How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America

[The Sushi Bandit]

Sad but true: Intelligence is a political liability in the US. Author of The Age of American Unreason Susan Jacoby explains why.

http://www.alternet.org/story/95109/how_anti-intellectualism_is_destroying_america/

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.



Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society.

American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.

Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments.

This stuff would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

In the 2004 election, nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed the United States had "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; and more than a third that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The political right and allied culture warriors actively ignore evidence and encourage misinformation. To motivate their followers, they label intelligent and informed as "elite," implying that ignorance is somehow both valuable and under attack. Susan Jacoby confronts our "know-nothingism" -- current and historical -- in her new book, The Age of American Unreason.

[Flying Dream Blues]

1. The intentional "dumbing down" of our country is one of their most successful programs. nt

[Xipe Totec]

2. Dumbing Down The Message for the Masses

This is the Republican strategy: Make the message simple and the sheeple will remember it.

Sad but true.

Orwell mentions this strategy in Animal Farm, in the famous quote "4-legs good, 2-legs bad" which made it easy for the sheep to remember which side to support.

The real frightening thing, to me anyway, is how old this recipe for success really is. Older than Karl Rove, Orwell, Goebbels, and even older than Machiavelli. I found a quote that goes all the way back to the early middle ages and scares the hell out of me every time I read it:

"It is striking to see the most cultivated and the most eminent representatives of the new Christian elite, conscious of their cultural unworthiness compared to the last purists, renounce what they yet possessed or could acquire in the form of intellectual refinements so that they could make themselves accessible to their flocks. They chose to grow stupid in order to conquer. If this leaves us dissatisfied it is nonetheless impressive. This farewell to antique literature, often uttered by men fully aware of the circumstances, is by no means the least moving aspect of abnegation of the great Christian leaders of the early middle ages…. …Caesarius of Arles took this point of view further:

I humbly beg that the ears of the educated may be content to bear rustic expressions without complaint, so that all the Saviour’s flock can receive heavenly food in a simple and down-to-earth language. Since the ignorant and the simple cannot rise themselves to the height of the educated, let the educated deign to lower themselves to their ignorance. Educated men can understand what has been said to the simple, whereas the simple are not able to profit from what would have been said to the learned."

Jacques Le Goff
Medieval Civilization 400-1500
Barnes & Noble 2000