My struggle with 'ratings'

Last week I reviewed the book, 'Enneagram and the Way of Jesus' by AJ Sherrill. I used my normal format for books reviews, which consists of an introduction or what drew me to the book followed by a few brief thoughts on the writing and the content, then ending with what my takeaway was along with my GoodReads rating of it. This felt like a very simple way to help invite people into books that I've read and enjoyed.  

Then I got to thinking about it all these past few days.

And let me say this...I hate ratings.

Yes, hate them. Hate maybe an overstatement but I deeply struggle with them.

My struggle comes because I don't know what others are basing their ratings on.  Is ranking a lint roller 5 stars on the same level as ranking a restaurant 5 stars? Or can a song by Beethoven ever be rated the same as song by Coldplay? The answer is a resounding no of course.  

Now, some places help with ratings by allowing a written review to go along with the star rating, or Amazon even goes as far to add a hate it to love it scale next to the stars themselves for more clarity. All of these things have helped illuminate why someone rated the way they did but still allow for lots of personal preferences. I don't know how to necessarily trust someone's review I don't know, or contribute my own.

In many ways, what I attempt to do in how I rate some thing is an attempt to counter that. It's similar to how I believe grades in academia should work with grades meaning some thing like this:

A - Outstanding level of performance

B - High level of performance

C - Average/Satisfactory level of performance

D - Needs improvement of performance

F - Unsatisfactory level of performance

or in stars:

5 stars = highly transformational, breaking new ground - a work that most likely transcends it's current time period

4 stars = pushes the conversation forward, expands and offers individuals engagement points for their own learning

3 stars = solid work, invites individuals into more but needs work to engage all individuals on the matter

2 stars = nothing particularly stands out - good or bad - nor invites individuals to more.

1 star = the person did some thing, but it wasn't beneficial to anyone

This framework means that most work by a majority of individuals falls into the 'C'/3 star category. Which is not some thing that should be taken as shameful or inadequate but is actually completely acceptable and shows a good competence on a subject. I stumbled onto a quote from a professor at a private school, they were addressing trend of grade inflation over the years and how grades are viewed:

If I give someone a ‘C’ in my class right now it would be viewed not as denoting “average” or “acceptable” performance but rather as “failure” and “mediocrity.” In the distant past a ‘C’ was accepted as the “average” grade and an ‘A’ was seen as a reward for “exceptional performance beyond the call of duty” but now an ‘A’ is seen as “the default grade for someone who did all the homework and demonstrates some competence in the main concepts of the class.”

Truth be told, throughout my education I have experienced this a number of times as I was awarded many A's and B's on papers and for classes simply 'demonstrated competence' of concepts. I remember being shocked at receiving these grades but also watched as my fellow classmates would complain about receiving similar grades, believing they deserved more often because of the time they put into it.  

I saw a resistance to or belief that anything less than the 5 or A is inadequate.

In many ways, as this professor has stated, over the course of years, we have been trained to only accept highest grades/ratings as acceptable or 'average'.  

The reality is that most of us are just 'average' - yet we have just grown such an aversion to idea that we seek to avoid it all costs. It's unfortunate because in doing so we have lost the ability to clearly distinguish the experts, influencers and leaders in a field - and at it's worst have become to believe that we are the expert and can discount those who actually are.

I say all of this to say again... I hate rating.

I hate rating because it causes me to talk about of both sides of my mouth. I can say and believe all that I just wrote, then quick acknowledge that there is some thing very different when it comes to art or literature. Any sort of standardized rating system works great on items like a washing machine, where a product can be evaluated and compared using the same criteria. But when viewing piece of art, when hearing the opening chords of song, or reading a new thought or poem for the first time, those things have the ability to tug at us in ways we can't necessary quantify. These things have a way of rewiring our brains and clearing our thoughts in incredible ways.

So when it comes to forms of art or literature, it's not quite as easy. I can't help but think of this brilliant scene from Dead Poets Society that reminds us of that very fact:

Works of literature and art - in all it's forms - move us in different ways, and we must engage them differently. Ratings will never be perfect and in the end the important part is that we humbly engage whatever content that is in front of us well and describe our experience with it as honestly as we can.

So how then do you engage rating? I'd love to hear your thoughts and push back.