One might recall how multiple choice tests were graded back in school.
The teacher would take a card with holes punched in the appropriate places and lay it over each test sheet.
Then each test would be graded according to how well the answers lined up with the card.
Few people ace this test, but there are some.
Most people pass comfortably but must put in a significant amount of work to make it.
There are some who do poorly and who just get by.
Then there are a very few who fail to line up with a single hole on the grading card. There is no like alignment, only empty bubbles to be seen.
The traits that society selects for are naturally expressed by a majority, but probability demands that there be those who are completely at odds with the accepted standards.
Every school seems to have that one kid who is completely ostracized/seceded from the group.
There are many thousands of schools, however. In an age of the internet, nearly any group can reach critical mass. Any newly formed group has the opportunity to select its values.
By so doing, a union of those deemed Incorrect could form a new society in which they implicitly belong. By selecting, they would implicitly select against the forces that banished them.
In a sense this would at last be Absolution from being a sin.
Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion.
The Grading Card appears here by permission.
[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]
Zygmunt on 03/21/11 in featured, Society | No Comments | Read More
