Divination surrounds us. All of us have been subjected to predictive influences of modern-day augurs. I’m not suggesting that, like some ancient soothsayer saying “Beware the Ides of March” to an emperor, someone reading the entrails of birds can foretell your life. Modern soothsayers come in different forms, and they influence how we act.
Take the Social Security Administration’s Actuarial Life Table as an example. If you are 25 years old, the people at Social Security think you will live another 52.34 years if you are male and another 56.77 years if you are female. That’s pretty accurate soothsaying. If you applied that to Julius Caesar, then the soothsayer might have said, “Beware 1:35 p.m. on March 15.” Point 34 and 0.77 are very precise. So, if you were born on January 1, 1993, you, as a male, should live one-third of the year through 2070. As a female, you get to live more than two-thirds of a year through 2074.
Of course, we all know that an actuarial life table is an average. Averages, however, are the bird’s entrails of modern augury. We are bombarded by statistics about who we are and how we live, think, and work. As an example, take an article by Nance Rosen published online by Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ugly-tax-2011-8) that “details” some averages for wages earned by different workers. In the article, Rosen lays out the predestined wages for blondes, tall people, heavy people, and thin people.
All the statistical soothsayers believe you are predestined: Your health, your wealth, your happiness, your relationships, and your lifespan. Some of what they predict might come to varying degrees of fruition. Some will be empty divinations, the products of false augury proclaimed by self-assured prognosticators.
Auguries based on averages can be useful; they can also be life-inhibitors. If something is on average more dangerous to do than not do, then a level of prudence suggests that caution is wise and avoidance is the right action. There’s no more famous example of this than the death of Julius Caesar. Mighty Caesar, having heard the soothsayer’s warning about the Ides of March, asked in seeming trepidation for other soothsayers to divine his future—Brutus, one of the conspirators who stabbed him, convinced Caesar to continue with his planned visit to the Senate. Against his own judgment and driven by his self-proclaimed status as the most powerful man in Rome, Caesar failed to take the warnings of soothsayers and his wife Calpurnia to avoid the Forum and the Senate on that fateful day.
Et tu, Reader? Take to heart statistics that warn you against a danger, but don’t take seriously the statistics that tell you about your “limits” to succeed or excel. “Don’t do such-n-such” is a warning, real, imagined, or averaged. “Don’t try this because you are predestined to fail” is an inhibiting dictum that applies only to an “average,” and not a specific, person. True, you might not make more money than someone “favored” by the augurs, but then you might. True, you might not live to age 80, but then you might surpass it. All around you there are influences telling you who you are and what your limits are. That they are correct for a specific person sometimes is a manifestation of coincidence. No one is the average person. Don’t let any of the soothsayers tell you that you are one.
Take the Social Security Administration’s Actuarial Life Table as an example. If you are 25 years old, the people at Social Security think you will live another 52.34 years if you are male and another 56.77 years if you are female. That’s pretty accurate soothsaying. If you applied that to Julius Caesar, then the soothsayer might have said, “Beware 1:35 p.m. on March 15.” Point 34 and 0.77 are very precise. So, if you were born on January 1, 1993, you, as a male, should live one-third of the year through 2070. As a female, you get to live more than two-thirds of a year through 2074.
Of course, we all know that an actuarial life table is an average. Averages, however, are the bird’s entrails of modern augury. We are bombarded by statistics about who we are and how we live, think, and work. As an example, take an article by Nance Rosen published online by Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ugly-tax-2011-8) that “details” some averages for wages earned by different workers. In the article, Rosen lays out the predestined wages for blondes, tall people, heavy people, and thin people.
All the statistical soothsayers believe you are predestined: Your health, your wealth, your happiness, your relationships, and your lifespan. Some of what they predict might come to varying degrees of fruition. Some will be empty divinations, the products of false augury proclaimed by self-assured prognosticators.
Auguries based on averages can be useful; they can also be life-inhibitors. If something is on average more dangerous to do than not do, then a level of prudence suggests that caution is wise and avoidance is the right action. There’s no more famous example of this than the death of Julius Caesar. Mighty Caesar, having heard the soothsayer’s warning about the Ides of March, asked in seeming trepidation for other soothsayers to divine his future—Brutus, one of the conspirators who stabbed him, convinced Caesar to continue with his planned visit to the Senate. Against his own judgment and driven by his self-proclaimed status as the most powerful man in Rome, Caesar failed to take the warnings of soothsayers and his wife Calpurnia to avoid the Forum and the Senate on that fateful day.
Et tu, Reader? Take to heart statistics that warn you against a danger, but don’t take seriously the statistics that tell you about your “limits” to succeed or excel. “Don’t do such-n-such” is a warning, real, imagined, or averaged. “Don’t try this because you are predestined to fail” is an inhibiting dictum that applies only to an “average,” and not a specific, person. True, you might not make more money than someone “favored” by the augurs, but then you might. True, you might not live to age 80, but then you might surpass it. All around you there are influences telling you who you are and what your limits are. That they are correct for a specific person sometimes is a manifestation of coincidence. No one is the average person. Don’t let any of the soothsayers tell you that you are one.
RSS Feed