So even among those 30 superior
students from the countryside schools,

you have the best students with
the highest grades and

you've got a student with the lowest grade.

So that kid who was the number one in his
class, now is number 30 in the new class of

high grade kids. That kid probably
feels really inferior, really feel intimidated

and bad about himself.

It's very hard to accept because the
expectation for that kid is that

he's always been the number one in his class.

However, he is the same person his achievement
his academic knowledge is the same person

whether he's number one in his class
in a rural countryside school

of his 30th of superior students
chosen from all over the countries.

So that's why I say this is a matter of perception.

In the olden days where there was
a lot of discrimination based on

either gender or social class, your
position in society was determined

by how you were born or
who you were born into.

But now we have less gender
and class discrimination.

But instead what we have done is the,

we are constantly judging and evaluating
kids based on academic test scores.

So kids with lower test scores are basically
facing a certain kind of emotional discrimination.

So while we say we have done away
with a lot of discrimination,

we are constantly kind of ranking kids

according to what I've done and according
to their academic achievements.

So psychologically, we are constantly
kind of putting them under stress.

In a way through schooling, we are creating
the foundation of a new kind of hierarchy.

Still in the past, just because depending on
your status as a prince for example,

you are entitled to a lot of privileges.
Now through the hierarchy that based on

your academic achievements, we individuals
are feeling themselves entitled to privileges

that's not afforded to others. And
society actually allows those privileges.

In a ways, we have recreated a system
that we actually got ourselves over

a system of entitlement instead of
your status, birth status, it's based on

this one is based on your academic
achievement that's been measured

and quantified ever since you were little.

That is leading to a larger and larger inequality
between the rich and poor that is creating

a lot of the social pressures and
social resistance that we see.

So in the past, the humanity grew
up and we slowly realized that,

allotting privileges because of the
status of your birth was unfair.

But having said that, in today's world,
the driving narrative is that it's okay

through open competition that
if you have accrued the entitlements

or privileges, then you are entitled to those and
nobody questions your right to those privileges.

The losers in today's ultra competitive world

believe they don't deserve certain
privileges or entitlements because

they have lost in this competition.

This is actually keen to slaves in the ancient
world thinking they don't deserve or

they deserve to live like a slave
because they're born a slave.

And we think mistake ourselves
into thinking that we have freed ourselves

from these discriminatory systems.

But all we've done is replace an old
paradigm of how we order the world

with a new paradigm. We haven't actually
liberated ourselves from those paradigms.

(Questioner) Yeah that made a lot of sense.

Thank you so much for taking time
for giving answer in such a detailed way.

Yeah both of that made sense and

I just want the next person to be
able to ask their questions.

Thank you so much for your detailed answer.