The Dumbing Of America

[nadinbrzezinski]

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html

To go with Mathews comment...

[leftstreet]

1. Another bullshit article blaming voters for the DUMB shit politicians do

:puke:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I guess historians are dumb

<------

Will go to the corner now.

[MadHound]

4. Well, it is the voters who are ultimately responsible for keeping politicians in office.

A generation ago, public pressure forced a crooked president to resign from office. Today, we reelect a president to a second term, despite the fact that he is a war criminal.

[leftstreet]

6. Half the eligible voters don't vote. They must be the intellectuals n/t

[MadHound]

7. Your point?

The fact remains, it is we the people who are ultimately responsible for our politicians. This is, after all, a democracy.

[dogknob]

3. Some touchy folks out there...

'Elitist' is the biggest word in the vocabulary of many voters, and that's the way our education system means to keep it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Welcome to DU

:hi:

and yup

[MadHound]

5. An excellent, and all too true, article

I've been seeing this creeping anti-intellectualism increasing for most of my life.

[Ron Green]

9. There have always been ignorant people, but

nowadays they're in your face.

[hifiguy]

10. Anti-intellectualism is as 'murkan as apple pie

and has deep, deep roots in this country. And people who don't respect intelligence or learning tend, themselves, to be imbeciles. Remember, people, Chimpy was still getting 30-40% approval ratings at the end of his accidency. That tells me that there is a sizable proportion of the US population that is too goddamn stupid, as LBJ once memorably put it, to pour piss out of a boot even if the instructions were written on the heel.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. We have tried to have these discussions in the past

it is the proverbial elephant. I went to it since Mathews mentioned it.. not because it will go well

:hi:

[malaise]

12. Must read

Rec

[Solomon]

13. The right wing has to go to religion in order

to survive because white supremacy is incompatible with logic and merit.

Fuck logic. God has decreed white supremacy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Goes well into the past

and I will leave it at that