Seriously, American Idol from the beginning has been unwittingly dishing out some rather profound personal and philosophical insight.

For the last few weeks we’ve watched people wandering in from the community and auditioning raw before Randy, Paula, and Simon with hopes of being selected to move on to the next stage in Hollywood, the auditioning hopefuls fall into four basic groups. The first are those who actually have enough talent on display or discernible cachet to be chosen to move up. Second are those who are pretty good, but not good enough to move up (we don’t see many of those on the broadcast—not enough drama). Third are those who know they are bad singers and are there for their fifteen minutes of fame or the thrill. Most of the lessons about American culture, though, come from the fourth category which is composed of those who really do think they are good, but are, in reality, atrocious by any objective measure.

Every morning after a broadcast, viewers from across the country are standing around water coolers in offices asking, “Those disastrous singers don’t really think they’re good, do they?” The answer is an unqualified “yes.”There are two reasons for this that provide windows into our cultural mindset. The first is that no one tells these poor souls they are horrific singers. Every one of them thinks they come from Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. Think of the nationally televised embarrassment a couple of good friends or an honest family member would have saved the pitiable wannabes. The second reason many of these people think they are good is that they have swallowed a very popular American lie that has been a creedal statement in the public school system for years: if you believe in yourself, you can do anything!

Unlearning an off-kilter cultural platitude can be a painful thing--and certainly one does not have to be as nasty as Simon to teach the new lesson. But there is no getting around it, believing something does not make it true. There are objective standards to aural beauty and Simon enforces them without much cushioning. But reality is not a bad place to live in the long run. Like Woody Allen wrote, I hated “reality but realized it was the only place to get a good steak.” God made us all very different and “believing” you are what you are not is not going to change things. The faster we learn that in life--especially through honest evaluations from trusted friends and family--the straighter the path to a good steak.