One of Gardner's most direct arguments concerns the role of standards. He observes a pattern that has only become more visible since his book was published: the tendency, in the name of inclusivity and encouragement, to lower standards to ensure that nobody is excluded or made to feel inadequate. Gardner insists this is a profound error. Standards are not barriers designed to exclude. They are representations of what human beings have discovered it is possible to achieve in a given field. Lowering them does not help the people they are lowered for. It deprives them of the opportunity to discover what they are actually capable of. He draws an analogy: the parent who protects a child from every difficulty and every failure is not protecting the child. They are depriving the child of the experiences through which genuine capability, resilience, and self-knowledge are developed. The teacher who lowers academic expectations to protect students from the discomfort of struggle is not serving them. They are reducing their access to the fullest development of their own potential. High standards, properly applied, are a form of respect: they communicate the belief that the person is capable of more than they are currently producing. They make demands, and demand is the mechanism through which capability grows. An environment without standards is not a kind environment. It is one that has given up on the people within it.