Eureka! Another way that won’t work!

Sturgeon’s Law: Ninety Percent of Everything is Crap.

All too true, really. But why is that?  We should strongly suspect, in fact we should believe, that the 90% is necessary to the 10%. The road to heaven is paved with repented errors.

We should expect to see Sturgeon’s Law in action in the sacred spheres too, in the family and in the church. Most marital interactions will not burn with the white heat of romance. Your children will have a handful of highly formative experiences as you raise them. But only a handful. Most days you’ll lecture them and they’ll nod and forget. Most hometeaching visits will be instantly forgettable.

The forgettable hometeaching visits lay the ground for the powerful ones—because of them, the relationship is there when it is needed. Same with family. Same with love.

All the same, the 90% deserves more attention for itself, not just for the 10% it enables.  This is the JG Corollary to Sturgeon’s Law: The Real Measure of an Institution or Culture is the Quality of Its Mediocrity.

(The JG Corollary is related to the old time sociologist who argued that the decent poor were the backbone of any culture. The folks who didn’t reap much in the way of rewards, and didn’t excel either, but plugged away).

By the JG Corollary, we in the Church do pretty well. Our ordinary work is bland but still fairly nutritious.

Progressives generally refuse to accept Sturgeon’s Law, which is one root of their apostasy. The prole version asks “Why is my bishop mean to me?” and the progressive activist asks, “Why doesn’t the Church do more to recognize my hurt when my bishop is mean to me?” and neither will accept that the only kinds of stones that can roll are rough ones.

Satan’s rebellion partakes of that kind of childishness. Milton made it a lofty issue of a refusal to bow, whereas the Pearl of Great Price indicates that Satan and his minions were sulking that their path to the throne of glory involved skulking around in a defective meat package on a gigantic mud ball. They thought it was icky and might be risky.  Not pride, but petulance.