How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America

[Javaman]

http://www.alternet.org/story/95109/

This is a fantastic read. Here's a snip...

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.

Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society.

American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.

Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments.

[skooooo]

1. No one likes to read -- wake up America!!

[Greyhound]

65. Less than 3% of us read books, over 10% of us believe Elvis is still alive. n/t

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

80. Elvis is alive.

And they captured bigfoot a couple of weeks ago.

David

[VoodooGuru]

89. Elvis is alive AND he reads books. :P

[Greyhound]

94. I thought that gas station attendant looked familiar...

... and he was reading


:rofl:

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Ga. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland: same guy that said Obama was 'uppity' today.

[cliffordu]

3. Jesus Christo on a cracker. Can someone toss crap on this guy??

[Iris]

4. actually, worse, he said Obama and Michelle are the kind of people who "think their uppity"

I mean...what the hell? Who THINKS he/she is uppity?

[TomInTib]

5. Excellent read. Thanks for the catch, Javaman. KnR

I would love to sit and talk to Ms Jacoby.

Again, thanks for the post.

Tom

[flyingfysh]

6. read "The Age of American Unreason" by Susan Jacoby

This is a book-length treatment of the same idea. A similar book from the 60s is "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" by Hofstadter. Also read "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore.

[Sophree]

82. Barbarians at the Gate

I would also recommend "Barbarians at the Gate of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good" by Ed D'Angelo.

Just finished reading it for a Public Library Seminar class (I'm a library grad. student). My professor actually wrote the preface.

It's really good- covers an arrary of related topics including the infotainment telesector and its danger to democracy, the loss of the public sphere and any notion of the public good, anti-intellecutalism, the absence of reason and rational debate, civic education.

[mitchum]

7. America flourished despite its long tradition of anti-intellectualism...

but now the stupid chickens have come home to roost

[nichomachus]

14. Maybe anti-intellectualism, but not anti-education

People in the generation before me -- even mill workers -- were better educated than kids today, read more, had better vocabularies, etc.

My parents, both mill workers would have walked over broken glass to make sure I got a good education -- and the same holds for most of the parents in my milltown hometown.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. People say that every generation.

I haven't seen any good evidence.

[nichomachus]

23. I have

A few years ago, I used to edit letters to the editor for a small-town newspaper. The older folks who wrote in had a much better grasp of the language, issues, and news than young people today do.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. Amazing.

It seems to me that young people today know the difference between imperical and anecdotal evidence, old people not so much.

[Tansy_Gold]

81. Uh, I hate to point it out, but. . . . . .

That's "empirical" evidence.

And yes, it does matter.

At least to




Tansy Gold

[Karenina]

83. With Tansy's permission, I repost her empirical evidence

that appeared on an SMW thread 2 months ago. I found it to be great fodder for an ESL class.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=102&topic_id=3415413&mesg_id=3415778

3415778, I'm not sure it's just the colleges
Posted by Tansy_Gold on Wed Jul-30-08 03:09 PM
Because I went back to college at age 50, I have a 1966 and a 1998 "freshman" experience to compare, and it was a bit frightening, to say the least.

In 1966, for instance, in ENG 101/102 we wrote our weekly papers in class, by hand, and were expected to have NO spelling, grammar, syntax, or punctuation errors. Each mistake brought the "form" grade down -- 0 errors = A+; 1 error = A; 2 errors, A-; etc. Everyone in the class was fresh out of high school and four years of traditional English classes. NO ONE griped about the standards. They griped about their "content" grades, but they didn't question the "form" standards.

In 1998, when 3rd- and 4th-year college students (most of them in their mid- to late-20s and early 30s) had to write four or five two- to three-page papers per semester (not one each week), they grumbled constantly. They had computers to check their spelling and grammar; printed papers meant little room for the student to whine that the instructor couldn't read the student's intentionally sloppy handwriting. EVEN WITH COMPUTER ASSISTANCE they couldn't spell.

In one class in 2003 the professor was so appalled at the dismal quality of the TAKE-HOME midterm exams that he handed them back with the admonition that those who got Ds or Fs could redo the exam WITH HIS ASSISTANCE and potentially bring it up to a C. He refused to help anyone bring it up further than that. He spent half an hour chewing the class out for being unable to construct coherent sentences. I still have my midterm from that class, with the notation at the end, "Thank you for being coherent!"

In a lab science class in the fall of 1999 on Arizona biology/geology/geography, the professor had to present a lecture on basic climate science. Things like the earth rotating on a tilted axis, the earth's orbit being elliptical, etc., etc. Everyone in the class was AT LEAST a third-year college student. Most could not name half the planets; only three or four of us "mature" students could name them order of distance from the sun. Approximately half didn't know that other planets had moons. At least two didn't know the earth revolved around the sun!

more at link above...

[no_hypocrisy]

8. My father is one of those who believe that "common sense" trumps

"intelligence" any day. And he usually doesn't use logic when making arguments.

[librechik]

18. The Common Sense capitol of Colorado is Colorado Springs

That's how far that shit can take you--right into the ditch.

[Ilsa]

9. Being academically qualified is now called "elitism". These people don't

want leaders that they can't be completely comfortable with having a beer with. Sounds like a personal problem to me. If they'd bother to finish school instead of partying with their trust funds, they might actually learn enough so they are not uncomfortable with well-educated people who are running for office. If could muster a little more curiosity about the world around them, they may feel more comfortable with a diverse USA.

[kath]

10. There was a thread about this book a few days back, and one or more posters

had a bit of a hissy fit, whining about how those nasty Yurpeens were actin' all superior and dissin' us Murkans. :puke:

Hopefully this thread won't be similarly hijacked.

Count me among those who have believed for a long time that the rampant (and long-standing) anti-intellectualism in the US has done a lot of damage to our country.

[baby_mouse]

12. As a European...

... I have give up discussing anything to do with Europe on this site.

[kath]

19. Please don't give up. I very much enjoy hearing the European perspective, and I'm sure I'm not the

only one.

We're not ALL ignorant American exceptionalists here.

[baby_mouse]

29. There are lots of wonderful Americans. It's not *them* I'm tired of, it's the idiots.

And I'm REALLY tired of them. I used to think the stereotypical American who was surprised that Europeans had electricity was a sort of joking self-parody that the Americans played on but then I realised that these morons actually exist.

I heard a story recently about an American man who refused to believe that there were any buildings ANYWHERE that were more than 150 years old.

[SpookyCat]

48. ouch...Eddie Izzard..."surly no one was alive then!" n/t

[alarimer]

16. I remember that thread.

I mean, it isn't bigotry if they were merely pointing out the ugly truth, though some people may not like to hear it.

This anti-intellectual streak is really hurting us now.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Yeah, I saw that thread.

People doing their hardest to prove the point

[kath]

21. good way to put it!

Kudos. :toast:

[SpookyCat]

46. Here?

I don't expect that...that's too bad.

The inferiority complex I see from "my fellow Americans" toward Europe, France esp, is amazing and baffling to me. I've gotten so tired of defending the French, people just believe what they want...<sigh>

[valerief]

11. K&R

:kick:

[Uncle Joe]

13. Per Webster's Dictionary "The American Party"

"A secret political party in existence 1853-1856, whose object was to exclude foreign born citizens from participating in government: called also The Know-Nothing Party because members professed ignorance of the party's activities."

It seems ignorance was in style just prior to the Civil War as well and there also seems to be some commonalities between that historical party and the modern Republican Party.

If Dick Cheney wants to meet in private with oil and mining corporations to form public energy policy, the members of the Republican Party are blissful in their know nothingness.

Thanks for the thread, Javaman.

Kicked and recommended.

[TexasObserver]

15. True. The GOP is leading the way to Idiocracy.

[pleah]

22. "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

That is it exactly!

[malaise]

91. Many of them are not ignorant

They deliberately lie because their policies (and the entertainment circus called M$M) are meant to keep others in perpetual ignorance. Rethugs pander to the most ignorant members of their base. And of you watch Washington Journal on CSpan, their formula which allows morons to spew ignorance on a daily basis does nothing to educate anyone.

[Prophet 451]

24. I'll get flamed here

...but I think a good portion of this was built into your nation from the start. The phrase "all men are created equal" isn't true, some people are just dumb. What's worse is that it gave everyone the idea that their own inane brainfarts were just as good as the considered opinions of those who'd devoted years of study to the subject at hand. It's led to this belief that reality and facts can be defined by consensus (the definition of Colbert's wonderful "Wikiality"). Yes, experts can be wrong and sometimes are but they're a damn sight more likely to be right than Joe Six-pack. The anti-intellectualism popularised by (pun intended) the Populist Party had a point to it, the party and their legitimate grievances are long gone but the anti-intellectualism has hung around, poisoning the culture ever since.

That's just for starters. Then you add in the sorry state of America's schools (although in fairness, ours are only slightly better), underfunded, repeatedly subjected to experimenting, screwed over even further by NCLB and all too often, full of an atmosphere which is actively hostile to learning (note, I am talking about the school system here, not the teachers). In many places, schools are viewed not as a way of educating the next generation to be bright, enquiring minds but to turn out happy little worker ants that play football. Now, there's nothing wrong with sports, I wrestled, boxed and learned martial arts (and for a while, made a living teaching self-defence while trying to make it as a semi-pro wrestler) but sports are a supplement for an education, not a substitute. The school system as it's currently set up doesn't teach knowledge, it teaches how to pass tests.

Now, mix in the fact that Americans don't read. Discounting work, the average American reads 99 hours a year. For Western Europe, the average is slightly over 400 hours (stats from the London Times). Americans watch the most TV of the Western world as well. I'm not automatically anti-TV and it's true that the best TV shows can be counted as true art but by and large, Americans aren't watching the best. The pursuit of the almighty ratings leads to lowest common denominator programming and that means that American programming is filled with crap like When Porn-Star Midgets Attack during Surgery On Animals Gone Wrong. I have no idea how you fix those two though.

And then there's religion. Now, I'm a man of faith (Luciferian Satanist but still faith) and there's nothing inherently wrong with religion but the USA is home to a virtually unique form of Christianity which is rabidly anti-intellectual, theocratic and entwined with far-right-fringe politics. It's adherents are not encouraged to think but to feel. Prayer is a perfectly reasonable response to a decision making process. It's not supposed to be a replacement for such a process though.

The US has reached a point (and my own UK is only about ten years behind) where emotion and feeling are lauded to the exclusion of reason. I'm not suggesting we all become Vulcans but when reason is shut out, emotion rules and emotion is easily fooled. To paraphrase Joe Strazincky, emotion and reason are the shoes on your feet, you get further on both than you do hopping.

[mitchum]

26. No flames from me

I think that is a very accurate analysis

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

27. Sources for ...

"The school system as it's currently set up doesn't teach knowledge, it teaches how to pass tests."

[Prophet 451]

31. Are you f'ing kidding me?

Out of everything I said, you're taking issue with that?

Washington Post: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/education/13education.html
Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2006/10/designing_a_bet.html
Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0417/p09s02-coop.html
Learning Quarterly: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA387210.html

[vanderBeth]

62. I recently left an American public HS and I completely agree with those

articles. The standards of the state tests were astonishingly low, too. They also did it by grade and not by class, so if you were taking Calculus in 10th grade you had to spend half the math class doing some algebra problems. The worst was the writing test. You learned how to sound like you were critically thinking, but not actually having to think. The result was a canned-sounding paper that only passed because it fell into a rubric.

Some of the educational reforms to make education more inclusive have lowered the standard, also. I don't think that doing a poster in a senior English class is setting you up for college.

[baby_mouse]

32. Well *I'd* watch "When Porn-Star Midgets Attack during Surgery On Animals Gone Wrong."

But only to howl at it with laughter. I've a nasty feeling some people take this nonsense seriously.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Must agree with you there

I still remember when a teacher was hounded out of my high school for making his senior honors English class "too hard." In other words, he had students read works of classic literature that had similar themes, discuss the themes, and write papers about them.

The students who believed in thinking loved him, but the majority (and their parents) lobbied to get him fired after two years. This happened just at the end of my junior year, and some of the seniors said that they felt sorry for us younger students, because the school board had just fired the only really challenging teacher in the entire school.

This was in the 1960s.

[SpookyCat]

50. 1982 or 83, I forget exactly...

High School...my English teacher told me not to make up words in my prose...I had used the word "tome".

[Tesha]

103. Wow! That was double-plus ungood of you! (NT)

[donco6]

35. Well, yes and no, IMO.

"All men are created equal" has actually led to some of the greatest advances in equality in the world, but the concept has been co-opted to mean whatever someone wants it to mean at the time - and that's a result of anti-intellectualism, not a fault of the concept itself. No one wants to spend the time looking at all the writings and philosophy that led up to that expression, no one wants to study the Enlightenment - in fact, fundamentalists are very happy to totally ignore the Enlightenment as it is diametrically opposed to their own philosophy. They want to believe all the Founding Fathers were fundie Christians just like them. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I think your mention of Populism is somewhat accurate, though generally, Populism was a common-man doctrine. What's odd is that the Republican party has somehow managed to co-opt populism, fooling it's members into thinking that's what it's offering, when in reality it's just a smokescreen to hide the fact that Republicanism benefits only the very wealthy and powerful, rather than the common man. See What's the Matter with Kansas? for a good analysis of this concept.

I have no argument with the rest of your ideas. I believe they are all too true. And I have no idea how to even begin to combat it.

[Prophet 451]

40. I'm familiar with the book

Although the version I have is called "What's The Matter With America?". Could be a follow-up, could just be the UK title.

I think, to focus on one aspect of the school system, part of it is because many Americans don't know their own history. Hence the reason morons can get away with saying the USA was founded as a Christian nation and so forth, because the public doesn't know any better. You and I both know that the US was founded by a mixture of religious believers and was intended to be religiously neutral.

Then, of course, there's those (and I'm starting to think it's most of the right) who are what we used to call "purposefully ignorant". It describes the idea that some people will not only believe rubbish but will go out of their way to avoid learning better. Example would be those who believe Obama to be a Muslim.

[donco6]

43. Ha! They changed the title . . .

I'm sure because most outside the US wouldn't get the point - Kansas being a state right in the center of the lower 48. But I'm sure it must be the same.

Most Americans are utterly ignorant of even major events in our own history, and don't even ask about world history. As far as they're concerned, there is no history of consequence outside the US. I'd be willing to bet most Americans would say we invented the alphabet, the numbering system, air, and that Adam's loincloth was an American flag. And people wonder why we elect idiots for President.

At this point, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any point. If the middle class, ala "What's the Matter with . . . " elect McCain and that idiot Palin, maybe they get what they deserve. There is no desire or yearning to learn or grow intellectually here. Being ignorant is a virtue - "I like George Bush - he's a guy I'd have a beer with!" That pretty much sums the level of decision-making that goes on with the average voter.

OK, now I've talked myself into a drink and a smoke.

[Prophet 451]

44. Don't drink but I'll share a smoke

I sometimes wonder if the US wouldn't have been better off letting the South secede. Both anti-intellectualism and fundementalist religion were popularised in the South. The coasts, New England and the northern states split off, retaining the name USA and the South forms the ACT (American Christian Theocracy).

[misanthrope]

56. I've wondered much the same...

...and that comes from a lifetime residing in the Deep South but enjoying the luxury of having ventured to other regions time and again.

[Odin2005]

93. I'm starting to feel like Plato following the Peloponnesian War.

Plato became disillusioned with Democracy after populism lead Athens into a ruinous war and resulted in his teacher Socrates being sentenced to death That disillusionment lead to the ideal state ran by philosopher-kings as Plato described in The Republic.

[misanthrope]

55. "Willful ignorance"...

...More concise with a better ring to it.

[Uncle Joe]

38. The phrase "all men are created equal"

meant no person should rule over another simply because of being born to royalty.

Of course the reality of the times didn't hold up to the ideals put on paper, however that's the ideal that resonated with the people.

While the Populist ideology has been dormant for some time, the supreme domination of corporate interests over the people has served to breathe new life in to it, sort of cause and effect. While the experts may be correct over "Joe Six-pack" most of the time, there is an exception when corporations dominate the media and their interests dysfunction-ally take over the interests of the public good. Thats when being wrong for an "expert" can become a virtue in regards to job stability or upward mobility.

I believe the Republicans are cynically trying to co opt the Populist backlash in the same way they promoted the "liberal media", both endeavors are myth but if ignored or denigrated by the Democratic Party, they become effective.

[Prophet 451]

41. Oh, I know the original meaning

I was referring more to what it has come to mean, the idea that no-one can be better* than the other, the Wikiality of facts and the mythologising of the common volk. The irony, of course, is that elitism far more often comes from the heartland than is directed towards it.




* - for a given value of "better" anyway.

[AlinPA]

42. No flames from me. Good post.

[tilsammans]

45. All true

Thank you. Keep it comin'!

[SpookyCat]

47. This American agrees with you.

I'll add one to your list, if I may. Americans don't travel! I think this is huge.

I'm dumbfounded by people never leave the country, and will not let go of their small minded ideas. I am constantly trying to counter these prejudices with my perceptions, but I am met with hostility when I do many times. Somehow my traveling, like my book learnin' and lack of knowledge of pop culture makes me suspect. It actually makes many people angry when I say "I'm sorry, I don't know what that is" in reference to the latest reality show or sports.


I would move to London right now if I could find a way.

Are you in England? Can my husband and I live with you? We're cool spooky nerds...LOL!

[Prophet 451]

58. Oooh, just my kind of people

I'm the archetypal techie, my other half is a PSO (phonesex operator, the girl on the end when someone dials a sex line and tries to convince themselves that those oragasm sounds are real (she's usually playing Civ at the time)).

Sadly, I have people already booked for our basement if the election comes out badly and another wants to pitch a tent in my backyard (which will be intersting, we're on concrete).

[comrade snarky]

76. Dang...

Let Spooky and I know if they cant handle it and move on!
We got lucky and found a gorgeous (relatively) cheap place in San Francisco but if things get much worse we may be outta here. If it does go that bad I'll drive a stake into concrete with my forehead if I have to. :evilgrin:

[SpookyCat]

78. LOL! Ok...I think we're pretty safe in SF...

"she's usually playing Civ at the time"

That's hilarious! Drop me or Comrade Snarky a PM if you ever come to SF...you'd fit right in with our friends!

:hi:

[Jacobin]

77. That pretty much sums it up

Sadly, so

[treestar]

85. It was intended to mean legally equal

The nobility in Britain had greater rights in legal cases. A commoner did not have the same rights before the law. They were punished differently. Sort of like even now, in Saudi Arabia, a woman's testimony is by law worth less than a man's or the punishment is different for the same crimes. It is enshrined in their law or system.

Here we are all legally equally (in spite of recent attempts of the * administration to undermine that). If accused of a crime, you have the same right to counsel, etc., as Bush does. Now in practical terms, I realize, it does not seem that way; they can buy or bully their way out or what have you, but as the system stands there is no "nobility" - no one who can legally claim to have more rights than someone else and have that accepted.

Though the anti-intellectual will of course read that as meaning we are all equal in some more cosmic way.

[Odin2005]

90. I couldn't agree more.

Though I must quibble with the "all men are created equal," that phrase is meant to mean that people should be treated equally under the law, not that all people are inherently equal in ability.

In any case you are totally correct with how pathetically anti-intellectual the US is. You can even see this nonsense on DU, when people use BS anecdotes when Gadrasil or the "mercury causes autism" BS comes up.

The last 8 years has damaged beyond repair by faith in Democracy. I sometimes wonder if a Technocracy would be better.

[BlooInBloo]

108. All men and women are created equal - stupid....

It takes work to make them smart. Unfortunately we have idiots teaching the idiots, along with a whole host of other idiot-making processes in this country.

[LibertyorDeath]

28. Pathetic

"American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries"

[SidneyCarton]

30. I am not very familiar with Leo Strauss, but from what I've heard...

this is exactly what he and his desired. We have a nation of belligerently ignorant subjects, who are lead whichever way the winds of ideology carry them. Allowing those who are in the know to effectively do whatever they want without interference from the masses. What is it they say?

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King."

The Far right ideologues want to be that king, they will let their fundie minions run rampant across the country, while they loot us blind and live it up as their own petty monarchs.

[Chef Eric]

34. Devo was right along.

We've been steadily devolving into a state of mass stupidity
for a very long time.

[url=http://www.freeimagehosting.net/][img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/5fa78f9eb1.jpg[/img][/url]

[Dora]

53. Welcome to DU!

:thumbsup:

[magellan]

36. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about the world until I moved overseas

Years later I came home, and found America stuck on STUPID and applauding it.

This is not the same country I left and I blame the Repubs for engineering it and the Dems for letting it happen.

[Rabrrrrrr]

39. Well said! "stuck on STUPID and applauding it!"

"Look, ma, we's electified a total moron for office what's I'd like to have a beer with!"

American Idol, lowest common denominator education, "No Child Left Behind" programs that are designed to keep kids stupid, and radio and TV personalities (from the right) who constantly belittle readers and smart people, and whose books are written at a third grade level with no footnotes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Ah another elitist that has a problem with American Exceptionalism

TM: But what is it in our culture? Is our geographical isolation part of it?

SJ: You anticipated what I was going to say. There's also the idea of American exceptionalism -- that America is different from every other country.

I say in my book that Americans are unwilling to look at how really bad our educational system is because we've all been propagandized with the idea that we're number one. That may have been true after World War II, but not anymore. The idea that we're number one and special and better than everybody else is a very powerful factor in American life, and it prevents us from examining certain respects in which we're not number one.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. That same attitude is what led to the decline of China

It was true that they were the most advanced civilization in the world in the late medieval period, but unfortunately for them, they concluded that no one else had anything to teach them, so they stopped innovating while the rest of the world moved on without them.

[AlphaCentauri]

49. Ignorance was one of the best weapons against communism

communist always advocated for education

[Greyhound]

52. K & R for reading when I get home. n/t

[Kazak]

54. There is definitely something to that.

Thanks!

[cobalt1999]

57. I wouldn't put it all on the right though they are the primary ones.

However many lefties are into new age beliefs, believe in ghosts, angels, karma, gia theories, aliens, 9/11 conspiracies, and chem-trails.

Frankly, too many people in this country lack the education to discern shit from shinola when the salesman shows up.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

59. A conundrum, Anti-Intellectualism is no more destroying America than...

Pseudo-Intellectualism is. What passes for "education" in America stopped being about the pursuit of knowledge a long time ago. Teach the Best, Shoot the Rest is the unstated mantra of those in the business of "education." At that, the "best are taught just enough to make them useful slaves.

---------------------------------------------
Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce
citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?
--Alan Keyes

[kiranon]

60. Intimidated by learned people, they hide behind the Bible.

The anti intellectuals are afraid to go one on one with someone with even a modest intellectual background. So, they hide behind a book that they can assert is more powerful than all school learning and easier for them to grasp by being spoon fed what the Bible means by fundamentalist preachers. They are stuck where they are because to change would mean they would have to first recognize that they were too lazy to seek out educational experiences, too poor to have access to higher learning and unwilling to find a way to access education anyway or just to afraid to try. They cannot "lord" it over those with more learning unless they can come up with a world view based on an equal and perhaps more compelling source of authority. That is the function of religion for many people. They give up understanding the world for the certainty and black and white answers of a fundamentalist religion or world view. It's us against them. All they needed was someone to tell them who "them" was that they were against and to tell them how smart they were to follow lock step with their leader's world view. Can you smell fascism rising? I can.

[Hidden Stillness]

61. This Problem is not Even Slightly New

The problem comes when you really start trying to get at the situation as a whole, and deal with what is really causing it. It is all safe and pretty when "you" are only attacking "them," (so "we" are superior and only "they" have to change), but God help you when you really start to notice larger patterns, and start to criticize your friends, because then you really get a backlash. There are the usual asshole-atheist anti-Christian attacks, like that explains the completely pervasive effect of this problem, and you can refer to that bastard Reagan, who tried to launch another one of these perennial Republican attempts to kill the Dept. of Education, ("Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" actually said on the campaign trail, 1980), and people cheer, but then you have to notice the total effect of media, and how it has transformed people from literary/thinking with words, to visual/concrete/not abstract,and unable to keep their minds slowed down enough to read at all. If you keep them ignorant ABOUT their situation ("we are really smarter than everyone else who ever lived anyway, because we are so media-savvy, and they were always duped," or some invented, self-praising shit), then they will always be docile, as they are now.

What about the anti-intellectual, reading-killing effect of the computer, video games, one electronic "entertainment" device after another, keeping someone co-opted for a lifetime; what about the effects of hip-hop, slamming anyone who reads as "trying to act white"; I have known all my life, girls who hid, and eventually killed, their intelligence, because of male bigotry and threatening response, "boys don't like that." What about the general affect, induced by the media, of discomfort, that if you are "cut off" somewhere reading, you are "missing something" (on some electronic device)? All these things have to be addressed as causes, yet Good Luck to anyone who tries. Especially BECAUSE these people are so non-self-reflecting, you will probably just get a barrage of attacks right back, for your troubles. I remember the '60s so-called "radicals," first attacking reading as some kind of attempt to keep the people sedated and not act, which I thought was one of the stupidest things I had ever heard, but no one could answer it to people screaming at you.

Reading, political debate as ordinary conversation, (which earlier generations used to do), the idea that great things are to be found in books, that cool people read and think, all these things need to be brought back, and get rid of the Goddamned slogans eveywhere, abbreviating everything, until the steps of logic and consideration themselves have just been short-circuited. Get rid of the visuals pretending to be "thought."

[Fumesucker]

86. There are the usual asshole-atheist anti-Christian attacks

Just wondering where that came from?

Christianism is a large part (although by no means all) of the problem we have. People who will fervently believe in an invisible sky daddy with absolutely zero proof are part of the problem, not the solution.

At least I won't tell you you're going to hell for being a Christian. (although you might if you happen to be worshiping the wrong God or in the wrong way, Pascal's wager was always pretty stupid, particularly for such a smart guy).

[Karenina]

63. Excellent thread!

:kick:

[Greyhound]

64. K & R.

Great read, although it is a little light on solutions. It does however, mention the all important first step...


TURN OFF THE FUCKING TELEVISION!

"I'm vile and pernicious, but you can't look away.
I make you think I'm delicious, with the stuff that I say."

"I'm the tool of the government and industry too,
I am destined to rule and regulate you." - Frank Zappa
:kick: & R

[LanternWaste]

66. I really don't think it's simply the televisions anymore...

"TURN OFF THE FUCKING TELEVISION!"

And the Gaming Console Systems. And the I-Pods. And the DVD Players.

I really don't think it's simply the televisions anymore.

[Greyhound]

67. It is the first step. Halt the process of indoctrination and the rest follows.

The other devices serve to isolate but are used as the user decides, so the effect is under the control of the recipient. Potentially bad but can also be good.

Television is the prime source.

[LanternWaste]

70. I'm afraid I simply can't see the difference

I'm afraid I simply can't see the difference between any of them. People waste time in front of the TV, and it seems people waste just as much time (if not more) in front of PC games... myself included-- but I certainly won't justify my vices or my mental laziness. :shrug:

[Greyhound]

72. Oh no, I don't disagree that they are a great time-waster at all,

only that they are potentially useful tools that can be beneficial according to the users choice, whereas TV is completely passive and the choices are made by executives with their agendas.

Oh, and I think iPods or any music players are always beneficial as music does stimulate the mind, even bad music.
:kick:

[Evoman]

71. I think TV is a symptom, not a cause.

The same goes with gaming. Diddo reading.

We could as easily have intellectual TV programs, books and games (and frankly, there are some VERY smart TV shows and video games). That we don't watch those programs, read those books, and play those games is enlightening.

Honestly, I see the automatic blaming of TV as a culprit as...well...lack of imagination and reasoning. It's the same black and white thinking "they" engage in...the same reduction of complexity into an easy to understand cause or reason.

[Greyhound]

74. TV is not the sole cause and that is addressed in the article, but it is the

most pervasive and therefore most effective tool they have.

The fact that less than 3% of us read books and more than 10% of us believe that Elvis Presley is still alive is testament to that efficacy.

Once the input is cut off, the benefits begin to show very quickly.

[LanternWaste]

75. On further reflection...

On further reflection (or, to be honest-- after initial reflection), I agree.

Each medium can be used to actively stimulate as well as passively deaden-- books, PC games, music, and the rest.

I imagine it comes down to how each individual chooses to use each medium.

[Fumesucker]

87. Stop watching TV entirely for a while and I suspect your opinion might change..

I've stopped watching TV several times in my life and I've always been struck by how much more ignorant it seems after I've been away from it for a while.

My latest TV free time has been over three years now and I'm appalled at how bad TV is when I get exposed to it.

There is a thing called "suspension of disbelief" that you need when watching fiction, I can't even do it for the supposed fact shows on TV now.. I see stuff that I know is totally untrue put forth as being fact and it drives me crazy.

[conscious evolution]

105. I have to agree

After being tv free for a few years now I have a hard time even watching for a few minutes now.The unreality of it is really hard to take.
I have also noticed recently how much of our economy is driven by tv.I was helping a GF move over the summer and while packing and moving the kids rooms I was amazed by how many of their possessions were connected to tv.Practically everything had a connection in one way or another whether it was their toys,their clothes,their games or their books.Hell,even their bedsheets had a tv theme.
Since then I have noticed the same thing in other peoples homes.
Another thing I have noticed is how,when at parties or other gatherings,whenever a tv is turned on evryone turns their attention towards it.The thing just sucks up peoples attention and seems to put them into a zombiefied state.Pretty scary thing to see.

Have you ever noticed the four themes that dominate programming?
Consume Create
Conform Compete

[BuelahWitch]

68. "Reading is over-rated" according to my 18 year old co-worker

I always bring a book to read between calls and the kid who sits in the cube beside me makes fun of me because I have a new one every week. I asked him if he didn't like to read because he was dyslexic, and he said no, that he'd rather just play video games.
This kid isn't stupid by any means, but he has an odd aversion to books.

[Dukkha]

102. reminds me of the line in the movie Cruel Intentions

"Books are for fags."
"Books are for fags? Then weep for the future."

[Evoman]

69. It's not just America....it's human beings as a whole.

Creativity, curiosity, interest in things outside ones immediate sphere of influence....these things are exceptions in human beings.

I live in Canada, and I see the same trends here. I've been to South America many times (having been born there) and in many ways they are even worse there. Chile may have been one of the few exceptions....they almost had a chance before Pinochet came and destroyed a promising trend. It's the same time and time again.

Intellectual people are a rarity...it is why so many are routinely persecuted or shunned.

[arcadian]

73. It's the corporatization of America that's doing it.

It's easier to sell things to uneducated people. Television is real, buy things they tell you to buy on the TV, those people know what's better, after all they are on Television.

[AZ Criminal JD]

79. Many who post on DU are not exactly geniuses

They are literally dozens of conspiracy theories posted on this site every day. And of course the re-occurring 9/11 (the government did it or let it happen theories). All these fail when any science is applied to them but people keep believing them.

[Karenina]

84. Exhibition A

[warren pease]

88. Such as...

Which conspiracy theories? What specific scientific experimentation and analysis disproves them?

Are you speaking of mandatory belief in that chapter of the American creation myth known as the Official Conspiracy Theory re 9/11, an officially approved truth that only the most heretical dare call into question?

Or are you speaking of silly shit like 503 separate tape recordings or written records of statements made by NYC cops, fire fighters, EMTs and other first responders -- hidden from the public until 2006 when a NY Times FOIA request pried them loose from the vault where Rudy, the patron saint of mayors on the take, hoped they would remain forever?

Oddly enough, despite the fact that fires, planes and gravity caused all this chaos and death, all of these statements reference "explosions" and "bombs going off" and "a series of massive explosions" and "pop, pop, pop going off around the building like a belt" and other crazy deranged shit like that from the addled brains of New York's finest.

Here's a great link to the sequence of events leading up to disclosure of these witness statements, relegated to the dungeon, of course, where 9/11 analysis goes to die.

And here's another to a http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2006/911-WTC-Twin-Towers26jan06.htm">compilation of these statements about things that obviously couldn't have happened because the serial liars in the Bush administration chose this event, and only this event, to disclose the undiluted truth to the American people and to the world.

Then they got busy lying again so they could con the gullible and the fearful into supporting attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq because the alleged terrorists were mostly from Saudi Arabia. The usual sensible, reasoned Bushie response.


wp

[AZ Criminal JD]

96. Uhmm. I guess you have never been around a major fire.

You will find those sounds "going off" in any major fire scene.

[warren pease]

97. Yeah, and a couple hundred NYC firefighters didn't know what a fire sounds like either...

... so they were unable to separate the roar of explosions from the normal pops and crashes "going off at any major fire scene."

You'd think the academy would do a better job of preparing rookies for this sort of stuff.

But I guess that explains everything. I'm going to resign from Scholars for Truth and Justice as soon as I finish up here. After all, what the hell do physicists know about physics?


wp

[AZ Criminal JD]

98. Since physicists don't know what so-called "dark matter" is

And it supposedly makes up 90% of the universe, apparently physicists know very little about physics. You are trying to dishonestly infer that the firefighters believe there were induced explosions simply because they reported various sounds. That is false and a lie.

[warren pease]

106. No...

I'm not "...trying to dishonestly infer that the firefighters believe there were induced explosions simply because they reported various sounds."

I'm honestly stating that these witnesses reported very specific sounds. These sounds weren't of the type that are normal in the course of doing their jobs. The sounds they reported were well outside the norm and were, therefore, anomalous, unfamiliar and indicative that something abnormal had occurred. Why would they report normal sounds at all?

Somehow, every single one of these "ear" witnesses was hallucinating. Their professional opinions are invalid, even though they're based on years of experience as firefighters. Even though they're completely familiar with the characteristic sights and sounds all fires produce.

Imo, any claim that's based on the premise that not a single one of those NYC firefighters knew what a fire's supposed to sound like is inherently flawed makes absolutely no sense.

If I understand it correctly, the argument goes like this:

A couple hundred trained NYC career firefighters who really ought to know what fires sound like were all wrong on this one particular day.

Because the official story doesn't permit the presence of explosives, all witnesses claiming otherwise were by definition delusional or disinfo plants.

But many of these statements were taken on the morning of 9/11 and the official story wasn't even in place yet. So how would anyone know that mentioning explosives would end up contradicting the sacred, immutable truth of the official conspiracy theory (or OCT)?

Does any of that sound reasonable to anyone who's not a member of the Bushies' own ministry of propaganda?

Bush administration officials -- up to and including His Excellency himself -- insist the OCT is flawless and complete. They've got two invasions and an official report to prove it. The 9/11 Commission turned out 571 pages of excuses and explanations that -- shockingly -- end up verifying the entire OCT, while ignoring or purging any contrary data.

This marvel of approved orthodoxy comes from a commission whose executive director was a guy named Philip Zelikow, long-time Bush collaborator, co-author with Rice of a book on German unification circa 1989, Rove crony and on-and-off member of the administration in various capacities. So he knew how to take orders and how to arrange events to put the Bushies in the best possible light.

Like who gets placed under oath and who doesn't -- like Ms. Rice. Like arranging for Bushie to have his puppeteer by his side during his closed-door "testimony," no oaths, no press, no recordings, no cameras, notes collected and burned before anyone's allowed to leave the room.

Considering that all this was manufactured by a coven of serial liars who haven't told the truth about anything of substance since "the events of 9/11"(tm) "changed everything," which they waste no opportunity to repeat and reinforce with some brand new bit of bullshit...

You'd think the Bushies ongoing disinformation campaign would be of interest to the general public, particularly since they're the ones paying for the ensuing invasions and occupations, but apparently the disconnect between the Bushies and the truth doesn't trouble too many people.

So we live with the consequences of the OCT -- war, imperialism, mass civilian death tolls, more than 4200 US troops killed, increasing domestic repression, constant federal surveillance and snooping, TSA morons with their new X-ray magic machines that let them check out totally nekkid babes...

The OCT has been the catalyst that brought all this on our heads. It needs to go away and be replaced by reality and facts that finally rid the world of the Bushies once and for all.

The cost of societal gullibility is pretty high, apparently. The price of truth is paid solely by the perps, their allies and their accomplices. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.


wp

[Fumesucker]

92. Ummm.... *all* theories about 9/11/2001 are "conspiracy theories"

Even the one you believe.

I don't subscribe to any particular theory (including the official one) but I particularly don't buy the official theory.

Do you really and truly think "they hate us for our freedoms"? That's part of the official theory.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

109. I would argue...

there's a difference between anti-intellectualism, and just plain stupid.

[yurbud]

95. ask your righty friends if they would go to a mechanic or doctor who only knew as much about...

cars or biology as their customers know. If they wouldn't, then why would they vote for someone who understands world affairs less than them?

[old mark]

99. "anti-intellectualism" is too soft - anti thought, anti science,

anti-anything but stupidity. Republicans LOVE ignorance and seem to thrive on it. Look at Bush (if you still can.)


mark

[babydollhead]

100. "Look at Miss Smartie McSmartie pants"

that's what my sister in law calls me whenever she catches me reading, inside while druncle danny is drunk out by the fire and I don't want to be out there, so I read, and am happy. She takes it as an insult. The fire means alot to her.

[baby_mouse]

112. Yick.

That's fucked up.

[Dukkha]

101. it is why people embrace guns and religion

Willful ignorance is the foundation of their beliefs and intellectualism debunks it so they decry it as mere "elitism".
It's like the global warming deniers who try to fabricate a phantom "opposing view" to be forced in education just so they can be justified in embracing the lifestyle of excess that caused the climate crisis.

[mnhtnbb]

104. We are entering the Age of Ignorance. Obama is not the first to say it--

but possibly is the first to get the concept reported.

We lived for 12 years in MO and NE. When we left NE, I said the state should have a new motto:

Ignorant and Proud of It.

I've posted this idea before. There are millions of people in this country--and yes some live
outside the 'heartland'--who have been brainwashed into believing myths, half-truths and outright
lies. They are not interested in facts. They are not interested in information. They are not interested in history. They are not interested in learning something which their preacher hasn't endorsed. They are ignorant and proud of it.

[BlooInBloo]

107. Stupid people LOVE being stupid more than anything else in the world...

And will fight like gangbusters to perpetuate it.

Thus you see the country before you.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

110. Can the internet help? We all now have a library in the spare bedroom

where you can research illness, history, crafts, cooking, anything.

I don't think READ particularly on the internet, but is it possible that this is a small beacon of hope?

[BlooInBloo]

111. Nah - the internet can only ampilify what's already there... The game's basically over...

by the time a kid is about 12-15. If the kid is a fucking idiot at that point, the kid'll be a fucking idiot for life.