humanlifereview.com
2026-09-18
The idiomatic expressions "lowering the bar" and its opposite "raising the bar" have their modern-day roots in pole vaulting competitions--although it's unlikely many of us find our inner dictionaries turning to that reference page, so ingrained is that phrase in our minds that we accept it automatically. And it's likewise unlikely we'll reflect on the origins of that Track and Field event in ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Irish civilizations, where pole-vaulting began as a practical survival method. In Egypt it was used for scaling walls and crossing irrigation ditches, the Greeks used poles to leap over rivers and marshlands and in Ireland pole vaulting arose from the need to get over natural barriers in the countryside while making one's way from one destination to the next. And you thought your daily commute was rough!
These uses by very early societies demonstrate an intuitive grasp of pole leveraging principles, how the vaulter's body is a lever, the pole is the fulcrum, the height at which the vaulter grips the pole effects the leverage and ascent. Personally, when I visualize raising and lowering a bar, as often as not my mind goes to the Limbo, a Trinidadian dance craze from the '50s and '60s wherein one bends backward and passes under a bar: "How low can you go" defines success. I don't have a particular interest in '50s and '80s dance crazes. More like . . . an intuitive sense of the modern-day practice of adjusting standards downward and calling it a win?