There
is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in
American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and
humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness,
ignorance, and deliberate
gullibility.
Susan Jacoby, author of
The Age of American Unreason, says in an article in the
Washington Post,
"Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has
been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of
heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video
culture over print culture; a disjunction between Americans' rising
level of formal
education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism."
There has been a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in
America, unlike most other Western countries. Richard Hofstadter, who
won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his book,
Anti-Intellectualism In American Life,
describes how the vast underlying foundations of anti-elite,
anti-reason and anti-science have been infused into America's political
and social fabric. Famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said:
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always
been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread
winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the
false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as
your knowledge."
Mark Bauerlein, in his book,
The Dumbest Generation, reveals how a whole generation of youth is being dumbed down by their aversion to reading anything of substance and their
addiction to digital "crap" via social media.
Journalist Charles Pierce, author of
Idiot America, adds another perspective:
"The rise of idiot America today represents - for profit mainly, but
also and more cynically, for political advantage in the pursuit of power
- the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good.
It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we
should trust the least are the people who best know what they are
talking about. In the new media age, everybody is an expert."
"There's a pervasive suspicion of rights, privileges, knowledge and specialization," says Catherine Liu, the author of
American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique and
a film and media studies professor at University of California. The
very mission of universities has changed, argues Liu. "We don't educate
people anymore. We train them to get jobs."
Part of the reason for the rising anti-intellectualism can be found in
the declining state of education in the U.S. compared to other advanced
countries:
- After leading the world for decades in 25-34 year olds with
university degrees, the U.S. is now in 12th place. The World Economic
Forum ranked the U.S. at 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its
university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly 50% of all
graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are foreigners, most of
whom are returning to their home countries;
- The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs commissioned a civic
education poll among public school students. A surprising 77% didn't
know that George Washington was the first President; couldn't name
Thomas Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence; and
only 2.8% of the students actually passed the citizenship test. Along
similar lines, the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix did the same survey
and only 3.5% of students passed the civics test;
- According to the National Research Council report, only 28% of high
school science teachers consistently follow the National Research
Council guidelines on teaching evolution, and 13% of those teachers
explicitly advocate creationism or "intelligent design;"
- 18% of Americans still believe that the sun revolves around the earth, according to a Gallup poll;
- The American Association of State Colleges and Universities report
on education shows that the U.S. ranks second among all nations in the
proportion of the population aged 35-64 with a college degree, but 19th
in the percentage of those aged 25-34 with an associate or high school
diploma, which means that for the first time, the educational attainment
of young people will be lower than their parents;
- 74% of Republicans in the U.S. Senate and 53% in the House of Representatives deny the validity of climate change despite the findings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and every other significant scientific organization in the world;
- According to the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress,
68% of public school children in the U.S. do not read proficiently by
the time they finish third grade. And the U.S. News & World reported
that barely 50% of students are ready for college level reading when
they graduate;
- According to a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half
of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know
the location of other countries in which important news is being made.
More than a third consider it "not at all important" to know a foreign
language, and only 14 percent consider it "very important;"
- According to the National Endowment for the Arts report in 1982, 82%
of college graduates read novels or poems for pleasure; two decades
later only 67% did. And more than 40% of Americans under 44 did not read a single book--fiction or nonfiction--over the course of a year. The proportion of 17 year olds who read nothing (unless required by school ) has doubled between 1984-2004;
- Gallup released a poll indicating 42 percent of Americans still believe God created human beings in their present form less than 10,000 years ago;
- A 2008 University of Texas study found that 25 percent of public
school biology teachers believe that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the
earth simultaneously.
In American schools, the culture exalts the athlete and good-looking
cheerleader. Well-educated and intellectual students are commonly
referred to in public schools and the media as "nerds," "dweebs,"
"dorks," and "geeks," and are relentlessly harassed and even assaulted
by the more popular "jocks" for openly displaying any intellect. These
anti-intellectual attitudes are not reflected in students in most
European or Asian countries, whose educational levels have now equaled
and and will surpass that of the U.S. And most TV shows or movies such
as The Big Bang Theory depict intellectuals as being geeks if not
effeminate.
John W. Traphagan, Professor of
Religious
Studies at the University of Texas, argues the problem is that Asian
countries have core cultural values that are more akin to a cult of
intelligence
and education than a cult of ignorance and anti-intellectualism. In
Japan, for example, teachers are held in high esteem and normally viewed
as among the most important members of a community. There is suspicion
and even disdain for the work of teachers that occurs in the U.S.
Teachers in Japan typically are paid significantly more than their peers
in the U.S. The profession of teaching is one that is seen as being of
central value in Japanese society and those who choose that profession
are well compensated in terms of salary, pension, and respect for their
knowledge and their efforts on behalf of children.
In addition, we do not see in Japan significant numbers of the types of
religious schools that are designed to shield children from knowledge
about basic tenets of science and accepted understandings of history -
such as evolutionary theory or the religious views of the Founding
Fathers, who were largely deists - which are essential to having a
fundamental
understanding
of the world, Traphagan contends. The reason for this is because in
general Japanese value education, value the work of intellectuals, and
see a well-educated public with a basic common knowledge in areas of
scientific fact, math, history, literature, etc. as being an essential
foundation to a successful democracy.
We're creating a world of dummies. Angry dummies who feel they
have the right, the authority and the need not only to comment on
everything, but to make sure their voice is heard above the rest, and to
drag down any opposing views through personal attacks, loud repetition
and confrontation.
Bill Keller, writing in the
New York Times argues that the anti-intellectual elitism is not an elitism of
wisdom,
education, experience or knowledge. The new elite are the angry social
media posters, those who can shout loudest and more often, a clique of
bullies and malcontents baying together like dogs cornering a fox. Too
often it's a combined elite of the anti-intellectuals and the conspiracy
followers - not those who can voice the most cogent, most coherent
response. Together they foment a rabid culture of anti-rationalism where
every fact is suspect; every shadow holds a secret conspiracy. Rational
thought is the enemy. Critical thinking is the devil's tool.
Keller also notes that the herd mentality takes over online; the
anti-intellectuals become the metaphorical equivalent of an angry lynch
mob when anyone either challenges one of the mob beliefs or posts
anything outside the mob's self-limiting set of values.
Keller blames this in part to the online universe that "skews young,
educated and attentive to fashions." Fashion, entertainment, spectacle,
voyeurism - we're directed towards trivia, towards the inconsequential,
towards unquestioning and blatant
consumerism.
This results in intellectual complacency. People accept without
questioning, believe without weighing the choices, join the pack because
in a culture where convenience rules, real individualism is too hard
work. Thinking takes too much time: it gets in the way of the immediacy
of the online experience.
Reality TV and pop culture presented in magazines and online sites claim to provide useful information about the importance of
The Housewives of
[you name the city] that can somehow enrich our lives. After all, how
else can one explain the insipid and pointless stories that tout
divorces, cheating and weight gain? How else can we explain how the
Kardashians, or Paris Hilton are known for being famous without actually
contributing anything worth discussion? The artificial events of their
lives become the mainstay of populist media to distract people from the
real issues and concerns facing us.
The current trend of increasing anti-intellectualism now establishing itself in
politics and business
leadership,
and supported by a declining education system should be a cause for
concern for leaders and the general population, one that needs to be
addressed now.
