Well documented and deeply thought, "Mediocracy" by Alain Deneault examines the tendency in modern society to accept the mediocre, to strive to not stand out, and to underthink everything. Essentially a scary critique of modern success.

Deneault offers some thought provocking ideas. Still his generalisations were too much.
Good: how he followed his ideas and the structure of this essai.

Alain Deneault’s Mediocracy is a collection of essays in the French understanding of them. They represent thought modules that have a common base – inequality and corruption. Deneault pretends it is because of the mediocre quality of Homo sapiens. It drives his narrative and it’s a breathtaking ride.

Catharine Browne has done a splendid job translating from the French, often noting that the original had two possible meanings by the choice of words, and explaining context from French history and culture. It makes reading the book a double education.

Mediocracy begins with lots of small insights that are perceptive and memorable. “American universities have progressively become philistine schools where misogyny, racism and alcoholism are openly cultivated.” And, the wealthy cannot be original, they can only be the origin of creative endeavors through their control and sponsorship.

Deneault is at his most entertaining describing the miasma of academic writing. It’s not enough to constantly publish mediocre papers – to keep ahead of the competition at other schools - but academics like to put quotation marks around perfectly ordinary words as if they had a unique approach to their meaning (“learning”, “children”). That a whole library of prefixes like bio-, techno-, cyber- and homo- disguise otherwise elementary (at best) concepts. And there’s the revolting habit of pluralizing collective nouns to make then seem significant (“resurgences”). For communicating: “We can only conclude that PowerPoint extinguishes the mind’s autonomy.” It’s a product of no time for research and writing, too much time in bureaucracy and so much pressure to publish that academics have taken to sharing papers with numerous counterparts to gain more publishing credits. It’s a pity party for professors.

But from that chapter on universities, the book descends into the usual leftist screed, decrying the decline of unions, the ascent of the corporation, the arrogance of the wealthy, the co-opting of art, the rape of colonies, the hypocrisy of democracy and the lie of government. Deneault’s analyses are dead on, but, dare I say it, mediocre.

He complains about all the labels we divide politics into. There’s liberal and conservative and variations of them, but they’re all just sides of the same mediocre coin. The left has simply self-destructed and no longer represents anything, even to itself. His keenest contribution is “but” as in neoliberal-but, socialist-but and so on, leading everyone back to the mediocre center. Except he does not call it mediocre. For Deneault, it is the “extreme center”.

What is most striking is the relentless negativity. Deneault sees evil everywhere. Some is from mediocrity, but it’s mostly standard corruption and greed. He never gives examples of a better way. There are zero heroes to point to. No examples where anyone has broken away from mediocrity. There doesn’t appear to be a single leader of a company, a city or a country who is not a living disaster area for mankind.

The main problem is that Deneault does not make his case. Mediocrity is everywhere (and always has been). But it is not the cause of our woes and it is not at the center of our corruption. It is the very level of crime and corruption that ruins every aspect of society that is the problem. Deneault demonstrates it repeatedly throughout, despite his thesis. The mediocre have inherited the earth, but it is still run by the criminally greedy.

David Wineberg

I received an ARC of the soon to be published English translation of Mediocracy from Netgalley. As I was reading this book I found myself drawn in and disturbed by the accuracy of what Denault shared with the reader. His historical explanation for how mediocracy has shaped every aspect of society and life was very detailed. The original French publication was published in 2015. At first, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy reading a translation but the translator provided an easy to read style of translation, as well as some context and explanation for Denault's writing style. I found Deneault's commentary and analysis to be highly accurate. The only note I will mention in disagreement with Alain Deneault is that although Justin Trudeau is a mediocre politician in terms of experience, performance and general leadership, I would highly disagree with his categorization of Trudeau as a centrist in any sense of the definition. This may not have been evident in 2015 when the book was written but in 2018, Trudeau is clearly a left-wing politician based on his speeches alone, and further evidenced by his policies. Overall, this book is an excellent read and I recommend it to any fans of sociology, politics and current events!

The new English translation of “La médiocratie” by Between the Lines with its flashy cover and fiery description looks very charming. And it proved to be a fruitful reading for me; but not for the reasons I thought: there was no deconstruction of the event of the rise of the performative centrist politicians à la Macron or Trudeau, but still there were a lot of issues to ponder on.

The translator’s note mentions the genre of the book (essai) and it was very useful for my reading experience as the author moves from subject to subject in a short amount of pages. It could have been a little disorienting for the reader without the short introduction from the translator.

But the main charm of the book is the thorough discussion of our predicament in our societies: obvious/not-so-obvious, usually latent tyranny of the average, mediocre, moyen. While I have tried to expand my knowledge of French in the past to overcome my long-standing 100-word vocabulary, the moyen connection was refreshing to remember (also in English): the instrumental reason that dominates our actions and pushes us to be “mediocre” can also be expressed by moyen in French in a much more similar fashion how one uses the word “mean” in English. The one example given by author to explain the tyranny of the mediocre is academia. As it is almost entirely commercialized through grants and non-stop pressure for productivity, it is also infamous for excommunicating the ones who deviate from the “mean”. As a result, an aspiring academic’s only option is usually “playing the game” (a nod to the best TV show ever, The Wire that Fredric Jameson also utilized as a cultural commentary for our times) which is at best ambiguous in its contents, rules and scope. This cycle of mediocre production is relentless in its demands and intolerance towards the “deviant”.

Even when deviation from the “mean” is allowed, it is seen as the “excess” of or the “”outlier” within the system and tolerated. Hence, we are totally subsumed to use Negri and Hardt’s parlance under the neo-capitalism (enough with the prefixes, I know, but does neo-liberalism mean anything now as it can be used by anybody for anything?). Yet, the author is not throwing the towel; rather he calls for an action that can be “anything”. By chance, I was reading the pamphlet Now by the Invisible Committee synchronously with this book and some Franco-Italian connections were right there. By “anything”, author means that the left-wing politics is “contingent” by nature, there is no predetermined way. A “now” act could be akin to “exodus” strategy of N&H and autonomists, of establishing a void in the institutions that needs our participation to function. The obvious connection here is also to Lacan: the accumulation process (be it money or things) belongs to the sphere of the drives and as every student of jouissance knows it can’t be satisfied in any case and could end in self-destruction. Hence, a possible step would be stepping out, a strategic anti-consumerism among other things that knows its limits and possible pitfalls.

To finish, author asks the prevalence of the question “what can I do” in the face of total and relentless subsumption we face today. One cannot help but remember the psychopathic protagonist of TV series "The Sopranos", Tony Soprano who often says “whaddayagondo” to communicate incapability and then cruelly acts upon the situation (anything goes in “the game”). While it is important not to fetishize good-old classical anarchist tendency for action, “anything” is better than nothing.

All in all, the book in its completed version is an answer to “Trudeauan game” so to speak: “You’re not going back on your word if you never said anything” according to author Alain Denault. Yes, indeed: we have to say something, “anything” and wary of those who talk too much and says too little.