Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Excerpts from an article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html

February 14, 2008
Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
By PATRICIA COHEN

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture. [. . .]

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 thing 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.

Ms. Jacoby, dressed in a bright red turtleneck with lipstick to match, was sitting, appropriately, in that temple of knowledge, the New York Public Library’s majestic Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue. The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

In answer to the thread title: yes. But it's nothing new.

I was forbidden by my parents to read during Summer vacation 1971, when I was eleven. They thought my studious curiosity was a sign of deficient masculinity.

Christ people are stupid.

We're a bunch of poi dogs sniffing around Pearl Harbor wondering what that buzz overhead is all about.

yeah, I see there pics here! lol

I hate to say it but I think its true. And getting worse. And there's a reason.

^ not really, Happy valentine's Day!

Living in one of the worst states in terms of education, I certainly see more and more of this happening. Geography, history, spelling, grammar...it's not very pretty is it?

I beg to differ. I watch tons of tv and while not as knowledgeable as you or some others here on politics, foreign policy, or other topics I did manage to tear myself away from the boob tube long enough to earn 3 degrees.

As someone who has worked in the field of education for over a decade the biggest threat to public education in this country is No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind is, indeed, killing the education system!

When I took History of Psychology the textbook noted that public education was introduced as a form of controlling the thoughts of society at an early age, thus continuing the thoughts throughout life. If you pay attention to the public education system, the same methods are used and all children are taught to be the same and they highly discourage independent thinking. This is to eliminate the people from questioning authority regardless of stupid decisions and policies. This article doesn't even surprise me. Americans are taught to live in the here and now. There is too little impact on global studies.

I waited all day for you!

Some "Christ people" might take offense at that remark.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Perfect example of a child left way,way,way,behind!
Dumb da da dumb dumb!!
cigarbabe

S&S!!

See above post!

cigarbabe

I saw this, mused on it, and let it pass. The irony is WAAAAAY too obvious, CB

I don't see what the article has to do with the subject heading. I thought this was going to be something interesting about the disturbing trend toward anti-intellectualism in the USA. Instead, it's just another golly-jee-Americans-are-stupid thread.

Anyway

Yes, many Americans are reprehensibly ignorant about a great many things, including history and, especially, world geography.

But so are many other people. Americans have contributed a great many things to the world but ignorance and stupidity are not cultural innovations we can take credit for.

Ask a large group of young people in Japan what significant event took place in August of 1945, and many of them will have no idea.

Ask someone in Hungary to find Illinois on a map, and not many of them will be able to do it.

Friend request me on facebook and challenge me to a world geography IQ challenge and I'll beat you.

Or make a blanket unqualified statement that is clearly false and yet jives with certain common prejudices, like, "Americans are dumb," and sit back and watch all the fools who agree.