Executive Reading: The Average American
From April 2006
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Such statistics, which are scattered throughout like poppy seeds, are interesting points of reference, even if they fail to paint a more meaningful picture of the American Everyman (or woman) and his or her hopes, fears and values. But O’Keefe takes this rather disparate and odd inventory of statistics and uses them to discover a fascinating assortment of characters who are both surprising and familiar. Traveling the country in –(what else?) a mid-sized car, the author discovers, for example, a magician who calls himself Myklar the Ordinary, and a politician seeking office under the Average American Party.
Statisticians will no doubt take issue with certain winnowing methods and criteria used here to eliminate entire swaths of the American population. But what is most interesting about this book is the way it addresses the lingering stigma of “average.” Why do we so readily assume that average equals characterless? Why do most people think (or hope) they are above average in some respect? Why do people rebel so strongly against being considered average that they will clutch at any straw of differentiation (a fine question for whoever wound the world’s largest ball of twine)?
Ultimately, of course, the author does find his Average American: a man named Bob whose very anticlimacticness is his most-compelling trait, at least to the author. But the story of the search, a kind of fanfare for the common man, is a surprisingly good read.
Statisticians will no doubt take issue with certain winnowing methods and criteria used here to eliminate entire swaths of the American population. But what is most interesting about this book is the way it addresses the lingering stigma of “average.” Why do we so readily assume that average equals characterless? Why do most people think (or hope) they are above average in some respect? Why do people rebel so strongly against being considered average that they will clutch at any straw of differentiation (a fine question for whoever wound the world’s largest ball of twine)?
Ultimately, of course, the author does find his Average American: a man named Bob whose very anticlimacticness is his most-compelling trait, at least to the author. But the story of the search, a kind of fanfare for the common man, is a surprisingly good read.
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