Are Americans perpetually stupid?

[FM Arouet666]

I was surfing today and came across the Scope's Monkey trial. Apropos given the rise of fundamentalism, especially the debate over evolution.

Anyway, I found this page.
http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/scopes.htm

Reading this, I am struck with how foolish Americans are perceived around the world. True in the early 1900s and true today. We are witnesses to a rise of stupidity, in search of our Clarence Darrow, to bring back reality.:evilfrown:

[imenja]

1. yes, I'm afraid so

I'm more convinced of it every day. Unfortunately DU doesn't do much to elevate my opinions about the intelligence of the American public. Sadly, it is evident across the ideological spectrum.

In the case of creationism, you'd think that dispute had been put to rest by Clarence Darrow. Eighty years later and we're at it again.

[hfojvt]

4. In Scott Nearing's autobiography

"Education of a Radical" he said that as a young man, he used to engage in public debates with Clarence Darrow. Clarence would argue that "life is not worth living" and Scott would argue that it was. So I am not sure that I would take Darrow's side. After all William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic/Populist candidate for President in 1896 and 1900, and if he had won either of those elections we would not have all these problems today....
Bokonon says "believe in the Foma that make you brave, strong, and happy". Y'all sound like you could use a Foma or two, like a belief in human progress or something.

[FM Arouet666]

8. Bryan was a moron

Fundamentalist, rigid, christian. Read the transcript of the trial, Darrow exposed Bryan for what he was. How exactly would things be different today had Bryan won over one hundred years ago?

[imenja]

12. as a populist

Bryan sought to unify farmers against the eastern commercial banking and railroad elite that undermined the farmer's ability to make a decent living. The populists also sought to unify black and white agricultural workers, to over come the racial divide that separated poor Americans, keeping them from mounting a united challenge against the economic elite. The populist movement, that Bryan spoke to through his presidential campaigns, was on the most important grass roots efforts to bring about political and economic change in our nation's history.
Bryan representing farmers, and his ideas and values were rural. Creationism fit into that context.

[FM Arouet666]

15. Sadly

I agree, I read a number of pages on Bryan today. His place in history could have been one of a learned man, a populist, in support of the ordinary American. However, his interaction with Darrow on the literal meaning of the Bible, is his lasting legacy. I am probably being to harsh to brand the man a moron, given his early contributions to American political history. Sadly, his place in history had been cast, and by his own hand.

[imenja]

16. yes, but it's not equivalent to the "intelligent design' folks today

We've had many more years of science to make clear the centrality of evolution in explaining the origins of species. Also, those old ideas were supposed to have been put to rest in the 1920s. Today, the Christian right pulls them out to facilitate their power over public school systems. Bryan represented the end of an era, but is not like the irrational creationists working to deny what has been for a very long time now well established science. The trial was a personal humiliation for Bryan, but I don't hold it against him when evaluating his role in history. I can understand his position in the context of his time. Today's creationists are not so well intentioned.

[FM Arouet666]

19. Perhaps

I completely agree that the creationists of today are a different breed. But, I do not view Bryan in a sympathetic light. His testimony in the trial clearly demonstrated his ignorance. Was he truly more intelligent, as his preceding accomplishments would suggest? Perhaps. Then he was either a weak man who could not admit that traditional thinking was in error or an opportunist that choose to ignore science for political gain. Either way, not a man which I hold in high regard.

[hfojvt]

22. How does ignorance become equivalent to unintelligent?

Did Bryan not say from the stand "I do not think about the things that I do not think about?" Wilful ignorance perhaps, but wilful ignorance about the things Darrow was straining at - fine points of biblical inerrancy. Everyone makes an economizing decision about what they are going to learn and is therefore ignorant about alot of things. Many students of theology might think that Darrow was straining at gnats while swallowing camels (Matthew 23:23-24) He was picking at fine points of the Bible while ignoring its uses in guiding people to be better people (2 Timothy 3:16)

[FM Arouet666]

23. Unintelligence

is the state in which a person realizes that he is ignorant of a particular issue, yet fails to explore that issue in an attempt to gain understanding?

In reality, unintelligence is a lack of capacity to comprehend a particular issue, or worse, a failure to realize an ignorance of an issue in the first place. Bryan was, perhaps, neither. He should have realized his ignorance of science, and in particular, evolution, yet failed to explore the issue in a rational manner. I would call him a moron, with the stipulation that this term should denote an individual that is too lazy to address an issue, though he is intellectually capable.

Sorry, forgot to quote the authors. Let this be known as FM Arouet666 verse 1, paragraph five, of the recent testament.:evilgrin:

[hfojvt]

25. you'd have done better to quote a dictionary

I would agree with the definition of unintelligence, but to be unaware of one's own ignorance seems too typical to be called unintelligent. I am reminded of the episode of MASH where the jeep breaks down and the surgeon Hawkeye is unable to fix it. Most people would not consider a surgeon to be unintelligent, but apparently he was not concerned about his inability to repair a jeep even though that lack of ability put his and hotlips' lives at risk. Until the shitstorm happens, we do not know what knowledge we will need. It could also easily be argued that if Hawkeye took the time to learn Jeep repair that it would take away from his abilities as a surgeon, and which knowledge is more important?
Your use of the term moron, I find to be more pejorative than descriptive or useful. How can you tell if a person is lazy or if they have been busy with other endeavors, such as surgery or political reform?
I sort of like Calvin's question in math class. He asked "what is the purpose of existence?" His teacher, Miss Wormwood, said the question was irrelevant. He said: "frankly, I would like to have that issue resolved before I expend any more energy on this."

[FM Arouet666]

33. Acknowledged

You are probably correct, my definitions were off the cuff. There is a distinct difference between unintelligence and ignorance. The former relating to one's capacity and the latter to circumstance.

You are also correct in my characterization of Bryan as a moron. A pejorative, and worse, the cardinal sin of ad hominem.

However to characterize Bryan as busy with other endeavors to explain his ignorance of evolution is factually incorrect.

"(Bryan) No sir, I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it. I have all the information I want to live by and to die by."

I fear that the stagnation of the human mind lies in religion. This is Bryan's legacy, frightfully resurrected in the contemporary religious Right.

Oh, and as a MASH fan, I rather liked your analogy.

[imenja]

11. cultural conflicts, urban and rural

I expect that personal attributes don't interference greatly with someone's ability to be an impassioned advocate for a cause. Bryan was a man who represented farming people, and so his worldview was shaped by those values. In that sense, I'm not surprised he adopted the creationist cause. The 1920s was a period that witnessed rising urbanization and an increasing cultural divide between urban and rural areas. The evolution / creationism debate represented a manifestation of those cultural divisions.
I often think our current era is similar to the 1920s. We likewise are afflicted by great cultural divisions, and I can only hope that Bush's economic policies do not produce the same disastrous results than Hoover's did.

[hfojvt]

20. I would not say that the Great Depression

was the result of Hoover's policies. He took office in January of 1929 and Black Friday was in November of 1929. It was really the bubble of the 1920s bursting. The problems were exacerbated by the FED which was run by bankers, and they acted like bankers and tightened credit instead of doing what they economy needed. Sound policy for a bank is not the same as sound policy for a central bank. Hoover took the position that all he needed to do was stay upbeat and the economy would recover on its own.
I am a fan of the Populists, and therefore Bryan as their spokesman, although L. Frank Baum characterized him as the Cowardly Lion who retreated to the woods after his defeats. I was spoofing Trent Lott in his infamous "all these problems" quote.
Also I dis-like blanket indictments of the intelligence of ordinary people. The evolution question is a non-issue to me, and it seems like some defenders of Darwin have made it into a religion. Science to them becomes about "truth" rather than about inquiry.

[FM Arouet666]

10. Sadly, you are correct.

Ignorance is not isolated. I am glad to see others with the same frustration.

[ClassWarrior]

2. More like easily manipulated and misinformed.

I have extremely intelligent friends who hold totally wrong views - thanks to our friends, the Corporate Media.

Let's remember who the enemies are. Not the American people. The Corporate Media and the Radical RW.

NGU.

[mark414]

6. YES

i have to remind myself that often, but i try NEVER to blame the people, no matter how much kool aide they've downed

i blame those in charge, those with power...THEY are the problem and us bickering amongst each other only lets them get away with more

[not systems]

3. very little has changed...

I listened to a reenactment of the Monkey trial and
came to the conclusion that the forces of science had
better defenders 75 years ago than now.

[imenja]

5. none better than Clarence Darrow

Read the book, Inherit the Wind. It's a good treatment of the trial.

[not systems]

7. Thanks. Is the movie version any good? n/t

[imenja]

13. I haven't seen it in a long time

so I can't comment with any authority. I believe Spencer Tracy plays Darrow, so it's got to good for that reason alone. How well it treats the subject matter is, of course, another question.

[Hardrada]

9. We are missing the Clarence Darrows

and also the Bertrand Russells, the Sartres, the Dr. Spocks, the Carl Sagans if I may pluralize them. It seems like all the smart older defenders of truth in the public realm are deceased. Oh and the poets too like Robert Lowell and Alan Ginsberg. Our duty is to become more luminous to replace their lost clarifying light.

[imenja]

14. We have some

In the legal profession: think of the innocence project that uses DNA testing to get wrongly convicted prisoners off Death Row (Barry Scheck, et al); Morris Deas of the Southern poverty law center, David Boies; and while we may laugh at the mention of Johnnie Cochran because of his association with OJ Simpson and Puffy, he has done a good deal of civil rights advocacy, and successfully freed the black panther Geronimo Pratt after serving years for a prison sentence based on perjured testimony of an FBI informant. We have others too. All of the nameless lawyers who work to try to save prisoners on Death row.

[hfojvt]

18. I miss Isaac Asimov

Russell I was never aware of, nor the others, while we both were living. I thought Carl was kinda silly, a TV scientist with his "billions" but "This Haunted World" and "Contact" were very good.

[virgdem]

17. In a word, Yes...

As a good friend used to say about Texans (with apologies to the smart ones): "They've elevated stupidity to an art form." It seems this statement applies to Americans as a whole. Sad and pathetic when you think about it. It seems that every day, I run into people who cannot seem to do even the most simple tasks of their jobs. Mistakes abound and the attitude is: who cares. This country is slowly but surely sliding into the abyss of mediocrity.

[Lexingtonian]

21. We're fighting at Stupidity's Last Stand

and it's putting up a hell of a lot of resistance.

Sometime today we're going to see one of its last, garish, victory celebrations unleished on DC and a mourning country.

[depakid]

24. After more than 20 years of divesting in education

this is not surprising. Add in grade inflation and the increasingly stupifying influence of television and this is probably what one should expect.

[bobweaver]

26. I'm not sure, I need a RW radio commentator to give me the answer.

[franksumatra]

27. The world's largest producer of stupidity

it's our number one export.

[ComerPerro]

28. And just think: William Jennings Bryan was left wing!

A left wing religious fundamentalist!

But he was progressive and populist. Anti-business. Apparently it used to be considered immoral and unChristian to swindle people the way BushCo and modern conservative CEOs do.

Check out What's the Matter With Kansas, by Thomas Frank. He discusses how conservatives hijacked the progressive populist movement of the 1900s to sucker people into supporting them.

[ErinGoBraghLess]

29. Inherit the Wind

This was one of my favorite plays in school. The movie can seem a little dated nowadays, but still a good viewing.

I don't think Inherit the Wind stands for the proposition that you have to believe in evolution per se. It stands for the proposition that you have to apply logic and truth to whatever issue you're dealing with. I am confident that if there was good hard science AGAINST evolution, then Darrow would support that also. It is science, not irrational beliefs, that must provide the final answer. So on the Left, I think we must be vigilant to be sure that we are not relying on our beliefs alone in deciding matters.

BTW, what IS the science against evolution? These right-wing sites mention that the scientific evidence for evolution is lacking, but I don't see any specifics.

[xchrom]

30. it's past time we started dissecting the american population.

the ability of conservatives to manipulate americans is extraordinary -- and we need and in depth look at the population if liberals and progressives and leftists of any stripe ar going to regain control of the conversation.

too much of the american mind is devoted to looking backwards -- very different from european and canadian approach.
why?

what do americans fear that they devote themselves to a powerful few who do not have their best interests at heart?

[BiggJawn]

31. Concerning "Intelegent Design" in the Schools.

It's our own damn fault. while we were getting all giddy over the promise of "On a VERY SPECIAL 'Friends' tonight..."

The Dominionists were taking over our school boards. Superstition instead of Science on the curiculum.

There's the starting point to take back our country.

[SweetLeftFoot]

32. Not stupidity

Its wilful ignorance born from arrogance.

Similar to the Chinese emporer who stopped Admiral Zhang from sailing his mighty fleet because "there is nothing the barbarians can teach us".