This post is the last in a short series about the things that unite us: memory, faith, belonging, and excellence. In today’s post, we ask how we can respect distinction without disrespecting equality.
Excellence used to be a virtue. Now we can say, “It depends.”
In extreme terms, “excellent” people become obsessed with their own talent. Success becomes the only proof of worth. Failure is pushed to the side. Until excellence itself is defined by the eradication of failure, achievement will remain entrenched in captivity rather than freedom. It’s hard to find shadows in showrooms.
A Jewish midrash warns, “To grasp too much is to grasp nothing.”
This warning focuses on what Aristotle knew and what I return to again and again. True excellence, that’s what he called it. Arete— was never just a measure of performance. It was a character formed by habit, judgment, and community life. But we have separated excellence from its moral pillars and handed it over to institutions, rankings, resumes, and managers. I don’t know when it happened.
Once we accept that talent is universal but opportunity is not, excellence can no longer be seen as a neutral virtue. I had to say, “It depends.” Because unexamined excellence can easily become a rigid meritocracy, where privilege can look like merit. And the results legitimize the new elite. Excellence without equality becomes aristocracy. Equality without excellence is avoidance.
Giving everyone the same starting line is fine even if some runners have shoes on and others are barefoot. At its best, equity provides a range of tools to help people reach their potential. At worst, it becomes bureaucracy, turning differences into injuries and standards into threats.
The problem is not excellence itself, but when it becomes a protection against failure. Flaws look like revelations, mistakes look like evidence, and rough edges look like flaws. We inflate the definition of “excellence” until ordinary people can no longer be ordinary. We cannot be unfinished when life is treated like an exhibit.
That is why our culture oscillates between tolerance and strictness. Once everyone gets a gold star, discipline returns with a vengeance. Universities will move to pass/fail grading, and then stricter standards will re-emerge than before. We confuse mercy with indulgence, standards with punishment. This is still not resolved. I don’t know if I can do it.
Fear of failure is socially learned. Excellence is a performance evaluation. Grammarly, AI editors, predictive text, and style checkers promise to remove risk before your writing hits the page.
Meanwhile, the tutorial explains how to hide the signs of AI use: remove em dashes, avoid colons, and kill the now questionable “Y, not X” expression. The AI even claims to detect itself, advising writers to “become more human” by using personal pronouns and making occasional mistakes. We’ve reached a strange moment where the word “excellence” sounds more like software than human.
If I write this in a Substack post, my editor (a human) will probably say it’s too long.
The philosopher Jean Baudrillard has a quote that always comes to mind. “The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artificial intelligence and therefore lacks intelligence.” What it doesn’t lack is leverage. The more seamlessly AI is integrated into work life, the clearer the question becomes: whose excellence is being optimized?
Plato believed that the problem begins with writing, which of course is expressed in writing. in PhaedrusHe warned that the written word only offers “sham wisdom.” By honing in on our own shortcomings, we fall right into that trap. They mistake correctness for thinking, accuracy for wisdom, and polish for perfection.
After all, languages are shaped by the common and clever ways in which their speakers bend the rules. We follow rules in order to be understood. We bend to make them known.
Another midrash cuts to its core. “The law was not given to ministering angels.” True excellence never means being perfect. It belongs entirely to the messy, unfinished, unedited reality of human existence.
A similar truth is revealed in the book of Exodus. The shortest route to the Promised Land was an 11-day march straight along the coast. But God did not lead the people that way. If faced with war too soon, they would panic and return to Egypt. Instead, they were sent to the desert. The long journey wasn’t a punishment, it was a necessity. The newly released prisoners simply could not set foot in a new homeland and keep it.
By avoiding the shortcuts that Nathaniel Hawthorne called “the railroads of heaven,” they bought themselves time to break free of their slave mentality. The desert could shape people, test them, and give them freedom.
The same goes for excellence. When it solidifies as a program for eliminating risks, mistakes, embarrassments, and delays, what remains is false excellence: competence without struggle, polish without depth, achievement without inward growth.
Those of us who think for a living want to think more deeply. (I should know.)
George Orwell was profound. he said: “It takes constant effort to see what’s right in front of you.”
A good life is not mistaken for a smooth arrival. Perhaps Aristotle was right. No matter what happens in life, excellence is not a measure of success, but a habit of character. I think that’s probably more comforting than it needs to be.
notes and reading
Aristotle, Nicomachean ethicsBook I, 1100b–1101a. Aristotle gives grounds for excellence (Arete) stable characters (Hexis) Rather than superficial luck, truly excellent people endure fate gracefully with a “great and gentle soul.” As a naturalist, he would have perceived the human brain itself as follows. Arete Practice: Life skills that are formed through experience and grow through practice. We keep measuring ourselves against machines. A more straightforward question is why have we stopped marveling at what we already have?
On the bureaucratization of virtue. When you turn deep human traits into a manager’s checklist, excellence is no longer about character. That would be a safety precaution. As the Greek and Jewish traditions remind us, true growth requires friction and a journey through the wilderness. True excellence cannot survive in sterile showrooms designed to hide our mistakes. —See “Culture as Formation” by John Milbank and Adrian Pabst politics of virtue (2016).
Another AI. “Steve Wozniak is a compelling speaker on Apple, AI, and pranks.” lehigh university newsJanuary 30, 2026. Wozniak received a standing ovation in front of an audience of students who are known for criticizing other AI luminaries. He criticized the formulaic nature of artificial output and its inability to reproduce biological consciousness, while emphasizing the growing capacity of a necessary alternative: alternative AI (the actual intelligence of the human mind) to direct and improve machines.
The Wisdom of Elwood P. Dowd. From Jimmy Stewart’s famous monologue harvey (1950): “Years ago, my mother used to say to me, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” — she always called me Elwood — “In this world, you must be very smart, or very fun.” Well, over the years, I was smart. I recommend fun. Feel free to quote me.”
inner hive
purple goddess
Approximately 2+2=5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
