The Dumbing Of America - washingtonpost.com
Posted in News/Info on 02/18/2008 01:09 pm by enjanerdThe problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism — a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse. Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is a manifestation of ignorance; denying that such knowledge matters is pure anti-rationalism.
Is it bad that the fact that they’re talking only about Americans here gives me hope for the rest of the human race? Or is it just because Americans are so narcissistic that they only want to hear about themselves (bad or good), even if it applies to everyone else too? In any case, most of the people who read this blog are Americans, so this message is to you: don’t be dumb. kthxbye!