Running head: THE END OF AVERAGE BOOK REFLECTION 1

The End of Average Book Reflection

Lillian Blizzard

Chesapeake College

March 2019
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The End of Average Book Reflection

The End of Average (2017), written by Todd Rose, is an eye-opener on the importance of

why people should embrace their individualism throughout their lives, and why institutions

should incorporate individualism through institutions in society rather than trying to eradicate it.

Rose does a great job detailing how much we rely on averages throughout society, especially in

education, which is an awful thing to do. Averages do not help people flourish in the world,

rather it makes them confined to restraints where they cannot express their qualities that make

them unique. The average was proposed by men who thought it was a brilliant idea even when

no one fit the average they pictured. It is important to understand that people should be looked at

individually rather than being compared to the average.

Rose detailed the history of how averagarianism influenced our society. One of the

arguments Rose detailed in his book was Adolphe Quetelet. He was the reason people became

obsessed over comparing each other to the average. Quetelet developed the idea of the average

man and “declared that the individual person was synonymous with error, while the average

person represented the true human being” (p. 27). People started adopting his policies and

comparing everything to the average. This was “the moment when the average became normal,

the individual became error, and stereotypes were validated with the imprint of science,”

resulting in the age of average (p. 31). In order to be normal, you had to be the average. If you

were not the average than you were looked down upon. Sadly, I think this is still true in our

society, especially in education. As a student, you are always compared to the average when you

take tests. This makes you feel inferior to your other classmates if you obtain a low score. If you

keep getting low scores than the stereotypes come from the teachers as either you are not smart
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or lazy. Most tests that are given in schools are a measure of how much you know in certain

subjects. This is not a quality measurement because it does not take in the individualities the

students may have. If a student excels in art, music, photography, etc., their talents are looked

over because the content is focused on mathematics, reading, writing, and science. The schools

want the students to conform to the tests rather than embrace their individualities. I believe that

everyone should embrace their individualities rather than trying to conform to the standards set

by society. This also goes hand and hand with women comparing themselves to celebrities. The

standards set by society are that women should be skinny, have a big bust, small waist, big butt,

and clear skin. Women see celebrities, like the Kardashians, and compare themselves to them

even though they artificially altered themselves. Women then view themselves as not ideal

because they are comparing themselves to what the average celebrity looks like, even though

their representation is mostly fake. This is an enormous problem in our society because it drives

women to alter their bodies by getting plastic surgery just to be “ideal” in their minds, making

them conform to the average, rather than embracing their unique body.

Sir Francis Galton was another person who contributed to the age of average. Galton

agreed with Quetelet’s ideas that “average member of a group represented that group’s type,” but

Galton rejected Quetelet’s idea that the error was a deviation from the average (p. 33). Instead,

Galton believed in replacing the word error with rank. This meant that if you were above the

average then you are superior, and if you are below the average then you are inferior. Galton also

believed that if you were superior in one aspect then you are superior in all aspects and the same

for being inferior. The mistake Galton made was not realizing everyone has individualities,

meaning people can be superior in one aspect but inferior in another.

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Fredrick Winslow Taylor is the person behind standardization in the work force. Taylor

proposed that the work force should not hire people and let the company conform to those hired,

rather hire people and have the people conform to the company. This took away many

individualities people can bring to a company to make it thrive. As seen later in the book, Costco

and Google threw the standardizations away and hired people based on their individualities. This

made their companies thrive because their employees are happier making them contribute more

to the company. I believe Taylorism should be thrown out and work places should embrace

workers’ individualities because it would make the companies thrive more. When you strip away

workers’ individualities, it makes them unhappy and they will not produce quality work, making

the company perform at a low level.

Taylorism also contributed its view to education. Educational Taylorists believed

students should conform to the schools rather than the schools conforming to the students. This

strips away the individualities of the students because the schools became so regulated to

produce a large number of students to work in the Taylorist factories. Even though we are past

the industrial age, schools have changed very little from this. Schools are not adequately

preparing students because the jobs needed back then are not like the jobs needed now. We are in

a world of technology, which is replacing the basic jobs that people completed in the past.

Innovations in technology are constantly being produced, yet schools are not changing the way

they are structured to educate students to function in a technologically advanced society.

Students now need to know how to code and fix machines rather than work on the assembly line,

which requires a vast amount of knowledge. I believe our educational system has to change if we

want to people to know how to function in this society and abroad since we are technically

behind in education compared to the world. It is sad to think that we may have to experience a
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downfall where people are not educated enough to perform jobs to help society function. This

may have to happen in order to make people realize that our educational system needs to change.

Peter Molenaar came to the conclusion that averages were not the best way to measure

people when he was reading a textbook that was required for anyone who wanted to design

standardized tests. I find this highly ironic since standardized tests whole-heartedly ignore

peoples’ individualities when they take them. Molenaar realized that “the fatal flaw of

averagarianism was its paradoxical assumption that you could understand individuals by

ignoring their individuality” (p.62). Even though Molenaar presented this to many scientists, he

was faced with backlash because the average was the easiest and quickest way to sift through

data. I absolutely agree with Molenaar’s findings and the individual-first approach he came up

with. If we put individuality first, then our results problems will be superior, instead of relying

on the average. We need to embrace individuality rather than trying to destroy it.
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References

Rose, T. (2017). The End of Average: Unlocking Our Potential by Embracing What Makes Us

Different. New York: HarperCollins.