America The Stupid
by JoyThe Books section of the weekend New York Times offers this article:
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
It begins…
A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from "American Idol," appearing on the Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: "Budapest is the capital of what European country?"
Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. "I thought Europe was a country," she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. "Hungry?" she said, eyes widening in disbelief. "That's a country? I've heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I've never heard of it."
Trust good ol' Fox to expand their role in promoting stupidity, having been so spectacularly successful at getting Americans to swallow their bogus hate-riddled infotainment disguised as 'news' all these years. No, their "reality TV" game show prides itself on demonstrating that American Idols are indeed dumber than 5th graders! Something to celebrate…
I mean, with wars going in two nations most Americans can't find on a map and thousands dying or coming home in pieces after having their deployments extended over and over again (while at the same time being prevented from leaving the service when their enlistment is up), who wouldn't rather obsesses over some missing white woman or other, or bemoan the steroidal state of professional baseball?
Author Susan Jacoby's recently released book bemoaning Stupid America is entitled "The Age of American Unreason" and surprisingly, she doesn't simply blame it all on fundamentalist religion. She cites graphically the reason she wrote the book -
…The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day's horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
"This is just like Pearl Harbor," one of the men said.
The other asked, "What is Pearl Harbor?"
"That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War," the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, "I decided to write this book."
While she blames pretty much everyone and everything for a problem that's been peculiarly American ever since there's been an America, she does recognize the insidious influence of 24/7 "entertainment culture," a.k.a. television. By admitting she had a really hard time turning it off in her own home for just a week. Duh!
So I'll ask the obvious questions of those who insist in debates like these that it must be religion that makes Americans stupid… Did religion cause American culture to idolize stupidity, or did our culture's idolization of stupidity cause the explosion in popularity of fundamentalist churches, total family immersion in religious community activities, reliance on religious schools and home schooling to teach children the basics they'd never learn in public schools, general religious disgust with modern culture, and increasingly powerful religious forays into the political arena?
Could it be a reaction rather than a cause?
February 16th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Hi Joy,
You asked.
Not only is my answer "yes", but "hell, yes!".
You and I are old enough to remember a time when doing your own thing was "cool".
Independent thinking (or a lack thereof) wasn't tied to religion. Some of the most radical thinkers of the time were religious as typified in Doonesbury's fictional "Rev").
One of my proudest moments was when my eldest daughter came home after her honors class was studying Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was down right angry. Apparently, the class was generally praising Emerson's insight and trying to outdo each other in how well they understood it. "But Dad, Emerson is only replacing one form of conformity with another!" (BTW, the next day the teacher pointed out how they ignored my daughter's understanding of the inherent paradox).
As much as you and I might question ID Movement leaders and/or Swamp denizens the truth is these people are in the top percentile of independent thinking.
Independent thinking requires the hard work of actually knowing and understanding things. It appears many people would rather let others do their thinking for them, unfortunately.
Comment by Thought Provoker — February 16, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
TP:
Perhaps they're just not stupid, TP. They aren't "doing their own thing" or "thinking independently." They're both preaching conformity of thought to their own neatly boxed little belief systems while pretending the whole time it's the other guys who are "idiots."
Well, not both sides so much. The EA contingent so well epitomized by the normal standard of discourse over in the Swamp is clearly the greater offender. Most of the ID leaders (and followers) don't portray scientists as stupid. Stubborn, ideologically motivated and close-minded, yes. Stupid not so much.
Comment by Joy — February 16, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The influence of religion on America is greatly exagerated in my view. I come from a large family with over 50 first cousins and can tell you very few are religious. These are people I know well. The larger society is not much different. Religion becomes a mass media focus when it appears to slant the country to the right. We don't think of the minister Dr. Martin Luther King as religious although he took his faith seriously. Ditto other clergy figures from that era with leftist political views.
Homeschooling is very much a reaction to the poor quality of our public schools. That and an insistence on including value education norms in public schools that are anethema to some Americans. The high academic achievenments of homeschoolers are a vindication of the practice.
America's obsession with the superficial and the flighty is a reflection of its excessive preoccupation with entertainment and glamour. Academic excellence requires hard work. A pretty face does not (until you get to middle age perhaps).
Comment by Bradford — February 16, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Bradford:
Depends on your family and circle of acquaintances, I guess. The same is true in my family as yours, but not in my husband's family. Someone's attending those megachurches in numbers enough to justify the parking lots, and supplying the money for all their operations (that don't tend to include as much direct synod charity collectives as church tithes used to supply). Often it looks to me like cultural narcissism is prevalent no matter where your viewing point may be.
And of course the dependable voting block these megachurches and their affiliates represent accounts for the *religious right* that forms (or has, it may be falling apart) the "Republican Base." They may not represent a majority of citizens anywhere, but they do reliably vote. The rest of the citizenry isn't nearly so reliable, and certainly not so robotic when they do vote. This is perfectly okay with me (people should vote whenever they can, however they want), but I also recognize what it represents in American culture and politics. Which are issues in the interminable 'Culture War' that stupid people care nothing about.
The ID leadership are not stupid people. The televangelists and corporate religios managing megachurches aren't stupid either. Hardly anyone thinks the scientific Culture Warriors we see here every day are stupid people. So… out in the real world where life isn't a reality game show, a hate-mongering rant of stupidity, or a sit-com about stupidity, how stupid are people… really? How many people do you know of in your circle of life (cast that inclusion widely) who actually qualify as stupid? Do you normally assign people's stupidity to their ideological beliefs?
I think what I'm most getting at is the popular press and intelligentsia meme that regular people are stupid. I don't think Fox is playing to the stupid, I think they're promoting the stupid. I don't think the IDers or the DDs are stupid, I think Culture Warriors are promoting the stupid. And when I see in the political arena after two outrageous tied-election thefts that the most respected public polling organizations have been left standing with egg on their faces as the stupids proved them wrong over and over and over again (by 30 and more points at a time!), a hope tickles the back of my head…
…what if the stupids aren't so stupid after all, but have figured out how to throw the stupid back into the faces of the purveyors of stupid?
Comment by Joy — February 16, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Joy:
I don't find Americans to be stupid although they could be a bit better educated. There are some educated people though who act stupidly. How's that for a full circle? Americans tend to be technically proficient in their various fields of endeavor. I think their instincts are good although I hope they hold the different presidential candidates' feet to the fire. Slogans are OK but we deserve some meat or in your case, Joy, maybe some flavorful veggies.
Comment by Bradford — February 16, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Bradford:
Yeah, but I don't buy the education excuse. Since people can be taught factoids intensively for 8 hours a day 5 days a week for 15+ years and still not retain enough of it to know the difference between Pearl Harbor and the "incident" in the Gulf of Tonkin a generation later. Or that there's a country named Hungary. Or where to look for Afghanistan on a map. People tend to retain only things they feel they need to know, most goes in one ear and out the other.
I think at least a couple of the candidates would rather enjoy the torture, since they favor it so highly for others. I wouldn't mind roasting some peppers, but I don't see any surprises or any real changes from any of 'em.
Comment by Joy — February 16, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
February 16th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
May as well blame the rise in popularity of Fox News on the same thing.
Comment by Mung — February 16, 2008 @ 10:01 pm
February 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
But then again, maybe Americans aren't so stupid after all.
Comment by Mung — February 17, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
February 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I've been without cable or even network TV for almost 6 years, now. Since Seinfeld came to an end before that, I didn't think there was much worth watching. Sounds like I was right.
Comment by Bilbo — February 17, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
February 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Gee, Bilbo. I never saw Seinfeld. Heck, I never saw WKRP when it was first-run either! And no, I've never seen Friends or Survivor or…
I have seen 3 or 4 episodes of American Idol (Mom-in-law never misses it), the same number of episodes of House and some CSI or other during the same visit, and happen to know one of the producers of Survivor (relative of an in-law). Oh, and my son once had a Saturday morning kid show on a local station (but I never watched it).
I think you're probably right. §;o)
Comment by Joy — February 17, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
February 17th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I saw an episode of Johnny Quest on TV once as a child.
Comment by Mung — February 17, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
February 18th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I think both of your options are mistaken Joy. I suspect part of the problem, at least in the 20th century was a retreat of devout Christians from education institutions and the arts that caused the problem.
Christians abandoned their call be salt and light in the culture and ceded much of it over to secularists and others. It is really a surprise that you get the sort of self-absorbed nihilism and general idiocy as a result ?
What other fruits could such poisonous trees have ?
Christians should have stood firm and stood against the secularists and "liberals" (theologically speaking) instead of retreating into self imposed exile from the culture. But no point lamenting what should have been done.
I suspect the religiosity had nothing to do with the decline directly, but contributed to the problem by its absence.
You lament that many people thing "creationism" should be taught along side "evolution" in the class rooms. I would guess that much of this is an artifact of the polling that is done, where "creationism" is defined as something other than a purely naturalistic account of origins. Which is at best gross dishonesty by the people doing the polls if it is the case.
I don't think it is reasonable to blame "the Christians" in America for the problem, but in reality they should be chastised for abandoning the cultural mandate handed down by Christ. It is "religiosity" that is the solution to many of the problems not the cause of them.
Comment by thesciphishow — February 18, 2008 @ 3:33 am
February 18th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Actually the stupidest Americans I've ever interacted with are without a doubt generally the "better" educated ones.
You see it really is true, to paraphrase J. Budziszewski, that there are types of stupidity that require a real degree of education to buy into.
No normal person typically buys into the extremes of post modern idiocy or the nihilist drivel of groups like PETA and their more extreme compatriots. That sort of thing is reserved for the better educated.
Comment by thesciphishow — February 18, 2008 @ 3:38 am
February 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I agree. That sort of thing is an unfortunate side-effect.
Comment by One Brow — February 18, 2008 @ 11:02 am
February 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Totally agree with you SciPhiShow.
Although, I'm a bit more pessimistic than you about the future of American society.
By the way, I love your show!
You should have Bill Dembski or Jonathan Wells on your show, to discuss
the Design of Life.
Comment by Dr.Bingo — February 18, 2008 @ 11:22 am
February 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
To my fellow college students, who frequent this blog: there is an excellent documentary on the History Channel called The Presidents on.
Comment by Dr.Bingo — February 18, 2008 @ 11:42 am
February 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am
thesciphishow:
Actually, I was quoting from the author per the NYT story linked. She's a "secularist," blaming 'the stupid' on religion. I was questioning whether religious participation in these current 'Culture Wars' is really the source of problems, or merely a reaction to them. I think it's a reaction, religious people moving into the front lines of culture to defend their positions rather than retreat and be as marginalized as the 'secularists' want them to be.
Truth is the religious are as susceptible to orchestrated media dumbing as anybody else. But they're not responsible for the realities that prevail in our culture. I remember when kids didn't watch 6-8 hours of television every day because we were too busy outside playing and exploring. Communities are so estranged and dangerous these days that some kids aren't ever allowed to just "go out and play." And with an economic situation where both parents have to work just to provide the basics, television is the surrogate parent in way too many homes religious and secular.
I do not think people are more stupid today than they ever were (and you're right - being stupid sometimes requires a college degree). Measuring how well the average person can pass a pop quiz on obscure factoids out in the real world is not a measure of intelligence or stupidity. People retain what they need, discard the rest. Even the self-appointed intellectual elites. But it's just the self-appointed intellectual elites who interpret pop quiz responses and deliberately stupid television programming as 'proving' that everybody but them is too stupid to live.
Comment by Joy — February 18, 2008 @ 11:44 am
February 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
http://video.google.com/videop...
Comment by chunkdz — February 18, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
February 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Comment by chunkdz — February 18, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
February 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Comment by chunkdz — February 18, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
February 18th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Comment by chunkdz — February 18, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
February 18th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hi Guys and Gals,
Brilliant links Chunkdz, and you are absolutely right.
British education is terrible, and the average American
is far better than many of our friends across the pond.
I say this as someone of British ancestry.
In regards to what I said earlier, I didn't mean that I was pessimistic about
the situation of American education, which I don't think is as bad as some people think. I am pessimistic about where this country is going culturally. I'm not sure the Founding Fathers would be happy about the state of the nation.
Comment by Dr.Bingo — February 18, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
February 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
What exactly is the Matrix? I have yet to read the book, but from what I gather, it is a way to detect design in living things.
Comment by Dr.Bingo — February 19, 2008 @ 10:06 am