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4.0
Fooling Most Of The People Most Of The Time
According to Susan Jacoby, America has destroyed itself with the two things of which it is most proud: its technology and its religion. Broadcast and social media combined with the resurgence of fundamentalist Christianity have created a nation of under-educated, illiterate, inarticulate, and foul-mouthed halfwits. This condition has become baked-into American society through the increasing control of budgets for primary education by Republican activists who perceive academic achievement as elitist and un-American.
Too harsh? Too generalised? If only: “More than half of American adults believe in ghosts, one third believe in astrology, three quarters believe in angels, and four fifths believe in miracles.” Despite efforts to launch itself elsewhere, QAnon remains an American phenomenon. In a few countries anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and gun-nuts might hang out on the occasional street corner spouting their nonsense. In America they have national political action groups that aggressively lobby politicians who pride themselves on their folksy anti-intellectual origins. Still not convinced? Remember: this is a country where a significant portion of the electorate prays for the apocalyptic destruction of the planet.
Richard Hofstadter documented in the mid-sixties the perennial animosity of a large component of the American population to science, rational thought, and intellect in general. But when he wrote it looked as if this component might have passed its peak in size and influence. Not so, as Jacoby points out using the touchstone issue of evolution: “Nearly two thirds of Americans want both creationism, generally understood as the hard-core fundamentalist doctrine based on the story of Genesis, to be taught along with evolution in public schools. Fewer than half of Americans—48 percent—accept any form of evolution (even guided by God), and just 26 percent accept Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Fully 42 percent say that all living beings, including humans, have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
The tolerance for stupidity has not simply increased. If anything, Donald Trump’s ascendency and continuing political influence shows stupidity has become an ideal. The anti-rational has become a political goal for these people. America has effectively embraced willed ignorance as a national virtue. They not only refuse to learn how to speak, consider, and analyse, they also refuse to learn the basic doctrines and history of their professed religion: “A majority of adults, in what is supposedly the most religious nation in the developed world, cannot name the four Gospels or identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible.”
The defence that there are many intelligent, rational people and excellent institutions of higher education in the United States misses the point entirely. The Red State/Blue State divide is a political reality which seems to have become accepted as normal. It is clear that this divide has always existed, that it is in fact normal even though the geographic locations and coalitions have shifted over time. The underlying lack of appreciation for intellectual effort is apparent in the country’s racism, its xenophobia, its rates of crime and incarceration, and its persistent ignorance of the rest of the world.
According to Susan Jacoby, America has destroyed itself with the two things of which it is most proud: its technology and its religion. Broadcast and social media combined with the resurgence of fundamentalist Christianity have created a nation of under-educated, illiterate, inarticulate, and foul-mouthed halfwits. This condition has become baked-into American society through the increasing control of budgets for primary education by Republican activists who perceive academic achievement as elitist and un-American.
Too harsh? Too generalised? If only: “More than half of American adults believe in ghosts, one third believe in astrology, three quarters believe in angels, and four fifths believe in miracles.” Despite efforts to launch itself elsewhere, QAnon remains an American phenomenon. In a few countries anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and gun-nuts might hang out on the occasional street corner spouting their nonsense. In America they have national political action groups that aggressively lobby politicians who pride themselves on their folksy anti-intellectual origins. Still not convinced? Remember: this is a country where a significant portion of the electorate prays for the apocalyptic destruction of the planet.
Richard Hofstadter documented in the mid-sixties the perennial animosity of a large component of the American population to science, rational thought, and intellect in general. But when he wrote it looked as if this component might have passed its peak in size and influence. Not so, as Jacoby points out using the touchstone issue of evolution: “Nearly two thirds of Americans want both creationism, generally understood as the hard-core fundamentalist doctrine based on the story of Genesis, to be taught along with evolution in public schools. Fewer than half of Americans—48 percent—accept any form of evolution (even guided by God), and just 26 percent accept Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Fully 42 percent say that all living beings, including humans, have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
The tolerance for stupidity has not simply increased. If anything, Donald Trump’s ascendency and continuing political influence shows stupidity has become an ideal. The anti-rational has become a political goal for these people. America has effectively embraced willed ignorance as a national virtue. They not only refuse to learn how to speak, consider, and analyse, they also refuse to learn the basic doctrines and history of their professed religion: “A majority of adults, in what is supposedly the most religious nation in the developed world, cannot name the four Gospels or identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible.”
The defence that there are many intelligent, rational people and excellent institutions of higher education in the United States misses the point entirely. The Red State/Blue State divide is a political reality which seems to have become accepted as normal. It is clear that this divide has always existed, that it is in fact normal even though the geographic locations and coalitions have shifted over time. The underlying lack of appreciation for intellectual effort is apparent in the country’s racism, its xenophobia, its rates of crime and incarceration, and its persistent ignorance of the rest of the world.
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