Letters to the Editor
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There's decline, and there's an excuse
Fine, hoi polloi have been dumb since the dawn of time. Blah di blah. Education still matters, and still raises standards across the board. Further, a history-deep analytical framework -- possible with an education that prioritizes it -- is very important to critically assessing new information.
I benefited from a very rigorous and thorough education in classics, philosophy, and religion (Catholic high school and college) and had witty, well-educated parents. I can talk to you about this and that about the Western intellectual tradition, which is more than I can say for my Oxford-educated girlfriend, and many other Ivy League-educated friends of mine.
The Great Books type of education doesn't have a necessary day to day relevance, but it gives me a worldview that's valuable. One of the reasons Foucault and Nietzsche -- those two iconoclasts of modernity par excellence -- have some credibility is that they knew what they were breaking and why. I advocate Great Books curricula in high schools for this reason.
Second -- I believe in the universal pattern of the bell curve but I also believe the qualities that the proportions structure are cross-culturally relative. That is, most of the people may be dumb everywhere, but dumb in X place may be measurably smarter than dumb in Y place. I'm cutting some corners, but I think the point is made. All I'm doing here is making the case for the power of highly competent educational delivery and administration to raise the waters of competence. The explosion of innovation in the 20th century was not an accident. From my experience in living abroad in multiple countries, I can tell you that dumb in X can be far smarter than dumb in Y (I believe in cross-culturally constant intelligence measures).
So while I buy the idea that say 2/3 of the people are relatively dumber than the other 1/3 since the dawn of time, I think universal education raises the standards all around. But even this idea is debatable -- I'm open to being proven wrong. Who's to say that progressively better education wouldn't change that ratio? And I agree with Jacoby that not enough of America's young people know the Basics (a political definition, yes -- let's tweak it, but let's admit there are undeniably influential masterpieces worth knowing).
These ideas guide my own scholarship and educational practices.
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Election 2000 Bush vs Gore
In many ways the contest was stupid versus smart.
Stupid won.
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I am constantly astounded by...
How many Americans cannot pronounce Iraq or Iran. Hint, the initial vowel does not rhyme with buy.
If you are going to invade a country you might at least learn to pronounce its name first.
I heard a Senator (whose name I did not catch) interviewed a while back, talking about the conflict between the Sunni and the Shia. He said they had been "fighting for 4000 years". Really?
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Jacoby's arrogance
Jacoby may have some good points, but her arrogance makes her sound like a fool. She takes misinterpretations-- usually on the order of "this isnt how it was back in the good old days"-- and uses them to make sweeping, overly-simplistic generalizations. For example, she assumes that since a communications major had never heard of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fire side chats, she must be an imbecile paying for a useless pseudo-education. How absurd. There are different sorts of colleges, first of all, which makes sense in a world where college education is for almost everyone-- what high school was to previous generations. Does everyone have the capacity to graduate from Reed College or Harvard University? No. Does the fact that colleges which suit different intellectual and practical needs exist mean that No One is capable anymore of graduating from intellectually rigorous programs? Not at all. Does the fact that this student had not heard of Roosevelt's fire side chats really reflect at all on her abilities or the quality of her education in the first place? No. The thing that people who get enraged over Americans' lack of smarts usually miss is that in no way does someone not knowing information that is useless to them make them stupid. Is it really critical to a student studying communications in 2008 to know about Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats? No. In no way are Americans simply unable to engage in rigorous mental activity-- the question is not if any Americans are but what that activity is. (as a side note: In a world where a single publishing company (random house) can make $2.3 billion in annual revenue, how can anyone say that no one reads?!)
If Jacoby thinks that no one engages intellectually anymore, she's hanging out with the wrong people. If she wants to believe that college students are imbeciles, she is free to. But that doesn't make it true. FDR's fireside chats?! Give me a break.
But we aren't just stupid, we're also apparently dead inside. Jacoby complains that in the college dorm she stayed in, no one was laughing or engaged in discussion like when she was in college. She reports that they were all on the internet or in "ipod coocoons." Whether that was true or not (and I seriously doubt that it was-- maybe she just didnt know where the party was), can she seriously believe that college students dont talk to each other? Dont laugh? give me a break.
I am the first to raise my hand when a call of "luddite!" rings out, but I dont need to exaggerate the present conditions in order to justify my critiques of technology and technological society. Instead, I choose to have a nuanced, sensitive, and intellectually rigorous critique that-- rather than creating phantoms to look down my nose at-- confronts and attempts to account for what I percieve as the world I live in. I dont have to dishonor people to critique what they are doing, either. Even if the situation was as bad as jacoby says, her arrogant, snotty tone just makes it seem like she's in it to boost her own ego.
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The Dying of the Light
Each of us is recognized by the brilliance of his or her light. The finer grade of matter built into our beings, the more brilliantly will shine forth our indwelling light; the light of intuition and intelligence, the light that comes forth from deep thought, from knowledge, wisdom and understanding. One recent spiritual revival that has not been mentioned was the bursting forth of a new consciousness, of new light,during the 60s, the Age of Aquarius some people called it,the psychedelic revolution others named it, and still others blame that period in our history for all the problems we face today, those changes in our psyches that made secular humanists or Buddhists or hippies of our children. And so right they might be, but right in the sense that those agents of change, those entheogins--God or spirit manifesting--were and are deconditioners and deconstructors of hierarchical relationships, catalysts of consciousness that humanity has waited for, and we are still surfing the wave that started back then, and all those people that had those experiences and rearranged their DNA and had mutated children, they are a different animal with a brighter light and higher grade of intelligence, and that light shines forth onto newer generations and that is the light that will save us if it isn't already too late. Look around you America and see who has the light, look at our leaders, our lawmakers, and those candidates that stand on the podium; look closely at them and ask yourself: WHO HAS THE LIGHT? Then vote for the light...