Millions of Americans Are Embarrassingly Ill-Informed

Who is to blame for shocking ignorance of the general American public? Do American elites keep people in the dark on purpose? I'm not having a laugh. I think it's serious matter. It's very dangerous when the most powerful nation in the world is at the same time the most ignorant nation in the world. The whole world suffers because of that. How to enlighten Americans?


Millions of Americans Are Embarrassingly Ill-Informed – And They Do Not Care

There must be terrible consequences when ignorance reaches a certain level.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-po...rassingly-ill-informed-and-they-do-not-care-0

Excerpted from Just How Stupid Are We?, by Rick Shenkman, by arrangement with Basic Books.

 

Ignorant people are easier to manage. That's why American students aren't taught how critical analysis functions.

 

I have to agree with your concern Surfer. I've worked for three US companies, and worked in NYC. The degree of ignorance can be startling. I also agree with Alberto.

I used to know Prof. Antony Sutton, this was before he sadly passed away. He was a grand and generous old guy and was in British Army intelligence during WWII (tracking Martin Bormann at the end of it), becoming an erudite academic thereafter.

He wrote the book "How the Order Controls Education" based on confidential papers passed to him. It's a very slim volume but worth every penny spent on it and well worth reading for the isights he brings to the subject.

 

While sometimes the levels of ignorance emanating from the US does frighten me, it has to be noted that when you generalise about a population of 300 million people, you are bound to focus more on the numbers than anything else.

I see that you are from The UK. I am from across the soup here in Ireland. There is no lack of general ignorance in the populations of our two fine nations. You can't possibly deny that. For example, during the London riots, recently, it was noted that many of the rioters didn't own an Oyster Card (Underground & travel pass). These kids hardly left their little corner of one of the most fascinating cities on the planet.

There are many here in Ireland who regularly fly to Spain on holidays. Many of whom couldn't point Spain out on a map. In Northern Ireland there are still plenty of Neanderthals, from both sides, beating lumps out of each other after a night out. Many of these heroes wouldn't be able to tell you the first thing about why they pick out members of the other community, only that they are members of the other community.

I guess, in the US, the bliss of ignorance is easier considering vast swaths of the population have never experienced how people live in another country. Also, the standard of education for the majority doesn't seem to be near as good a standard as other Western countries. Still though, I think that generalising about such a large population is pretty meaningless.

 

First of all engage in a bit of intellectual honest and stop conflating being ill informed on specific issues with general stupidity.

I propose that the primary driver is simple pragmatism. I've spent quite a bit of time reading or watching the news, studying various political issues, reading studies, participating in this forum, and things like that.

But what sort of dollar value could I put on all that? Quite possibly none. I'm not sure I could really provide a dollar value for any of my civics, social studies, or history classes throught my schooling either. Frankly I'd rather not think of how many more dollars I'd have if I'd dedicated all that time to professional development or my work.

I'm also not sure that I wouldn't be a happier person if I was entirely oblivious to world events but well versed in popular television programs. Further it is definitly less fun to challenge ones assumptions. It is far more enjoyable, and increasingly an option with so many cable channels and websites, to wrap youself in a comfortable coccon of information sources telling you that you're already right about everything and everybody else is stupid. So even those who DO spend a lot of time "being informed" aren't likely to have anything meaningful occur.

Anyway I think that's what's underlying the issue. The bits about "The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears." logically follows from dedicating little of ones time to such things. You are then forced to rely on heuristics or a half remembered advert.

 

do we expect public schools which are inhabited by leftists to teach things with "non-inclusive" words in it?

example

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God,..........................(snip of Mayflower compact)

or other important historical speeches with evil words like

It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.....................An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!....................we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; ...........Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!...(snip of speech by Patrick Henry)

no sir, we can't be teaching that stuff in public schools

 

By definition, ALL humans are ignorant.
Stupidity is not at all the same thing as ignorance. Stupidity is lack of intelligence and/or lack of intellect.

I am personally from the Carlin school:

 

I believe our federal and State Constitutions along with The Federalist Papers should be required reading before graduating high school or its equivalent.

 

The question that needs to be addressed is the issue as to who educates the educator? In other words, we need to understand that the problems are systemic and structural. Historically, those who impart knowledge and information to the masses have done so determined by what Gramsci called contradictory or false consciousness predicated on a systemic replication of false propaganda underscored by the subjugating and dominant ideologies associated with capitalism.

From this emerged what Derrida identified as a social construction of reality or what Marx termed 'the muck of ages'. Existing power relationships predicated on the acquisition of knowledge and information upon which notions of democracy, freedom and liberty rests, are only as credible as to the extent to which societies' allow a genuine plurality of said information and knowledge to be freely and widely accessible through a variety of outlets.
Only then can the general public begin to deconstruct constructed reality that feeds into false consciousness.

The question is, will the powerful elites and their political echo-chambers' who control the free flow of information and knowledge within the mainstream (within the context in which the media is becoming increasingly more consolidated), willingly relinquish their control? The question was rhetorical since the answer is obvious.

More to the point, will they attempt to censor the internet in a similar way that they did with the early press, then radio? If they feel that the existing power relations in society are tilting against them in any significant way, you can be sure that sites like this will be closed down.

 

The problem runs deeper than that. See above.

 

I don't see that as much of a problem in our modern Information Age where you can learn almost anything on YouTube, if you are interested.

 

Information and stimulation overload.

- - - Updated - - -

The lack of interest seems to be what's really at issue.

 

Indeed. But that's not really the issue. The internet as opposed to TV is still a relatively marginal way of accessing information.

 

Yep, to a certain extent I agree. There's certainly ignorance this side of the water too. But less so in my experience. Although it seems to me the education system is being increasingly dumbed down and so the dumb & dumber are sadly, multiplying. Europe has it share too, but my sense is that they are generally better educated than we are here. I also am sympathetic to the notion that we and the US are separated by the same language.

However, I still stand by my judgement.

If you're interested there used to be a freely downloadable .pdf of Tony's book - Google will locate it if it's still there. If you haven't done so already, you might find it interesting reading - it's a very quick read. It's about how the US educational dumbing down process came into existence. It wasn't an accident of nature but carefully designed. A reversal of Shaw's Pygmalion.

 

They have to use a light touch if they do, I think. Commerce is now entrenched in the internet and nothing will be permitted to interfere with that.

The way it is being done now is via shaped propaganda and news stories, the control of search engines through compliant corporations and the ordering of search terms so that the returns are overloaded with white noise answers you do want or need.

In the UK things are worse. The government recently passed laws that impose on the ISPs a requirement to completely remove certain subjects from search engines returns. To overcome this one has to instruct their ISP that they wish to be outside that law.

 

My man!

 

Commerce was previously entrenched in radio before that medium went the way of the early print media. When the medium becomes genuinely pluralistic and too many people become alive to the message to the extent that it's regarded as being a potential threat to existing power relations, history shows us that it becomes heavily censored. Remember, globally, information accessed via the internet is very much still a marginal activity. The vast majority of people still access their news and information via more traditional forms of media. Forms of censorship already exist in the manner you correctly highlight and it will get worse and more overt in the medium term.

 

Keep the people fat, doped-up and happy.

 

Only amongst a certain demographic surely?

 

The dumbing down of the kind you describe is part and parcel of the processes I outlined in post# 9. It's therefore a mistake to point the finger specifically at the United States as the OP opines. We are, for example, witnessing a similar dumbing down here in the UK whereby the higher education system, along with all the entities of the state in general, are increasingly becoming target driven with less emphasis on individuality and the creative arts and more on academic subjects like economics tailored for the market. This is not a coincidence.

The disaster of universities today is corporatism and managerialism. It is not an excess of freedom of speech. Academics dare say very little – they spend their entire time wracking their brains as to how to produce research that will attract finance, and thus meet cash targets and not lead to redundancies and departmental closures.

Universities see themselves overwhelmingly as businesses, not as self governing academic communities and centres of intellectual inquiry. In Scotland, every University Principal is on over 300,000 a year and every University Secretary on over 200,000. There are no poets or philosophers on University Courts – bean counting is the only discipline deemed relevant to university governance. A tiny number of eccentric academics are devoted to their teaching, but there is no income stream of any kind dependent on teaching quality.

Now Theresa May is going to make doubly sure no student ever hears anything interesting or inspirational, by giving University administrations – who want nothing but a profitable business – a “duty to protect” students from extremist thought. This idea is so illiberal it makes me physically vomit. The net result will be a cumbersome system of vetting for every external speaker, having to submit texts for approval in advance, to be seen by the University administration. The result will be a firm intention to discourage external speakers from appearing at all, in order to avoid the cost of this bureaucracy.

 

To a certain extent, yes although I was thinking more on the global scale. Even in the West, I would suggest, most people who come home from a hard days work kick of their shoes and slump in front of the TV.

 

The Constitution and the Declaration. Not just reading, maybe a graded report required and a quiz or three wouldn't hurt.

That being said you have to remember that the Founding Fathers didn't WANT that much interest in politics by everyone. The idea was that they wanted citizen-politicians, people who became successful in other fields and only became politicians in later life. The ideal pol to the FF was one who'd already made their pile and wouldn't be so tempted by the largesse politicians can vote themselves as by the idea of leaving a legacy of accomplishment and making the government a little better

 

We had a civics course and had to pass a Constitution test before graduating grade school. But that was 45 years ago. I don't think it is required now that I could find. And where there may have been critical thinking in schools seems to have been replaced by nuance.

 

In many developing countries the uptake of mobile phones is rapidly increasing in undeveloped regions. Communication is king, and mobile networks are usually cheaper to install from scratch than traditional lines of communication. As smartphones become less expensive due to mass production, they will be the norm when people buy pay-as-you-go phones, rather than expensive contract phones. As far as I am aware, this is already happening in parts of India, Africa and The Caribbean for low income workers. This essentially has the effect of compressing dozens of years of technological progress into one very short time frame.

 

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.

Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.

Thomas Jefferson

A people cannot be free in the absence of public virtue. Public virtue cannot exist in the absence of an educated citizenry.

Albert Di Salvo