It goes back to treating ppl as numbers. It started with the field of new field of statistics, which gained popularity in the early part of the 20th century and the application of the Bell Curve to children and ‘norms’ of people and its pressure is nearly inescapable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function
It TOTALLY KILLED Progressivism, within which the great scientific minds of the 40s-50s were but schoolkids in in the 20s. [that’s one of my pet theories – sorry tongue emoticon ]
Well, that and WWII. But 2015, statistics rule, individualism drools and it’s a damn sucky shame ’cause it’s hasn’t changed.