Most of us probably like to think of ourselves as ’normal’.
But we might not want to think of ourselves as ‘average’.
I got an email from a friend yesterday — a friend who admires Donald Trump — that posed a tricky question:
Why do average Americans hate the only president who tried to help us?
Which got me thinking about average Americans.
We write about ‘averages’ here in the Daily Post, on a pretty regular basis. The average wage in the local hospitality industry, for example. The average rent charged for a two-bedroom house with a roof that doesn’t leak. The average scores achieved by our public school students on standardized tests designed by people who have never taught school.
Those kinds of averages. Sets of numbers that have a top, and a bottom, and a middle. And smack dab in the middle, is the “average”, which we often take to be an especially important number, even though it’s entirely imaginary.
But my friend’s question got me thinking about a different type of “average”.
Your average American.
I suppose we could, if we wanted, define an “average American” in a variety of ways. We could reckon the “average” based on height and weight, or age, or education, or whether a person was married… or based on income, or number of days he or she has spent in jail, or by looking at sexual preferences, or whether they lived in a big city or a small town, or based on political inclinations.
I suppose, technically speaking, an “average American” would have to meet the median of all of these measures: average height and wright, average income, average marital status, average number of children, average intelligence, and so on. Roll all these measures into one single personality, and we’d have something that could rightfully be labeled as an “average American”.
I sincerely doubt any such person could be found living in Pagosa Springs.
As I suggested above, an “average” is an entirely imaginary thing. The truth is, every real person, and every real measurement, is either “above average” or “below average” on whatever scale we’re referencing. “Average” doesn’t exist in reality.
But my friend was not using the term in this sense, of course. Not even close.
I wrote back, asking what he meant, exactly, by the “average Americans who hate the only president who tried to help us?”
He responded:
Average Americans are people I have talked to who are or were Trump haters.
So here we have a very simple and straightforward definition of an “average American”. It’s anyone my friend has talked to, who hates Donald Trump, or who once hated Donald Trump.
If you haven’t felt hatred for Donald Trump at some point in time… then I guess you’re not an average American?
I’m personally uncomfortable with the word, “hate”, when used to describe a person’s political convictions. My preferences, when writing about the dislike people might feel for a certain political or cultural leader, tend towards terms like “loathe” or “despise”… or perhaps, “I don’t trust [insert politician’s name here] as far as I can throw him.” Or her.
“Hate” seems like an awfully strong emotion to assign to all “average Americans”.
Here we come up against another definitional dilemma, however. If the people who, without wavering, have consistently considered Donald Trump to be their hero, are not your “average Americans”… then what are they?
I think we can agree that they are still Americans. They might even be “more American” than the “average American”… in which case, we would be tempted to define a person who voted for Donald Trump in last year’s election — and who would vote for him again and again in the future — as an “above-average American.”
My email friend says he thinks I “think too much” about these kinds of things. And that might be true, in the sense that some people don’t bother to think about such things, so a person like myself feels compelled to think especially hard, to make up for people who aren’t thinking at all.
I wouldn’t classify myself as an “average American”. In fact, I don’t know anyone who I would classify as an “average American” — no matter who they voted for last November, or whether they even voted at all.
Certainly, my friend is not even close to being an “average American.” No matter who he voted for.
But his question remains unresolved.
Why do average Americans hate the only president who tried to help us?
Well, since we’ve come this far, let’s make an attempt at an answer.
There is no such thing as an “average American.”
Therefore, there are no “average Americans” who hate the only president who tried to help us.
There might be Americans who have opinions about Donald Trump, but they are either “above average” or “below average”…
That’s about as far as my thinking can take me, for now.