Soundbite: In Search of the Average American

Kerry Howley from the February 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

 

A: If you look back at the 19th century, very few people assumed Americans were automatically the same kind of people. There were attempts to Americanize, but there was much more recognition than there is now that there was a vast array of different kinds of people, cultures, traditions, that existed. We somehow think now that there was something shared that has been lost. I've become convinced that that's not true.

 

Q: How have not-so-average Americans used survey data?

 

A: One of the most interesting actual uses of statistical data has been the gay rights movement using Kinsey's figures to proclaim that they are 10 percent of the population. There is a Boston radio station that calls itself 1 in 10 and is designed for the gay and lesbian community there. That suggests to me that a group believes higher numbers lead to a kind of legitimacy in the public sphere, but also something problematic. If you've put your energies into establishing that number as something significant politically, you run into trouble if you discover that number is not actually representative. And that figure has been attacked again and again both by statisticians and from people on the right.

 

Q: What does the self-help industry owe to survey techniques?

 

A: The self-help industry plays to some of the same desires that Americans have: to confess, to answer questions, to know themselves better, and to know how they fit into a statistical distribution. The idea that a set of questions tells you more about yourself than you already knew is part of a modern movement toward a kind of self-consciousness.

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