Self Maid

For the first time in recent memory, decline is being met with apathy, or at least toleration. From customer service to craftsmanship, from civic etiquette to the small courtesies of daily life, standards are softening not under the weight of scarcity or crisis, but through a cultural recalibration of what’s “good enough.”

Until now, we have not been under the austerity of wartime or the improvisation of recession. But a quiet complacency has taken over in an age of convenience and abundance. When next-day delivery, frictionless subscriptions, and algorithmic recommendations promise non-stop satisfaction, the incentive to demand better has eroded. The result is a society content with mediocrity dressed as accessibility. Where speed is preferred over thoughtfulness and where “fine” has replaced “excellent.”

When Lowering the bar is Disguised as a Progress Bar

Walk into a café that prides itself on “artisanal” coffee, and you might find a cup that’s tepid, hurriedly made, yet still commanding a premium. Call customer service, and you’ll likely meet a script, not a person. Even in personal conduct, politeness and punctuality, once cornerstones of civil life, now seem optional.

It’s not that people are incapable of higher standards; rather, the cultural pressure to maintain them has faded. The pandemic normalized a certain looseness: sweatpants on video calls, delayed responses, half-efforts justified as self-care. Many of these shifts were understandable at the time, but they have since hardened into habit.

The Paradox of Plenty

Ironically, this decline arrives at a time when access to quality has never been easier. Knowledge, design, and education circulate freely online. Yet the abundance of choice has dulled discernment. Why seek the best when “good enough” arrives faster and cheaper? Why refine taste when trends change hourly?

This flattening of expectation stretches from products to people. Influencer culture prizes relatability over refinement; corporations prioritize speed over substance. The collective result is an ambient lowering of the bar, a soft cultural shrug.

A Call for the Demanding

If there’s hope, it lies in the growing number of quiet dissenters, craftspeople, restaurateurs, perfectionists, consumers with taste, who resist the erosion. They still iron their shirts, walk on the right side of the sidewalk, try things on in person instead of trusting the online photos, and don’t believe every review. Their rebellion is not nostalgic but civic. They remind us that standards in service, in production, in taste, and in behaviour are not elitist affectations but expressions of care.

To demand better is not to be difficult; it is to participate in the maintenance of civilization.

As the age of the acceptable deepens, the challenge will be to remember that “good enough” is rarely that.