Superlatives are the Worst

“What’s the best sex you ever had?” Even if I could pick one experience and describe it, then what? You would know only one event at the end of a spectrum, which leads to shallow thinking. And you wouldn’t know anything about my sex life.

We see superlatives everywhere, especially in interviews. Often a busy or lazy journalist asks, “What’s the hardest part of your profession?” or “What’s the biggest obstacle to world peace?” or “If you could pick one thing about . . . ?”

Can we inventory the world’s conflicts or a city’s problems, measure them by a standard and declare ONE the most important or biggest? How would we do that? See what affects the most people? What costs the most to remedy? What changes most slowly?

Extreme words work for things we can measure: distance, time, mass, force and other quantities such as people and money. We need to know and say which are the farthest, fastest, newest, largest, heaviest, and most expensive. We can know these quantities and use them to make meaningful comparisons and decisions.

The flawed, shallow thinking comes when we use superlatives for what we cannot measure but only interpret or evaluate.

Should we stop using superlatives? That would be the stupidest thing ever. (See what I mean?)

The best sex I ever had was in my imagination, where everything is perfect.