Excellence, which can be defined as the state of excelling and of surpassing merit, is now increasingly one of the lost words of the English language. And increasingly the special qualities that this word denotes are banned in a nation which imposes diversity and political correctitude. Today, it is dangerously incriminating for one to cite or endorse these words spoken back in the seventeenth century by Bishop Joseph Butler, English theologian and moral philosopher: “Superior excellence of any kind…is the object of awe and reverence to all creatures.” We are now rarely urged to follow paths to excellence, no more than we are expected to reverse standards of excellence. Both the idea and the act of excellence are relegated to the elitism that “terrible simplifiers” seek to erase from life. In consequence, it is also a word that one hardly or ever encounters on a metaphysical level of discussion. If excellence is noticed at all, as in the world of athletes, of entertainers, and of college and university administrators, it generally has a commercial and empirical significance. Spiritual and noetic elements of excellence are simply not recognized in this time of the “New Barbarians.
Excellence predicates aspiration and transcendence, a quest for a higher quality of attainment and, in effect, going beyond the moment—overcoming gravity, so to speak. Excellence asserts a straining motion and movement upwards—”far from the madding crowd.”
See the full article by George Panichas, September 18, 2022