Your Place On The Likert Scale

You’ve probably heard it posed to you this way: ‘On a scale of 1-5 how is your pain?’ Or, maybe this way: ‘How would you rate the new Corvette on a scale of 1-10?’ Today we often use the highest number as the most exquisite representation in our evaluations, but previously it was the lowest number that denoted the best (i.e., a grade 1 or grade A potato)

I have a favorite story that uses the earlier version of the Likert Scale I heard related by a man whom I admire named George Durrant. When George was a soldier in the Korean War the American troops were served their meals by South Korean waiters. At mealtime, because of his lowly military rank, Private Durrant had to take his place at the end of the food line and get his own food while those of higher rank were served by the Korean waiters. Because of the kindly way he greeted and treated the South Koreans with whom he came in daily contact it became known to the Koreans that Private Durrant was a Christian. Inasmuch as his behavior contrasted to the behaviors of a number of his military comrades, who also came from an ostensibly Christian nation, and therefore were assumed to be Christians, the waiters one day presented George with a wonderful plate of food and said to him, ‘You a number one Christian.’

People are always evaluating, judging, imputing or assigning a value to each other. As previously stated in an Omnium-Gatherum essay, ‘Where ere thou art, act well thy part.’

How do you measure up in all the important ways in your life? How do you want to be known? Are you a ‘number one’? “Let a man examine himself,” (1 Cor. 11:28), the Apostle Paul writes, for surely others are doing it for you.