Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Interesting article today in the NY Times, here is an excerpt

But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.

She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

I can honestly say that I see examples of this every single day, either at work or out an about. Too much emphasis on what Britney is doing rather than what our country is going to look like in 20 or 30 years from now, then again they said the same thing about the hippies.

This is frightening, but not unexpected. The US would not be in the trouble it is today, if it had an educated and culturaly sensitive population.

Reminds me of the movie "idiocracy". It wasn't that great of a movie, but the premise was spot on.

I'm glad I'm not the only person that's noticed this.

I was just having a conversation with a friend about this very topic, wondering, what has led up to the current weather, where there is this disdain for educated people, this anti-intellectualism, and more frightening, this disdain for 'facts'.

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard something to the effect of, when someone is presented with undeniable facts, they turning their noses up at them saying "I know what I know, and I don't believe in that" .

reply to post by Jadette


You are so absolutely correct. I have many conversation with people at work and other places and it amaze me the amount of people that talk about issues without having any real knowledge about what they are talking about and I will give you an example of that.

I'm in the military and many many people that joins the military tends to be conservative or let say they vote republican. Why? If you ask around 80% of the people would give you this answer: "well democrats dont like the military and they are going to cut our jobs and our pay."

Those are the "facts" that many of my comrades cite as to why I shoud not be voting democrat EVER! Are those "facts" true. Of course not, but if I dare to correct them with solid facts they look me like im weird or something, is extremely frustrating.

The ironic thing of all is that during this Bush Administration we have gone under force shaping measures in all 4 branches of the military, we have seen the less pay raises given, the Bush Administration was even fighting our last payrise of 3.5%, they have been legislating to cut retirees medical benefits DURING A TIME OF WAR, and to make current active duty military personnel to pay a higher cost in our healthcare program (which sucks to begin with).





[edit on 14-2-2008 by Bunch]

I ran into this kind of thinking in graduate school. It's called anti-foundationalism. There are no absolute truths, is the theory, only individual truths. So, to use the example given in the article, Kellie Pickler's "truth" that Hungary isn't a country is as valid as your "truth" that it is a country which can be located on a map. It's all subjective--"I know what I know" as someone on here just said--and one person's truth is no more or less valid than another's.

If you have the faculty thinking this way it's no wonder students do.

When I taught college English I discovered that most students couldn't construct a logical argument, so I had them read and study a book on logic before they wrote their argument papers. The anti-foundationalists disagreed with me, but I still think there is such a thing as logic and that it is more desirable than illogic.

Thus you have young people coming out of the school system who think that having an opinion is all that matters as far as critical thinking goes. It's your "truth" and it is just as valid as any other.