In the worlds of big-time entertainment, sports, and politics, competitions that should be at least somewhat exclusive have evolved into the equivalent of parties where no one is left off the guest list. It’s a curious thing. When it comes to the games kids play, we fume about the everybody-gets-a-trophy ethos. When it comes to education, we rail against grade inflation and “social promotion’’ for the sake of self-esteem. Then we shrug as those very same concepts take hold elsewhere in the culture.
Consider:
■ Starting in a couple of weeks, a whopping 68 teams will compete in the NCAA’s “March Madness’’ — the largest number in the tournament’s history — to be crowned the men’s national college basketball champion. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky: There had been feverish talk of expanding even more, to 96 teams — a development that would have drastically cut into American productivity as skulls imploded in office pools across the country.
■ In January, when “American Idol’’ kicked off its 10th season — and its first without Simon Cowell, that merciless enforcer of standards — the show hosted 327 singers from regional auditions in the Hollywood round, twice as many as in previous years. “Idol’’ also expanded the universe of those eligible to compete by lowering the age limit to 15. Cowell will cast the net even wider in his new talent show, “The X Factor,’’ where contestants as young as 12 will be allowed to compete, down from 14 in the British version of the show.
■ The citizenry is bracing for that quadrennial outbreak of self-delusion known as the presidential campaign, in which a flotilla of candidates blithely offer themselves for election, undeterred by the fact that often the only person who thinks they are qualified to be president is the one staring back at them from the bathroom mirror.
■ Professional sports leagues have turned Darwinism on its head: not survival of the fittest but survival of pretty much everybody. In fact, it has gotten nearly impossible for pro teams not to make the playoffs.
