Excellence in Mediocrity

Playboy magazine has just recently announced that they will no longer be placing nude photos of women in their periodicals. It seems that the porn industry in America has gotten so pervasive and explicit that the veritable founder of common consumption pornography, has decided that is no longer profitable to produce magazines that include fully nude women. The American public has apparently become bored with the simple nude. Pornography, which used to be offered only on the fringes of society, has become an integral part of our communities. I submit that this is due largely to one issue. The lack of being held to a higher standard. Women seem to be under the impression that men need pornography as a outlet for their sexual energy and that if that outlet is taken away, their boyfriends and husbands will cheat on them. This idea is inherently false. Men are capable of practicing self control to the degree that they can maintain a monogamous relationship without external visual stimuli. This misconception is likely due to one factor. Society is no longer holding its members to a high moral standard of living and men no longer feel pressured to maintain integrity in their entertainment. Mediocrity has become the norm to the point at which we accept previously unacceptable behavior as new societal norms. The members of society, both men and women, should be offended by this. Men should be offended that they are not believed to be capable of practicing self control in the areas of their lives that are most important. Those areas that I’m referring to are their deep, interpersonal relationships with the opposite gender. Women should be offended that they are not holding themselves to the level of importance that they deserve in their relationships. They are allowing the men in their lives to diminish their value in the relationship by looking elsewhere for gratification. And shame on the men of society for taking advantage of this situation. The family unit is breaking down because we have allowed mediocrity to permeate our relationships. This is not a man or a woman problem. This is a societal problem. It's about time that our society holds men and women accountable for their actions and demands a higher standard in family and relationship situations. Strong and well adjusted adults most often come from strong families.

The United States is finding it increasingly hard to compete in a global market on our manufacturing and marketing fronts . Part of this problem is due to the fact that employers are finding it extremely difficult to find employees who will pass the mandatory drug test. The recreational use of controlled substances has become commonplace in America. Controlled substances are controlled for a reason. They are dangerous and cause irreversible damage to the human body. They alter the state of mind of the user and drastically affect the users decision-making paradigm. This causes an unsafe work environment for both the user and his coworkers. Society has allowed this to happen by not holding it's workforce to high standards of moral accountability. This is affecting both our economic situation and our country's physical health.

The weakening of the family unit and the national drug epidemic is creating problems within the workforce. Employees show up late and call off at the last minute. they under perform and expect their coworkers to pick up the slack. When they do complete their tasks, the quality is less than expected which decreases the consumer confidence in domestic products. Employers accept this because that is the nature of the employment pool available to them. When employers demand excellence they are criticized for promoting a hostile work environment and berated as corporate giants with no feelings. To give you an idea of the workplace situation of our country please consider this. GM is moving the production of its Buick line of vehicles to China because their quality of work is just as high in their vehicle production as their American counterparts and their workforce is more reliable. In the interest of full disclosure, I also want to point out that another factor in there decision is that the Buick customer base in China far exceeds its customer base in the States. However, I know that at least a part of that can be attributed to the decrease of consumer confidence in our country.
The leaders of this country are in many ways an accurate representation of their constituents. We have law makers who are unable or unwilling to put forth the effort to pass bills and amendments on the merits of the bills and amendments. As a result, they often try to fold these issues into larger, more important bills that actually have to pass. This has resulted in government shut downs in the past and may very well result in another shut down in the not-to-distant future. We have a rampant inability of our lawmakers to work across party lines to address issues for the common good of the country. We as Citizens are responsible for this situation because we have refused to stand against mediocrity in our society.

The alarming thing is that this training in mediocrity starts at a very early age. Teachers are told not to give out awards unless there is one for every student. They don't want any of the students to teel less valuable than other students. I understand this, but the problem is that in this system, true excellence is not actually rewarded. Why should a student work really hard to achieve a reward if the laziest kid in class gets one too? This trend began when I was in grade school. I distinctly remember being the repeated recipient of the “most improved” award. Even as a young person I knew that this was a consolation prize. If we don't start encouraging our young people to strive for excellence, how can we expect them to become great leaders in our country? We are doing our young people of great disservice by encouraging mediocrity. The only way for a person to achieve his full potential is to be held to a standard of excellence. We should be ashamed of what we are doing to these children by showing them that mediocrity is good enough.

Teenagers are no longer being taught that sexual abstinent is a good thing. We don't feel that our youth is capable of practicing that level of self control that is required to maintain virginity until marriage. Instead we try to teach them to be safe when they engage in intercourse. We tell them to use protection and try to keep the number of partners to a minimum. We use catchy phrases like "If the car is going ninety miles an hour all the time, it may not matter whether or not you're wearing a seat belt." Well, one thing we've learned is that teens tend to push boundaries. Why do we make the boundaries so wide? Don't teach them to be safe when they play in the street. Teach them not to play in the street. Maybe then, if they venture into the road, they'll do so with extreme caution.

We have allowed society to throw off the high standards of moral accountability that this country was founded in. This is the reason that our country is in the state of decay that we see today.

Now I want to take a moment to speak to the church in America. Before you take the opportunity to shake your finger at society and say “See? Look at what you have done to this once great nation under God,” I would like to bring up the point that the Church in America is right on par with society in their divorce rate, their consumption of pornography, their consumption of controlled substances, and their declining work ethic. In some cases we exceed the level failure in secular society when it comes to moral issues. This is truly a travesty considering that we are to hold ourselves to the greatest standard of moral excellence that exists. God's standard. We as the Army of God need to address the problems within our ranks. How are we to fight this spiritual battle when we are aiding and abetting the enemy? And make no mistake. Our failures as the church are contributing directly to the Devils arsenal. Pastors need to hold there congregations accountable to the standard of God's Word. Not to their opinions. Not to societal standards. And churches need to remove pastors and church leaders who are not holding them accountable. Only when we stop accepting mediocrity and start demanding excellence can we truly make America great again.