For some reason, the US national characteristic of anti-intellectualism is being noticed in the press with MacLeans (Canada) America Dumbs Down and the New York Review of Books, Age of Ignorance. I’ve also been doing posts on this since 2010, and am not the only person to have noticed this trend. As I said, this isn’t really news since Richard Hofstadter won the 1964 Pulitzer prize for a book titled Anti-intellectualism in American Life. Hofstadter attributed this trend toward the democratisation of knowledge.
in 2008, journalist Susan Jacoby was warning that the denseness—“a virulent mixture of anti-rationalism and low expectations”—was more of a permanent state. In her book, The Age of American Unreason, she posited that it trickled down from the top, fuelled by faux-populist politicians striving to make themselves sound approachable rather than smart. Perhaps we can add media consolidation to the contributing factors with fewer good news sources being available in the US and even public broadcasting being throttled by crypto-commercials called “underwriting”.
Hofstadter’s book was the landmark work on the topic, even though there have been a few more significant books and articles on anti-intellectualism preceded it (most notably Merle Curti’s The Growth of American Thought in 1943), and even though it has been followed, in recent years, by well known books from the Left and Right, including Russell Jacoby’s The Last Intellectuals, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, Richard Posner’s Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, and so on. The list lengthens if one adds in broader books about the “dumbing down” of American society.
Of course, some of the US founders were intellectuals (Jefferson and Franklin) who founded Universities or who praised education (Madison), yet the trend toward anti-intellectualism has taken grasp in the US. Hoffstadter pointed out that there is a conflict between access to education and excellence in education (although, I am of the opinion that one does not need to be formally educated to contributes to this trend, which is reiterated in the MacLeans article where a US Second Grader wrote to the South Carolina legislature that she believed the States should have a fossil, but was rebuffed by fundamentalist spewing mumbo-jumbo about evolution.\
Charles Simic point out in the NYRB piece that:
It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today. Anyone who has taught college over the last forty years, as I have, can tell you how much less students coming out of high school know every year. At first it was shocking, but it no longer surprises any college instructor that the nice and eager young people enrolled in your classes have no ability to grasp most of the material being taught. Teaching American literature, as I have been doing, has become harder and harder in recent years, since the students read little literature before coming to college and often lack the most basic historical information about the period in which the novel or the poem was written, including what important ideas and issues occupied thinking people at the time.
Even better is where Simic points out:
In the past, if someone knew nothing and talked nonsense, no one paid any attention to him. No more. Now such people are courted and flattered by conservative politicians and ideologues as “Real Americans” defending their country against big government and educated liberal elites. The press interviews them and reports their opinions seriously without pointing out the imbecility of what they believe. The hucksters, who manipulate them for the powerful financial interests, know that they can be made to believe anything, because, to the ignorant and the bigoted, lies always sound better than truth
It seems that the big push for ignorance comes from the right since an educated, well-informed population, which is required by a functioning democracy, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. It is much easier to spread disinformation to a population which is incapable of critical thinking skills than one which only hears the things which they agree. That was one of the reason for the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press: to have a healthy and informed debate on public policy. But one cannot have such a debate if the field is filled with rubbish spread by those who have their own interests at heart.
To some extent, Hofstadter is correct when he mentions the democratisation of knowledge, where someone who has no real grasp of the topic gives an opinion and weight is given to that opinion which is out of line with its value. The opinion of someone who has no knowledge of a topic does not have the same weight as someone who has studied the topic and developed an expertise of the matter.
Simic points out the common misconceptions which are being pushed and offers this conclusion for why anti-intellectualism has become epidemic:
Christians are persecuted in this country.
The government is coming to get your guns.
Obama is a Muslim.
Global Warming is a hoax.
The president is forcing open homosexuality on the military.
Schools push a left-wing agenda.
Social Security is an entitlement, no different from welfare.
Obama hates white people.
The life on earth is 10,000 years old and so is the universe.
The safety net contributes to poverty.
The government is taking money from you and giving it to sex-crazed college women to pay for their birth control.
One could easily list many more such commonplace delusions believed by Americans. They are kept in circulation by hundreds of right-wing political and religious media outlets whose function is to fabricate an alternate reality for their viewers and their listeners. “Stupidity is sometimes the greatest of historical forces,” Sidney Hook said once. No doubt. What we have in this country is the rebellion of dull minds against the intellect. That’s why they love politicians who rail against teachers indoctrinating children against their parents’ values and resent the ones who show ability to think seriously and independently. Despite their bravado, these fools can always be counted on to vote against their self-interest. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is why millions are being spent to keep my fellow citizens ignorant.
See also:
OK, this message is making it’s way around the internet and I’m happy to share it:
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, AmeriCorps, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither. Please share this message.
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both–James Madison
I’ve been wanting to write something on this topic for a while. This comment by Susan at Liberality got my mind working:
Two hundred years ago the founders of the republic would have been deliriously happy at the idea of Americans able to be informed by the sheer volume of available facts the digital information age would produce. The fatal assumption was that Americans would choose to think and learn, instead of reinforcing their particular choice of cultural ignorance.
I am thoroughly in agreement with what she says in that the Internet, like Television can be a force for spreading knowledge and culture. On the other hand, it has become a place where opinions tend to be reinforced by similar viewpoints. Dissenting voices are shot down by astroturf posting.
I am well aware that one of the criticisms about this blog is that I moderate comments, which in no way is a violation of someone’s free speech. The problem is that the opinions that I do not publish are repeated across the internet–some are far overrepresented. Additionally, the comments come from someone who also blogs or has a forum in which to voice their opinions. The concept of free speech is to allow for dissenting opinions to be heard. They are not heard if someone comes in and drowns out that opinion with something that is overrepresented.
What Is Censorship? Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons — individuals, groups or government officials — find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, “Don’t let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it!” Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.
Given that definition, and the other ones found here, I am in no manner or form engaging in censorship. Additionally, I have a commenting policy:
These are my opinions and I don’t care if you read this. I blog for myself, but don’t mind if others read what I write. I don’t really want to hear from you–unless you agree with me or unless you can offer intelligent and constructive comments or can say something interesting and informative, don’t waste your time doing such as your comments end up in the electronic dustbin without being read. Quality over quantity is my preference for comments.
Also, any comments left here become the property of this blog for me to do as I wish. So BEWARE!
This takes us back to my comment about astroturf. George Monbiot pretty much sums up my feelings about the repeat, ignorant, and irrelevant comments:
I love debate, and I often wade into the threads beneath my columns. But it’s a depressing experience, as instead of contesting the issues I raise, many of those who disagree bombard me with infantile abuse, or just keep repeating a fiction, however often you discredit it. This ensures that an intelligent discussion is almost impossible – which appears to be the point.
The second pattern is the strong association between this tactic and a certain set of views: pro-corporate, anti-tax, anti-regulation. Both traditional conservatives and traditional progressives tend be more willing to discuss an issue than these right-wing libertarians, many of whom seek instead to shut down debate.
I don’t mind comments if they are truly interested in debate, but as most people who blog about gun-control, climate change, and other controversial topics will tell you, the comments they receive are there to shut down debate. For example, when I made my posts on inalienable rights, it was very clear that most of the posters had no idea of what I was talking about in those posts. Additionally, the tone is that of religious reverence for a philosophical position which is very much up for debate and hardly a “settled matter”.
I routinely delete comments that repeat questions or ask questions about material which can be properly researched. I will also add that I have investigated some of these topics and written blogs posts which outline my conclusions. Again, if the repeat posters would take time to RESEARCH, they will probably find the answers to their questions. I do not force my opinions on anyone and prefer not to have people force theirs upon me.
Which gets to critical thinking, which is defined as:
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills (“as an exercise”) without acceptance of their results.
The founders assumed that people would be properly educated and be able to use critical reasoning skills to assess points of view not merely say:
“It’s all over the internet, it must be true”
“It came from — facts, it must be true”
Part of this is being able to use one’s experience to verify what is being written, and the other is the research skills to further investigate what has been asserted. I will admit that I like going into depth on topics that interest me, which is something you may have noticed if you read this blog on a regular basis.
The Founding fathers were indeed supporters of education, which seems to be lost on the current generation. For example, the two quotes from James Madison can be found on the left side of the main entrance of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress:
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
On the right side of the entrance:
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of liberty and learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
And these quotes from Thomas Jefferson on the Jefferson Building:
Educate and inform the mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Benjamin Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, and John Witherspoon was President and head professor of what would become Princeton University, which demonstrates that education was important to the founders in order to have the type of debate necessary to run the republic. Which is an interesting aside and somewhat germane to the topic since Susan pointed out that “The fatal assumption was that Americans would choose to think and learn, instead of reinforcing their particular choice of cultural ignorance”.
The American War for Independence was an idealistic act, and with most idealistic acts and philosophies, its beliefs have run into hard reality. Beliefs such as Anarchy, Democracy, Communism, Socialism, Libertarianism, and so on sound good in theory, but don’t works so well in reality. For example, Anarchy believes that government is not necessary since people know the rules and pretty much obey them, breaking them only when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, Anarchy tends to descend into nihilism. I contend that one of the failings of the Independence movement was that the voices of the Tories and more moderate forces of independence were shouted down, which means that the guarantee of free speech was a little too late (but that’s another aside).
Anyway, debate and open discussion is a wonderful thing, but it does seem to be a rare commodity on the internet.
And I just liked this quote:
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.–James Madison
References:
http://editorsnote.blogs.tuscaloosanews.com/10007/editing-or-censorship/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions.html
http://www.monbiot.com/2010/12/13/reclaim-the-cyber-commons/
http://www.criticalthinking.org/
http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutct/define_critical_thinking.cfm
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_madison.html
http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/bldgs.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/index_1.html
Laci the dog's Blog 