The dumbing down of America
Where did we go wrong? When I think back to my youth I don't remember us being a nation of mouth breathers who couldn't find their way back home from the mailbox. I suspect this is the reason Google maps was invented. So why....how....did we lose our ability to think?
I'm guessing it was the advent of cable news and shortly thereafter the invention of the internet that caused our gray matter to atrophy. Today we're what I call "smart-dumb". We seem to know a lot of things, but we just take what we're told at face value, no questions asked. (Snopes exists for a reason!)
We used to read newspapers. Reporters reported at length on fairly intricate matters, yet we could comprehend it all and form intelligent opinions. Even back in elementary school "My Weekly Reader" was required reading, which exposed us little kids to current events and critical thinking. Remember Time and Newsweek magazines? I think only Time survives today, and it's barely big enough to line a bird cage. Every newspaper had a team of investigative reporters who could smell out bullshit a mile away. Today all we have are FOX News or MSNBC to tell us everything they think we need to know, and we just go "yuck, yuck" and question nothing.
It was 24-hour cable news that introduced us to the 30-second sound bite. They apparently figured out 30 seconds was the outside limit of our attention span. If an issue was too complicated to be boiled down to a 30 second explanation, we didn't need to know about it. Then the internet just killed off what was left of newspapers and reporting. Anybody could say anything on the internet and it was considered The Gospel. If Hannity or Limbaugh or O'Reilly or their counterparts on the left said it, you could take it to the bank. Nobody today has enough sense to recognize their concept of "alternative facts".
Newspapers went online to keep readers, and in the process lost their advertisers. To pare down payroll to match their new fiscal reality, reporters were pink-slipped. News stories were often just pinched from the AP or UPI wire. Only a few old-school newspapers held firm, such as The New York Times and the Washington Post. I find it comical that many people today slam those papers, confusing their "news" sections and their editorial pages. Most don't realize the stories they read in their local papers are most likely written by staff writers of the NYT or the WP....check the "byline" at the end of an article and see for yourself.
Just a decade or so after I graduated from college most institutions of higher learning reduced their requirements for a Bachelor's Degree to 120 semester hours from the 128 I had to
Which brings us to....yes....politics. I've never seen a more inept bunch of candidates than what our two parties give us to choose from every few years. The few smart ones are corrupt to the core, and the others are just there for the free liquor and panty grabbing. I don't think as a nation we could smell their bullshit if we were standing knee-deep in it. The result is we have a President who conducts state business on Twitter and doesn't read the issue papers or daily intelligence briefs he's provided, but seems to have plenty of time to wuff down four Big Macs and a 12-pack of diet Coke every day. *sigh*
So there you have it, my short narrative of where we are today and how we got here. Did you enjoy this? If so, can I get a yuck yuck?
S
Cold weather getting to you eh?
ReplyDeleteI don't really buy that people were any smarter or better informed back in the day. I mean they used to think smoking cigarettes was good for you or at least not deadly. They dumped toxic waste in lakes and rivers with just a shrug. Our education system has never really been the envy of the world. It's just the Internet helps to expose our ignorance.
ReplyDeleteYuck yuck.
ReplyDeleteOh and by the way Newsweek is still publishing after a two year hiatus from 2012 to 2014.
ReplyDeleteI wuz gonna comment, but i don't member wut it wuz.....
ReplyDeleteIndependent thinking is a lost art.
ReplyDeleteBut...but...but...I like the internets...
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