The Dumbing of America

Great Debates
81

No, you’re going to turn this into a ‘I can make some English-major style argument to make myself feel smarter, so I will’. Your whole contention is that people have to read some literature off of your approved list to qualify as having anything better than rudimentary reading and reasoning skills. It seems especially important to you that no adult have a childlike level of imagination or desire to read for fun, which sounds exactly like what people who like to think of themselves as smart tend to say.

Yes, it’s certainly true that no adult fondly remembers his childhood. You never hear anyone reminiscing about the good ol days, or waxing nostalgic on their childhood years. Isn’t it horrible that some people might actually want to escape from their day-to-day reality by remembering being a child?

Yes, it’s important that any real literature be completely incomprehensible to anyone not versed in the nonsensical vocabulary that academia spews out.

Yes, heaven forbid that anyone enjoys stories with a simple ‘good vs evil’ plotline. Since such stories are only as old as the whole tradition of storytelling they’re obviously a sign of the decline of our intellect! Anyone who spends their time reading tales of a hero confronting great evil is obviously some sort of mental defective with mere rudimentary reasoning and reasoning skills.

It’s certainly impossible that somone who whips through 900 page history tomes for fun could ever enjoy reading a book that has a simple good vs evil plotline. Thank you for proving my nonexistance, I’m going to convert to akevinism immediately.

Heven forbid any adult actually reads for pleasure rather than for ‘social commentary’. I think all of the bastards who read for entertainment should be taken out to the nearest wall and shot; if every single book you read doesn’t have social commentary, then you’re obviously some kind of subversive.

Yes, inside jokes that children don’t get are what makes a book appropriate for adults! Heaven forbid you don’t have jokes that go over the heads of children in your reading, to go along with the ever-important social commentary and the lack of stimulation to the imagination.

Yes, it’s really horrible that any adult would have a childlike level of imagination. If 12 years of dreary schooling can’t kill someone’s imagination, our nation must be in a great decline. I’m sure no adult who ever amounted to anything would ever make a statement like “When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” Oh, wait, that’s a quote from Albert Einstein; perhaps you’ve heard of him?

Kevin Allegood,

“At least one could get something through Trotsky’s skull.”

  • Joseph Michael Bay
82

Sorry, Rick, I meant that you have the correct view. :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh, I know a lot of people like this, skelton. People who smugly tell me, “Oh, I never got through math in high school.” “I can’t use a computer.” “I don’t know how to cook.” And of course, there’s the ubiquitous “I don’t know how to program my VCR.”

I expect that a lot of it is the speaker trying to bolster up their self-esteem in the face of someone who can do all these things (namely, me). I’m not convinced that that’s an excuse, though.

Never attribute to malice anything that can be attributed to stupidity.
– Unknown

83

I second that – I know a number of people who are proud and smug over their inability to do their taxes or figure out how to buy a car. I had a guy tell me, “Hey, all that stuff about suggested retail price and allowance and markdown is too complicated, and it changes from dealer to dealer. That’s why I stick to something simple: the monthly payment.”

Of course, he’s a car seller’s dream.

Jay Leno’s Man-On-The-Street interviews are another example. These people are proud and happy that they don’t know what a baker’s dozen is, or what basting is.

Now, I’m not saying you have to know these things… but if Leno came up and asked me what a baker’s dozen is, and I didn’t know, at the very least I’d say, “Geeze, I’ve heard that phrase and never bothered to find out what it meant - that wasn’t smart.”

  • Rick
84

I understand that spinal-cord injury associations have been getting angry calls since the Superbowl, from people demanding to know how Christopher Reeve was cured and why the technology hasn’t been made available to them.

  • Rick
85

Rick: I don’t know for sure about the man in the street on Leno’s show but my guess is that they interview a great number of people to find a few who are truly dumb. I get the impression that they laugh either because they are embarrassed or deliberately give the wrong answers so that they WILL get on the show. Am I a cynic? Yes.

By the way Rick, just out of curiousity, where do you find the time to write so many posts day and nite?(a real question, no sarcasm intended).

A large pizza pie normally has 12 slices but I can’t possibly eat that many slices so I have them cut it up into 6 slices.

unknown

86

The first five questions on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” are, of course, a joke. Literally. The first five questions are extremely easy, and usually, half the answers offered are just for laughs. Essentially, you’re guaranteed $1000 just for showing up and not being a complete moron.

After that? I’ve watched regularly, and the difficulty varies. Yes, I thought it was absurd that the 15th question (supposed to be the hardest) on one episode was “Which President was on Laugh-In,” but most of the time, the big-money questions aren’t THAT easy. And even if the questions WERE all easy, the dilemma a contestant faces is this:

If there are 15 COMPLETELY different categories, even if all the questions are easy, the odds are very good that, sooner or later, they’ll hit me with a category I just don’t know ANYTHING about!

SO, no matter how erudite you are, don’t be too smug about how you’d do on that show. (BTW, I’m in the playoff this Friday… MAYBE I’ll be on the show myself on Feb 16th).) I know, I know, it’s VERY easy and very tempting to watch people getting “easy” questions wrong, and to yell “You idiot! EVERYBODY knows that!” But when I’m more rational, I realize how easily an intelligent person can be made to look like an ignoramus on national TV.

I do extremely well at history, literature, Bible, sports, “classic rock,” movie and politics. BUT… like everyone, I have areas that I know NOTHING about. I know NOTHING about country or rap music. So, if I were on the show, I could be cruising along, doing brilliantly… then all of a sudden, they hit me with a question about Dr. Dre or Reba McEntire, and I’m up the creek without a paddle!

I’m 38, and don’t have any children. Like most middle-aged guys, I’ve lost connection with a lot of CURRENT pop culture, and don’t have any kids to keep me in touch with current popular music or TV shows. If I were on WWTBAM, I could answer a string of questions about Mozart, Socrates, the Koran, and the 30 Years War, and look like a genius. But if they then hit me with a question about Pokemon or “Dawson’s Creek” or the Teletubbies or the Backstreet Boys, I’d have a vacant look on my face… and millions of 12 year olds watching the show would be laughing at me (“He doesn’t know the names of the Backstreet Boys? EVERYBODY knows that! What a dork!”)

Look, to even a CASUAL sports fan, the question “What team does Mark McGwire play for” is ridiculously easy. But what about the brilliant female art historian who never followed baseball?

To anyone with a SMATTERING of interest in art, “What movement is Claude Monet associated with” is a ridculously easy question. But what about the brilliant techno-geek who never took a single art history class?

To MOST people, “On what show would you see Cosmo Kramer” is ridiculously easy. But what about the Japanese-American astro-physicist who never watches TV?

Whether you admit it, you have a few blind spots, trivia-wise. We all do. Even when the questions are easy, the sheer DIVERSITY of the questions could have any of us turning to life-lines (and looking mighty foolish) in front of millions of people.

87

Well put, Astorian. That’s what I was trying to say in my last message. When you take the questions from a broad spectrum of knowledge, they had better be relatively easy or no one will ever come close to the million. The math says so.

Personally, I’m rather tired of the zillions of threads on the SDMB about people that are stupid, things that bug people, ‘most annoying’ things, etc. Isn’t anyone happy anymore? Do we really have to hate everything around us? Sheesh. I don’t care one bit if the guy next door is proud of his inability to set his clock radio - He works hard and is a good father to his kids. I’ll save my meagre ration of anger for things that really matter.

88

dHansen: You hit a bull’seye on your post above. I often wonder why someone so desperately attempts to show the world how smart they are. And worse when that individual finds it necessary to look down on the dummies.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Maturity is a major ingredient in smart vs dumb. I know a number of true nerds who could answer most any question on the millionaire show and yet are “totally out of it”. Those who are vainglorious about their “brilliance” fit right into that category.

A true measure of “smartness” is a person’s contribution to the world we live in. If he can play the piano beautifully, who gives a damn if he is unknowledgeable about the outstanding literary works we have available to us.

There are plenty of stupid people around and there are plenty of dummies. I believe that if we simply work on improving ourselves and devote less time to criticizing others. the world would be a better place to live in.

89

For some reason, I only sleep about four hours per night. Don’t know why.

  • Rick