American Ignorance...

[nadinbrzezinski]

Well just finished readying The Age of American Unreason by Jacoby and there was one section of the book that particularly stood out. During the Haiti disaster more than once I found myself going... LOOK AT A DAMN MAP... my fault and my apologies, unlike the generation of WW II, who were told the same thing by the President of the US, in a far nicer way, during a Fireside Chat... modern day Americans do NOT benefit from looking at a damn map.

There are many reasons for this. Chiefly people lack that sense of spacial knowledge that allows them to know that assembly one point five million men over the course of two years, for Operation Overlord is not easy. Neither it is to send, equip and sustain 55 international teams on the ground in a disaster zone. People today lack the necessary knowledge to understand this, and you know what? It is not truly your fault, but it is. After all the schools no longer do this stupid shtick of teaching geography, and how to read a map. But Americans are an incurious lot, who mostly don't give a hoot.

And it gets worst...

THe Anti Vax movement, as well as other movements relying on junk thought succeed because Americans do not understand percentiles. Why when I said operational tempo increased by about 150% from one day to the next, in my view, that was like asking people to understand that one in a hundred thousand will get GBS from a vaccine. I mean you concentrate on the ONE case that proves that indeed you will have a very small group of people get this horrific condition, but hey, two confirmed and three suspected cases of GBS as of last month after millions of doses given... but I cannot expect people to comprehend this, because there is this lack of literacy in something as simple as percentiles. And it is not just a problem with vaccinations, but also with other multiple scientific standards, and people are proud of it.

Then we go into the civics education. Yes, Tancredo is telling you the truth when he says that people have no civics education. He wants to use that for other political means, like closing the voting booth to those voting while black or Hispanic, but he does have a point. People in the US do not know the first thing about silly shit like the Constitution, their civil rights, or anything like that... and damn it they are proud of it. I mean... activist judges... yes and your point... they are SUPPOSED to interpret the law... that silly shit called separation of powers, yet most people don't KNOW that. Hey first Amendment, we would not be having this crap about the US being a Christian nation... well that same first amendment has something about the Establishment clause and no religious tests for holding office.

I could go on... but that book left me cold... at many levels...

And yes the first step is to increase that intellectual curiosity, good luck, and yes removing people from the electronic teat and getting them to well... READ... I fear that won't happen. On the other hand, telling people to look at a map ain't gonna work, so why do it? And that is a sad statement of where we are as a nation. Ignorant and damn proud of it...

[Taverner]

1. America is the only country where ignorance is celebrated in our schools

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. So true, and where the right sided pointy intellectuals

point to the liberal ones and go, they are the problem... and people believe the right side are not, since they are good chameleons...

Idiocracy, that is where we are going.

[Echo In Light]

3. Ignorance framed in being a 'good' student w/'good' grades & subsequent certificates

Suitable for framing

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Oh that was one of the points she made too

that people are graduating, even from ivy league institutions, with pretty deficient general knowledge, and are damn proud of it.

[Echo In Light]

6. Corporate value$ dictate "reality"

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. This is beyond corporate

Americans have been a highly insular, and yes ignorant population, except for a small percentage from word go.

Why you have seen that conflict between those who wish to educate the masses and those that wish not to educate the masses, and masses that are proud of being ignorant.

Look at oh the colonial period for the origin of this conflict... well beyond the modern corporate mindset of the last thirty years or so.

[Echo In Light]

8. It's more so solidified into the social fabric now though via manipulation of techno abstractions

There's an appearance/illusion of being 'smarter' (more knowledgeable) in this epochal era.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. In my view it has just shifted

it's been there from the beginning.

Patterns like this one do not come to be in thirty years.

That said, the electronic teat helps to magnify the problem.

As she put it, readying used to be a habit of middlebrow people... these days middlebrow culture likes me computers and other distractions.

[Taverner]

10. Oh I think its part of a very concerted effort

By corporations, social darwinists and the religious right

Corporations want students not to question anything, just push the red button and buy shit

Social Darwinists want THEIR kids to beat YOUR kids, so for their kids, nothing but the best and for your kids nothing but the worst

And the Religious Right, hoping that if they just wish hard enough, this whole Evolution and Humanist thing will go away

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. This is the current incarnation

but goes back to before the country became a country

[Taverner]

12. How did it manifest itself in the colonial days?

Was it because of the part slavery played in our history?

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. In pre independence days

readying was just done by the elite and extremely valued.

Early in our history we started with this mistrust of experts, for example in the Jacksonian Period.

Bear in mind for many americans who could read, the only book available was a Bible, a well tattered family copy, but a bible.

Also in colonial days indentured labor came from poorer sections of the society which were hardly literate, but were proud of their folk knowledge.

Now in early independence there was an honest to goodness effort to create national standards for schools, which was fought tooth and nail by fans of local control. Oh the arguments were similar to modern reasons to keep them feds out.

It has, in some ways, taken a more virulent form. But that is also cyclical.

[Oregone]

4. Quick response on the GBS deal

I'm not throwing my weight either way, but what you fail to take into account is that even if the chance of getting GBS is one in a hundred thousand, you must also weigh that against the chance of getting (and suffering highly and/or dying from) the actual disease in a fully vaccinated society. Its not exactly intellectually honest to build one's case on mentioning an isolated number on negligible effects, when you censor other information that may go into the decision. What is tricky here though, is that even if the chance on contraction is less than the side-effects of a vaccine, and more people begin to pass on the vaccine, then this action will alter that very statistic until it is above the chance of suffering from the actual vaccine.


But anyway, I guess my point is that you are trying to make something black and white to make your opponents look like idiots, but its never that simple. Intellectual curiosity would deem that one would explore all facets of the question.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. kick

[MountainLaurel]

15. That book struck such a chord with me.

It really brought to the forefront just how screwed up the situation is.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I know, for me the map section struck a cord

due to how recent we have gone through that song and dance here.

But the whole chapter on junk thought was like OH MY GOD, no wonder the snake oil salesmen have such an easy time.

[MountainLaurel]

17. Indeed

That piece has actually caused me to look into other books about that sort of thing. Unfortunately, living in Louisiana, it's hard to access many of them at the public library.

[MadHound]

18. Speak to what you know and don't presume that you know everything, thank you.

I live in Missouri, and yes, we do teach Civics, both in the seventh grade and in the eleventh grade. Passing a Constitution test is part of the requirements for graduating from high school. Many other states do this as well.

I also teach geography and foreign cultures, it is mandatory in seventh grade and in high school. Maps are involved, yes indeed. Again, the same is true in many other states.

Please don't push this lack of memory and ignorance on the part of people back on to the teachers. We are not responsible for what people do with their knowledge once they leave school. They can do many things, blast their brains with alcohol, befuddle them with Faux news, succumb to laziness using one of the many technological crutches that are out there, or simply allow their brains to turn to mushy goo through too much TV and/or religion. It isn't the fault of education, it isn't the fault of teachers. The brain is like a muscle, don't exercise it and it turns flabby and useless. Our culture, our society encourages the people to do just this, and you are seeing the result.

But that, again, is not the fault of education or of teachers, so I would appreciate it if you would stop this needless bashing of teachers. In fact I challenge you to go to the education website of each state, find their Grade Level Expectations (or the equivalent), which are the bible of what is to be taught in school. Find out how many, if any, don't have a Civics and/or Geography curriculum listed. Then come back here with your information and perhaps we can talk. You made the claim, you back it up.

My guess is that you succumbed to the same forces that are turning many peoples' brains to mush, you believed, and didn't critically examine, the wild ass rantings of a politician. Congratulations, you've become that which you hate, a brainless, unthinking drone who believes whatever shit you're fed, damn the facts.