Susan Jacoby (Again) on our Nation of Dunces....

[Aviation Pro]

There is nothing more to add here except that the 20% of adult Americans who believe the sun revolves around the Earth, probably constitute 65% of the dumbasses who still support President Insane.

God, the arrogance of the stupid amazes me.

Sad link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901_pf.html

The Dumbing Of America

Call Me a Snob, but Really, We're a Nation of Dunces

By Susan Jacoby
Sunday, February 17, 2008; B01

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an "elitist," one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just "folks," a patronizing term that you will search for in vain in important presidential speeches before 1980. (Just imagine: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth.") Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era.

*snip*

This is a portrait not only of a different presidency and president but also of a different country and citizenry, one that lacked access to satellite-enhanced Google maps but was far more receptive to learning and complexity than today's public. According to a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than a third consider it "not at all important" to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it "very important."

That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge. The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it's the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism -- a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse. Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is a manifestation of ignorance; denying that such knowledge matters is pure anti-rationalism. The toxic brew of anti-rationalism and ignorance hurts discussions of U.S. public policy on topics from health care to taxation.

There is no quick cure for this epidemic of arrogant anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism; rote efforts to raise standardized test scores by stuffing students with specific answers to specific questions on specific tests will not do the job. Moreover, the people who exemplify the problem are usually oblivious to it. ("Hardly anyone believes himself to be against thought and culture," Hofstadter noted.) It is past time for a serious national discussion about whether, as a nation, we truly value intellect and rationality. If this indeed turns out to be a "change election," the low level of discourse in a country with a mind taught to aim at low objects ought to be the first item on the change agenda.

[NutmegYankee]

1. Read that this morning on the Wash. Post website.

Straight to the point.

[Aviation Pro]

2. Yes, and the ultimate dunce magnet is running today....

...The GREAT AMERICAN RACE!

:sarcasm:

[NutmegYankee]

3. Race to the bottom...

The anti-intellectualism today is appalling, and makes me sick to my stomach. I'm an engineer, and have always valued education and knowledge as important not just for one's career, but for one's personal growth. I study history, astronomy, and politics as part of this personal growth, since these are areas engineers are not famous for knowing. I also study science intensely, but that I attribute to " The Knack".

And I try to not come off as some super genius, but people react that way when I quote some work of English literature, or recount a spectacular blunder from the annals of history and explain how it provides guidance for current events. A hundred years ago this level of knowledge was "normal". Now is it is "genius".

[Aviation Pro]

7. The same diagnostic characteristics that apply...

...to engineers apply to pilots. One of the core characteristics is an innate curiousity about a wide range of subjects. I have eight five-tier bookcases filled with an eclectic array of material including orthographic references (Czech, Russian and German), biographies of historical figures (Churchill, Lincoln, Teddy Rex), classics from Melville, Twain and Homer, and textbooks galore (physics, mathematics, history, etc.). Needless to say, my children have started their own collection and for the most part eschew the banal and vapid.

There is hope but it starts with a love of learning and a method.

[NutmegYankee]

10. Indeed.

Good to see you teach your children a love of learning. It will carry them farther than many of their generation.

[burythehatchet]

4. her interview with Bill Moyers is still playing on PBS nt

[Fridays Child]

5. The "third rail" isn't Social Security. It's our collective, pathological ignorance.

k/r

[Donnachaidh]

6. get a copy of the movie IDIOCRACY

It was written as a satire but it's so close to the mark NOW it's frightening.

Of course, no one in our society would think to water crops with Gatorade because it's got electrolytes, right? :sarcasm:

[tabasco]

8. When my brother was a dittohead, he once proudly exclaimed,

"I haven't read a book in ten years!"

This broke my mother's heart, who was a liberal, retired schoolteacher.

My brother has since seen the light.

[Habibi]

9. I'll be honest.

I don't watch TV, and I don't play video games, but I spend waaaay too much time on the net, reading message boards. I may be "better informed" about some things than my tv-addicted friends, but my attention span is shot. I think I've dumbed myself down quite a bit over the last ten years.

Crap.