The Shifting Sands of Standards - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2001 by Gerald F. Kreyche

FEW PEOPLE have given much thought as to how standards enter and govern their lives--that is until the Florida presidential election posed the problem of chads. Various counties there hand-counted votes differently. For some, to be valid, a chad had to be totally disengaged from the ballot for the vote. Others accepted ballots with hanging chads, pregnant chads, dimpled chads, etc. Then, we realized the importance and necessity of standards.

The truth is that all of us are affected by standards every day in every walk of life, as there are moral standards, standards of mores or customs, scientific standards, etc. Some are absolute and precise, while others such as cultural norms are relative and evolving.

Few would question the near-constant flux of mores and moral standards. Divorce was frowned upon, if not actually regarded as a disgrace, no less than 50 years ago. Today, cohabitation virtually is the norm rather than exception for people who are considering marriage; indeed, for many not considering it. Legally, abortion is a woman's choice (in all but a few cases having no concern for the father's views).

Homosexuality was still closeted in those earlier times, whereas today, television, movies, and books deal with it euphemistically as another "lifestyle." Hollywood has come a long way (read, retrogressed) in encouraging looser morals. As the George and Ira Gershwin song had it, "In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something shocking, but now, heaven knows, anything goes." How true, as we now see navels, flanks, and bosoms displayed daily. Modern clothing often is more meant to reveal than conceal.

Government involvement

One major difference between today and yesteryear is the greater involvement of government in creating and enforcing standards in nearly all walks of life. Many of these regulations are for the common good; others, pure bureaucracy.

Recently, Washington issued standards by which one legitimately could advertise food as organic. Its latest ukase requires hospitals to focus on relieving patients' pain by having them assess this subjective, but real, condition on a scale of one to 10. Under threat of withholding highway funds, it is seeking to standardize the drunken driver blood test at .08 saturation. Supposedly, nearly 2,000,000 workers are employed in repetitive motion jobs such as typing and packing, resulting in carpal tunnel syndrome and other workplace complaints. This has prompted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), that governmental gadfly of business, to seek to require all sorts of new regulatory standards in ergonomics, most of which the Bush Administration shot down.

There are precise, but different, standards of measurement, the translation of which is always dangerous in the movement from one system to the other. The metric system vs. the numerical system used in the U.S. is a case in point. Metrics are still confusing to most Americans, who stubbornly refuse to budge and adopt its logical basis.

Some time ago, the National Parks Service determined to educate Americans in the use of meters in its maps. They were bucking an irresistible force, however, as few understood the height of Alaska's Mt. Denali as 6,194 meters. (A meter, of course, is equal to 39.37 inches, but they weren't about to use their calculators for the translation.) Now, the maps have both metric and U.S. measurements. Those who drive through Canada are often confused by a gallon of gas being the equivalent of 1.2 U.S. gallons, and "mileage" signs listed in kilometers.

This use of double standards, each precise in its own category, recently resulted in a failed Mars Mission that cost millions of dollars. In that project, some measurements employed the metric system, while others did not. The expensive error would not have occurred had we but one system.

Interestingly, medicine and laboratories in this country generally use the metric system, as the labels of the former read in grams, not ounces. (Four hundred and fifty-three grams equals one pound.) Household measuring cups usually include both measurements, but the American housewife invariably sticks with one, while the rest of the world clings to the other.

All at sea

Worse yet are the different standards for speed and mileage at sea, which is given in knots (about 2.2 mph) and nautical miles (1.15 statute mile). Landlubbers not only can't understand those, but wouldn't even know the time of day at sea, indicated by bells rather than hours. Fathoms (six-foot lengths) are used instead of feet or the metric measure. What would an American cruise passenger think if the ship's captain reported that, at eight bells, the craft was traveling 15 knots and the depth of the sea at that point was 30 fathoms?

In weights, there remain in use the long ton (2,240 pounds) and the short ton (2,000) pounds). In golf, Great Britain uses a smaller ball than the U.S. In a sport such as track, Europe features 400- or 100-meter races as standards. In the U.S., they are the quarter-mile or 100-yard dash.