How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet. Posted August 15, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/story/95109/how_anti-intellectualism_is_destroying_america/

"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.

Well, Nichole, you little elitist you! 

There were a lot of great points made in this interview. I especially liked how they brought up America's addiction to television. I know so many people that actually do spend several hours a day doing nothing but sitting around and watching TV. It always seemed like such a waste of time to me because there is no stimulating of the brain at all when you subject yourself to a bunch of stupid drivel like what is on the vast majority of TV. I also liked how they brought up the looking down on intellectualism. I've had many people tell me in person that "you are too smart for your own good" and "you shouldn't think so logically".  They also seem to revel in being utter morons and I have NEVER understood that at all. Why would you take pride in being stupid?? Part of me thinks that it is a sort of "herd mentality" because I think a lot of people tend to  hang out with those that are on the same intelligence level as they are and unfortunately, a lot of the people that I come in contact with can't carry on a conversation unless it revolves around sports or a TV show. So when someone comes along and tries to actually discuss something deeper than a football game or a soap opera it's like their brains short circuit or something. Then that's when the group starts in with the standard "you think too much" crap. It's so sad that people are like this.

Quote from: Nichole on August 17, 2008, 09:24:22 AM
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.[/i]

One way to take over the country is to keep everyone stupid and uninterested. Looks like it's working wonderfully using their approach of framing all intellectual thought as "elitist"

Z

Isn't it odd how so many of those who frame it that way have at least one degree from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, UMich, The Ohio State U, USC, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, UNC, Penn State, Cornell, Ithaca, Northwestern, UChicago, Notre Dame, Amherst, UCal, Stanford, MIT, etc?

And often come from the "best and brightest?" On the other hand those that eat that waste-product as if it were Lay's Potato Chips manage a regional state university, community college or high school diploma or drop out before getting that.

One suspect, Z, that there is method to the madness.

Although I am beginning to think that the elites are going to find the job has been too well done at this point.

Nichole

Quote from: Nichole on August 17, 2008, 12:32:42 PM
Isn't it odd how so many of those who frame it that way have at least one degree from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, UMich, The Ohio State U, USC, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, UNC, Penn State, Cornell, Ithaca, Northwestern, UChicago, Notre Dame, Amherst, UCal, Stanford, MIT, etc?

Yes, those clamoring loudest about the "elite" are in fact often elite w/ silver spoons themselves. I suppose it's also possible that although they went to these schools, they weren't the honors students, etc. Still, even with rich and connected parents, presumably one has to do some studying to not fail.

I've always believed that GW's folksy bit is a calculated act.

Z

I love Alternet, and this guy does great interviews.  And this answer rocks.

These basic knowledge deficits -- the fact that American 15-year-olds are near the bottom in mathematical knowledge compared with other countries, for example -- actually affect our ability to understand larger public issues. To understand what it means that the top 1 percent of income earners are getting tax breaks, you have to know what 1 percent means.

This article makes me want to completely WALLOW in Robert A. Heinlein novels for the next couple of days. I'm glad the old man is alive no longer. Living in the twenty-first century would have killed him.

I'm not at all sure that Heinlein novels will do a lot to change the attitudes of the GP. When you pair this thread with the one on Georgia and how one might compare the USA policy and the Russian policy and the procedures of both, then I think you begin to have some dawning of why we are contiually ill-served by voting for idiots who preach the gospel that ignorance is the best way to handle government.

It kinda reminds me of school-board elections where a few candidates talk about their six to ten years experience in education. Then you find out that meant the number of years they spent getting any schooling at all.

We love our know-nothings. Make presidents of them often enough. I can think of at least 2 of the past five who certainly qualif as know-nothings and who managed to take up 16 of the 32 years in that office.

We get what we ask for more often than not -- and what we are willing to put-up with.

Nichole

Quote from: Nichole on August 17, 2008, 04:27:47 PM
We love our know-nothings. Make presidents of them often enough. I can think of at least 2 of the past five who certainly qualif as know-nothings and who managed to take up 16 of the 32 years in that office.

Two Bushes plus Reagan has been 20 years of my adult life. Ugh!

QuoteWe get what we ask for more often than not -- and what we are willing to put-up with.

I sure didn't ask for this. Approximately half the US population doesn't vote though, so whoever was elected doesn't even have support of the majority. Geez, this is depressing!

Z

Bush senior seems to me on a different level than Reagan and Twiggy. I'd put him in the middle with Clinton for 12 years of mediocre and leave Carter as the only class member of someone with sense enough and guts enough to attempt to formulate policies and to talk to Americans about raising the level of public discourse and American politics.

Of course, he couldn't compare to cotton-candy and the peep-show that Reagan and his handlers appealed with.

Yeah, we get what we deserve -- total mediocrity and a business elite that cannot think beyond the next 6 weeks. Elite my toenails! These people are mediocrities.

This election we have one definite mediocrity and one fella who seems to be doing his dead-level best to become one in his attempts to "move closer to the center" (read: appealing to ignorant white guys who'd rather be shooting the empties off fence-posts and watching pro football with their Buds rather than thinking rationally.)

Nichole

People need life to be simple.  They want to BELIEVE in things.  They want to have FAITH in things.

Faith in capitalism and the freemarket is one of the things that is wrong with America.  The result? Programmed obsolescence in everything from automobiles to computers.  Ford realized that it had made a mistake in building ots automobiles too well.  The Model T ran for 20 years.  Now, a typical car doesn't last more than 6 or 7 years.  And during the lawsuit in which Microsoft had to turn over its source code, I'm told they discovered hidden loops of code designed to gradually eat memory and slow down the operation of the computer over time.  So I take those Stride commercials a little more seriously than some others might.  When they joke about hunting you down and making you spit out the piece of gum you are chewing, it IS funny.  Maybe a little TOO funny.

Makes me wonder what else we have too much faith in?

Quote from: glendagladwitch on August 17, 2008, 09:58:03 PM
Makes me wonder what else we have too much faith in?

Waaaaaaaay too easy, from my perspective...

What were we talking about?  I was watching a reality show on TV and listening to Fox News.

Quote from: tekla on August 17, 2008, 11:28:56 PM
What were we talking about?  I was watching a reality show on TV and listening to Fox News.

Yep, and dreaming of what's on sale at the mall. The life of the mind and the ability to reason sequentially seems almost totally lost anymore. O well, the end of empire, it's always a decadent era in the history of any empire.

Nichole

OHMYGODISTHEREASALEATTHEMALL! OMG!

I'm so out of here. 

And this is not a new thing, as he pointed out, one of my almost heroes Richard Hofstadter said it long ago.  It might have changed, but only for the worst.

Quote from: glendagladwitch on August 17, 2008, 09:58:03 PM
Faith in capitalism and the freemarket is one of the things that is wrong with America.

My experience is that most Americans have no idea what "capitalism" or "free markets" actually are - though you're right about the faith bit.  Americans of all political persuasions have an unlimited faith in violence (embodied by the government).  They just disagree on who should be shot or stolen from.  That's not a belief system I can reconcile with laissez-faire capitalism, but 99.99% of Americans seem to have a different definition than I.

Judging from a historical perspective, America is absolutely not capitalist - it's an example of authoritarian corporatist socialism.  Even the Republicans are socialist (albeit more of the fascist/nationalist variety).  Few Americans call themselves socialist, but that's just because American politics has moved the goal posts.

Who here honestly thinks that Cheny & Bush are supporters of laissez faire and limited government?  The only loosening of economic controls under the Bush regime has been for direct benefit to corporate cronies - not businessmen, but thieves who rely on regulatory capture & state-granted monopoly privilege (shades of AT&T, anyone?).

Hey now, you two. I like sales at the mall, and I'm not stupid.

Quote from: Stealthgrrl on August 18, 2008, 04:06:26 AM
Hey now, you two. I like sales at the mall, and I'm not stupid.

So do I. I believe the point is focussing one's entire life and intelligence on sales and TV.

Of course, Shay, being smart, you know that.

Thanks for making the point about sequential reasoning stick!

Hugs,

Nichole

QuoteHey now, you two. I like sales at the mall, and I'm not stupid.

I don't know, malls scare me. Having to *wade* through groups of mass-produced girls with pancaked make-up and skirts that are one step away from utter non-existence, *squealing* because they haven't seen their friend who just, like, arrived, like, two seconds ago, in, like, five minutes?! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh. Don't know what it's like in the US, but it's scary enough here. It's almost (this is possibly a wee bit elitist, but there you go ) like survival of the fittest by default. You know how in hunter-gatherer times you *had* to pull your own weight and be alert and able, either physically or mentally (or even both) in order to survive, both personally and as a community? Well, it's almost like now it's come to the point where some people are having to compensate for the incapability of others - they're not surviving by their own merit. They can provide for themselves neither mentally nor physically, and so others are doing it for them. Why bother thinking when you can pay someone to do it for you? Why bother to do *anything* if you know that, somewhere, someone is willing - *and will* - do it for you, be they your millionaire daddy or a poorly-paid immigrant?

Sorry, that's probably fairly cynical, but that seems to be what's happening. I know there's a book (don't know the title *or* the author, sorry, it's one my parents have told me about) where a very small section of society (the wealthiest and best-educated) convinces the rest of society that *they*, in fact, are in control of everything, and that all this education and money this well-off group has, it's all very hard work and not worth it, and it's much better to just watch TV all day because that's what the *true* elite does. So the rest of the population, convinced of their status as the 'true elite', go about doing nothing all day - they don't work, don't think, don't do anything but mindless, cathartic stuff, showing nothing but contempt for the "workers" who have to toil their lives away, and who are actually controlling *everything*. 

Bit 1984/Brave New World, really.

And, honestly, I don't think it's destroying America alone. I think this whole next generation is in trouble. More specifically, pursuits which take *time* and *effort* will die out rapidly. Why take the time learning to play the piano if you can sit in front of a computer screen and shoot things? Or learn another language? I'm a children's piano teacher, and I've had sooooooo many kids who just never, *ever* practised. It's really, really sad that all these wonderful things will die out simply because technology makes doing other things so much easier that it's less hassle to just not bother.

Sorry, cynical again. Dad always says it's great to see one so young as cynical as I am. I suspect he may be being ironic...

Anyway, on a lighter note... I don't mean to offend/irritate anyone , but this showed on TV (argh!) about a year ago... (Really, I'm not posting it to offend Americans, I just thought it was funny. (Bit sad, but funny too). There's another one of the Brits, and if there's anything about stupid Aussies out there, I'm all for it. Just so you know. Equal p*ss-taking opportunites for all . (Actually, this is done by a group (The ->-bleeped-<-s) who will take the p*ss out of absolutely anyone. Don't know if people heard about it overseas, but they were the ones who got into APEC dressed as Osama bin Laden and the Canadian delegation and then were arrested *after* they'd turned around to leave. )).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=related