Letters to the Editor
-
Better Ideas Out There
I read this article, then went and read one of the links in it, Caleb Crain's "Twilight of the Books" in the New Yorker. Crain's essay blows away anything Jacoby has to say. Crain presents the statistical evidence that Americans are reading less and less, then pursues scientific explanations of why and what happens when people read less.
The upshot is that kids today are not dumber. They are getting their information from visual sources (TV, movies, DVDs, internet) instead of from printed words. The problem with this, as Crain points out, is that people who read process information differently than people who learn visually. Simply put, readers compare and analyze ideas conceptually, while visual people are more concrete and pick up more readily on emotional cues. Thus, readers are better able to evaluate information separate from its emotional content. Visual learners have trouble with this distinction, and thus are more prone to make judgments based on emotion. Hence the attention-deficit and ideological problems of the current day.
Jacoby has her causative agents mixed up. It is not fundamentalists and ideologues that are killing intellectualism. Fundamentalists and ideologues are the result, not the cause, of poor literacy. It is the rejection of reading as the fundamental tool of learning that is at the bottom of the decline of intellectualism.
-
@ moira kelly
Indeed, I agree Americans care a lot about money, but the joke is on them because money doesn't care about them in return. Money is a mercenary, the fact that Americans are so obsessed with it (and the trivial products it procures) goes to show how pathetic we are.
I'd be more than willing to very slowly and painfully kill (mind you I'm no killer, never have been before) anyone who would sell out their own mother.
If there are any Salon posters out there who have or would sell out their mother I guess I cannot actually do anything about it, but please don't respond to this letter with a bunch of prideful nonsense about how rewarding it was to sell out your mother, you'd only be bragging about a terrible sickness that has infected you.
-
Ho hum
Here's a project: try to find a time in American history when self-appointed members of the "saving remnant" weren't wringing their hands in concern about the supposed brutish stupidity of the lower orders. Interestingly, this review is itself an example of the kind of lazy, groupthink sloganeering that Jacoby supposedly says has replaced independent thought. Laura Miller is usually interesting and insightful, and so it's disturbing to read a review that comes off like a string of bumper stickers.
-
what's about the platitude-
life has become so damn complicated, that its easier to have "faith" in prefabricated solutions than the ability to find them by yourself.
-
R yew tryin' to say ah'm ignert?
Wall, ah ain't ignert!
-
Idiocracy
For those who haven't seen it, the movie "Idiocracy" encapsulates this article in a nutshell. It's brilliant and spot on.
-
...hurling my twig onto the fire...
I work at an R-1 (Big 10 School)and have worked/taught at a couple of Ivy's and I can tell you with a VERY qualified perspective that the students that I see today can't spell (thank god for Spell-Check), can't read (and understand content on even a minimal level, forget about any metaphysical levels), can't think (you don't need to when you watch 8 hours of Survivor re-runs) and can't can't write (text messaging doesn't require it).
If this wasn't bad enough, their interpersonal communication skills very often do not rise (no pun intended) above the level of an erection or orgasm (with or without another human organism) 'cause the internet can "hook them up" in minutes with an equally vacant sex addict online.
I recently asked one Freshman to tell the class about the person whose face was emblazoned in neon green on his T-Shirt (Che Guevara, talk about a meaningless icon).
He hesitated for a moment (I could see he wasn't expecting that mental challenge that day) and responded..."wasn't he a "Latino Rock Star from the 60's.
We don't need to go on and on about the lack of intelligence in the American cultural context. The proof is all around us and it grows uglier by the day.
On another occasion, I reminded another student to be sure to finish up her "Incomplete" of a term paper, while she was away during Spring Break. Her response, she wasn't sure she could 'cause she was going to Cancun and didn't want to be distracted from her "vacation", cause she "really needed a break". College life is really demanding for those who think that doing volunteer work dunking themselves in a vat of beer can be very challenging, you know.
She returned without the paper done and sporting several tattoos that she proudly displayed (and explained) to anyone who would ask her about them.
My final observation...when emerging "Americans" spend more time agonizing over what side of their ass to have tattoo'd and not so much on complying with the most basic responsibilities of their life to themselves (or god forbid, to "others"), the writing is very clearly on the cultural wall.
And the wall is collapsing...
And for those who would laugh this off as just precocious or cute, just remind yourself that you might be depending on one of these wired drones in the future for something that acutally matters to you and you won't be able to get a response or even a pulse in recognition of your request, so try to remember to back away from the wall.
-
To Thine Own self Be True
It's about the tolerance of ambiguity and the self-directedness of critical thinking. While you can lead everyone to the trough, you cannot make anyone unwillingly drink from the fount, whether it's thinking rigorously, applying logic, using reason and verifying assertions. It's the instillation of the addictive love of learning that is the key to knowledge, self-awareness and ultimately, awareness of and appreciation for other.
Whether one looks to Maslow, Freud, Jung, Aristotle, Plato, Einstein, etc. - the principles are universal. First, the basic needs of the organism/entity must be met, then the external and internal stimuli must be present, and then later, the linkages from internal to external, where the organism/entity finally is able to influence the external.