Is is important to recognize the fact that stupidity abounds in every identifiable group of people, whether they be grouped by race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual preference, political persuasion, or choice of leisure activity.

The right does not have a monopoly on dim-wittedness. They are merely, at this point in history, its strongest exponents.

jj

Brent Rinehart IS "president".

if it were 'just the stupidity, supid' it would be quite disturbing enough.
but it is this insistance on CELEBRATING stupidity, making stupidity a goddamn religion ... (or is that oxymoronic?) ... that has my hair on fire.

even if obama turns out to be one of those alien lizard fiends or the antichrist or just a huge fricken disappointment ... at least he can string a paragraph or two together without having a bobble-head seizure and spraying milk out of his nose.

But life is much simpler when you're stupid...

OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA! NADER! OBAMA!

Teaching critical thinking in schools is a lost art.

ncycat,
We're spending too much time getting kids prepared for standardized testing. Emphasis is on getting reading scores up; science classes are being cut back in lower grades, art and music are being cut, some kids in elementary schools don't even have recess. (They use that time for extra test prep.) The kids are tired, the teachers are tired. Creativity is at an all-time low, but parents are at fault for that, too. They micro-manage their kids' lives. Everything has to be scheduled, even play time. Kids rarely play games or sports without adults coaching and overseeing them. In long car trips, they watch DVDs or play computer games rather than word games and games that stimulate the imagination (or read).

The other day, I think it was "H2O" wrote a very good lengthy post here on CD. Another poster praised him/her but added that they did not approve of the use of so many "big words".

I vaguely remember a passage from "1984" where the distopian government is remaking the English language with phrases like "double plus good", limiting available thoughts as it limits vocabulary.

Goatgirl,.....very very funny....

It has become difficult to communicate with anyone today on anything other than a culturally base level, i.e., sports scores, the weather, lives of stars, hatred, or propaganda.

It's not my job to save the world, just live it well and try to survive the madness. Simplicity is an important part of the prescription.

Groups seldom work because of ego driven dominance. Few understand the meaning of leadership in this post-modern society, therefore, groups mostly disintegrate.

The visions that I have are not hopeful.

"Teaching critical thinking in schools is a lost art."

I agree. Maybe it should be mandatory. They could start with logical fallacies.

Interestingly enough, research by educational psychologists has indicated that real critical thinking has a life experience component to it. It's not that aspects cannot be taught at an early age, perhaps in preparation for a child's later life, but that it begins to be applied, on average, in the mid twenties when enough life experience, an important part of the larger package, comes into play.

But not, as the author points out, for everybody. Here's a great quote:

"With somnambulistic efficiency, Reagan educated America down to his level. He left his country a little stupider in 1988 and a lot more tolerant of lies, because his style of image presentation cut the connective tissue of argument between ideas and hence fostered the defeat of thought itself."
-Robert Hughes, 1993 "Culture of Complaint (pg. 46)

When our current President jokes about poor grades in school and still being President and a candidate running for President jokes about being fifth from the bottom of a very large class it reflects on the whole country. The rest of the world must have a pretty good picture of the importance of our education system. Or as they used to say.."It's not what you know, it's who you know."

Well, just look who is president and who our society and institutions have yet to remove from office, review the hollow celebs we celebrate and emulate. Critical thinking is CRITICAL to intelligent processing. But, at the root is the inspiration to question -- to be curious about everything. No, so few intelligently process -- the vast majority are happy to be rubber stamped through life.

Mark Twain said that God created sheep before human beings. He concluded if human beings were created first -- there would be no need for sheep.

I haven't watched corporate Tv or listened to corporate radio in many years. But reading so much "conversational grammar" on the Internet for the past eight years has definitely diminished my own vocabulary and writing skills, which used to be top-notch. Recently I pulled out some material which I, myself, wrote over ten years ago and I could barely stay with it. The mere fact of interacting with stupid people on a daily and unrelenting basis eventually takes its toll. Present company excepted, for the most part.

America has been living in the "Entitlement Society" bubble which is why you have BIG GOVERNMENT stifling individual growth and creativity. FUCK, even the so-called "left" allows non-monied individuals who come across new scientific discoveries and inventions to be bought out with corporate patents and/or slapped with frivolous lawsuits. Instead of changing those shitty zoning laws to allow people to hang their own clothes to dry naturally as they please if they're sick and tired of their energy guzzling dryers, put up solar panels or wind turbines no matter the size if they want to cut down or even get off their commercial grid completely, or for that matter remove the ban on hemp and let people grow it for 26000 industrial uses local or business, America is STUCK on being dependent on the corporate interests who will enjoy the "freedom" to GOUGE their customers as they please ! If you want to force Corporate America into cleaning up for their mess, GET RID OF BIG GOVERNMENT !!

"Teaching critical thinking in schools is a lost art."

We've been backing away from real education since the late 60's, early 70's, when the powers which are discovered that even slightly well-educated people may actually use their access to information and their ability to reason and dissent... from unjust wars, from exploitive, unsustainable economic systems, etc.

Real education is a fundamentally subversive activity. Seems a mistake to expect the state to do it...

"Teaching critical thinking in schools is a lost art."

We've been backing away from real education since the late 60's, early 70's, when the powers which are discovered that even slightly well-educated people may actually use their access to information and their ability to reason and (gasp!) dissent… from unjust wars, from exploitive, unsustainable economic systems, etc.

Real education is a fundamentally subversive activity. Seems a mistake to expect the state to do it…

We're Losing the Ability to Think - for ourselves.
Half the world has an I.Q. less than one hundred - why are so many of them in congress?

NMlib-you hit the nail on the head. One cannot develop critical thinking skills nor creativity if every moment of your developing life is structure.

I had a boyfriend in high school who accused me of using "too big of words". The word in question? FACADE-SIX letters. The context? "That building's facade is ugly."

I believe he's a financial advisor, now.

I remember once, several years ago, I was chided by a progressive activist (she was active all those years ago in western Massachusetts) for using "big words." I remember being baffled. After all, we were at a party full of grad students and other progressive activists, many of whom had at least a bachelor's degree. I can't remember which "big words" I used that rankled her. I do recall that she admitted she understood perfectly well what I was saying, but that I needn't use such "big words" when other less "big words" would suffice.
We agreed to disagree. I haven't stopped using so-called big words, especially when they are the best words to describe my thoughts and feelings.

If you really want to know why Americans are so completely dumbed down read anything by John Taylor Gatto, like Dumbing Us Down. He pretty well explains how our education system got where it is today and why.

Another fine example is Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen. This explains why kids tune out in high school history classes and how the text books cause it. And pretty much everyone reading this went through it if you were raised in America.

Idiocy is epidemic in America, enough to make a sane person move out of the country. Living in Knoxville, as I do, I see it everyday. Look at the shooting yesterday at the most tolerant church in the country. They accept everyone for any reason and Jim Bob blames them for all his problems and assassinates these wonderful people in front of a bunch of children because of "hatred of their liberal causes".

Even more telling are the comments on the local newspaper, knoxnews.com, it is consistently the most retarded blog I have ever read. We are fucked......

In nature, stupidity would be weeded out. In the US, the oligarchy keeps stupidity fertilized and watered to keep the rest of us from flourishing.

Eighty-two percent of Americans are below average.

Here is an example of the stupidity of the Left and Multikulturalism from the London Telegraph:

Killing for religion is justified, say third of Muslim students
A third of Muslim students in Britain believe killing someone in the name of religion is justified, a new poll claims.

By Patrick Sawer
Last Updated: 1:00AM BST 27 Jul 2008
The survey found that extreme Islamist ideology has a profound influence on a significant minority of Muslims on campuses across the country.
The findings will concern police chiefs, the security services and ministers, who are struggling with radicalisation among Muslim communities.
The YouGov poll was conducted for the Right-wing think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion, at 12 universities, including Imperial College and Kings College London. It also found:
40 per cent support the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law
40 per feel it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely
24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
a quarter have little or no respect for homosexuals.
Although 53 per cent said that killing in the name of religion was never justified, compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims, 32 per cent said that it was. Of these, 4 per cent said killing could be justified to "promote or preserve" religion, while 28 per cent said it was acceptable if that religion were under attack.
There was also sympathy for the view that Muslim soldiers in the Armed Forces should be allowed to opt out of operations in Muslim countries, with 57 per cent agreeing.
The report's authors found that Islamic societies on campus, operating under the umbrella of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, exert a strong influence on many of Britain's 90,000 Muslim students. A quarter of them belong to Islamic societies and their views are often more extreme.
While three-fifths of society members said that killing in the name of religion was acceptable, an equal number of non-member Muslims said it was never justified. The security services have identified Islamist activism at universities acts as a possible "gateway" to violent extremism. Several terrorists and sympathisers began their extremist careers on campuses.
The authors of the report, "Islam on Campus", lay much of the blame for extremism among Muslim students on the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks to build a worldwide Islamic state.
YouGov polled 600 Muslim students and 800 non-Muslim students at universities with a high number of Muslims.

The ability to think is being sacrificed to the voice of authority. There is no proof that can stand against the voice of authority. Even "intellectuals" readily blind themselves to physically compelling evidence if it contradicts the official position. Secrecy cannot survive the searching beacon of reason unless it is protected by the mob of stupidity.
Who killed JFK? Who killed RFK? Who killed MLK? How did airplanes manage to strike the WTC with no attempt at prevention or response from our military? How did the WTC towers manage to survive an impact – only to suddenly collapse as their fires subsided? How can these things happen right before the eyes of the public and remain mysterious?
That's the power of secrecy you silly conspiracy nut.

Recycle1,
As a teacher of adults, I often discuss current events and make references to historical events, sometimes trying to get my students to see correlations or patterns. When discussing events of the past, I am often greeted with looks of puzzlement, especially from the youngest ones. The standard question is, "When did that happen?" The excuse is that if they weren't alive when an event happened, how could they possibly be expected to know about it? They know nothing of the McCarthy Era, the Gulf of Tonkin. I once made a passing remark about "world events in the 1930s and 40s," expecting them to immediately know I meant WWII. One recent HS graduate said, "The depression." In another class, not one student (ranging in age from 18 to 50) knew what "coup" meant.

"Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. A cynic remarked that 'you mustn't enthrone ignorance just because there is so much of it.' However, ignorance is not long enthroned, for it lends itself to manipulation by the forces that mold public opinion. It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that 'you can't fool all the people all the time,' but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country."

Will & Ariel Durant
"The Lessons of History" (1968)

"We have one hundred thousand politicians but no statesmen."

Will Durant

jruebl,

How has this changed in the 2,000 + years these religions have been in conflict? And somehow blaming it on the "Left" is even more ridiculous. For one thing scienific documents need attributions to be believed and then from a source that is indisputable fact. The London Telegraph is clearly disputable. Your whole argument is suspect, I think Rush is on maybe you should go back there.

Your trying to argue completely off topic is ironic considering this topic is about stupidity.

Have often been told that I think too much and ask too many questions.
But how much is too much?
How does one know when to stop thinking?
Are there things one shouldn't think about?
Is this too many questions?
Is the problem too many or too few questions?
Hmmm, I guess I'll have to think about this some more.....

Thank you for this article!

Also beware of the Thought Police. The group is much larger than we think.

testing

Recipe for a stupid society

* One generous dash of TV, liberally sprinkled with crude language, simplistic ideas, witless banter, plenty of topless dudes and gals, interspersed with idiotic brainwashing ads.

* Twelve years of warehousing in an abysmal educational system that doesn't elevate students to formerly high standards, but simply lowers the standards so as to not offend the underperformers.

* 5,000 calories of chemical laden, garbage food per day.

* One million laws dictating every minutia of life, obviating the need to think and use one's judgment.

* Millions of government workers and other government dependents lazily mooching off the labor of a shrinking class of hard workers.

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Bake until everybody's brain is well done. Dish is perfectly done when IQ tester reads one or two standard deviations below average.

Dave

shoot your TV. no, really, shoot your TV.

jruebl wrote:

"Here is an example of the stupidity of the Left and Multikulturalism from the London Telegraph:

Killing for religion is justified, say third of Muslim students
A third of Muslim students in Britain believe killing someone in the name of religion is justified, a new poll claims."

Here in America we Christians have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims because the attackers of WTC were Muslim or was it fantasized WMDs or was it because we wanted bases in that part of the world or .....

The above is not stupidity, it is moral depravity.

I strongly disagree with the headline. We aren't losing the ability to think. It has been long gone for some time now.

My undergraduate students can't read, write, or think critically. Many seem to expect an "A" just for paying tuition, which stems from the fast food "the customer is always right" paradigm having been misapplied to higher education. A good 30% of my students are surprised, semester after semester, to discover that Jesus was a Jew and that most religions don't even believe in Jesus (I teach comparative religion, fyi). They can't discuss readings without serious prompting on my part, and student writing is often so filled with egregious spelling and grammar errors as to beggar description. (Of course, in their defense, they often point out that it isn't a composition class, as if literacy and writing are only skills to be used during a particular class period.)

I wish I could say that their instructors were better, but sometimes that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not the brightest bulb, and I've spent years as an autodidact trying to make up for the lack of education with which I entered college. (Put it this way---they removed grammar and political science from my high school curriculum when I was a freshman. They took money away from football I guess.) Friends who work in for-profit higher ed report to me that their colleagues are often proudly ignorant, acting like adolescent bullies as they hold their literate, articulate coworkers up to ridicule. And my own experiences with colleagues are sometimes less than inspiring, especially when it comes to discussions of current events. Even with Master's degrees and PhDs, folks come to the water cooler repeating last night's prime time TV mantra.

I'll keep doing my part to smarten up students, but it is tough to do as a part-timer without benefits in a society that dismisses anything and anyone who challenges their received opinions as "liberal."

"We're Losing the Ability to Think"

What you mean we, white man?

How can you lose what you never had?

Some food for thought:

About 25% of the U.S. population have IQs below 90 (that's roughly 75 million people). Recall that Bush's approval rating tends to bottom out at about 23%.

If the members of a jury of twelve people were chosen randomly from the adult population, then on average about two members would have IQs no greater than 85.

IQs are distributed according to a "bell curve", with an average of 100 points and a standard deviation of 15 points (for the most commonly used scoring method). A bell curve is symmetrical: there are as many people occupying the lower half as there are in the upper half. Statistically speaking, for each person with an IQ above 110, there is a person with an IQ below 90; for each person with an IQ above 120, there's someone with an IQ below 80; and so on and so on.

IQ scores don't capture all aspects of intelligence, but they do measure certain analytical abilities that are essential to critical thinking. But to even suggest that lack of intelligence compromises one's ability to make valid political judgments violates one of America's few remaining social taboos.

What better evidence is there for a loss of thinking than a global culture which, while cannibalizing its resource base, essentially bans any discussion of the underlying causes of the crisis?

If we can't address the above issue with thinking, what else matters?

"Idiocy is epidemic in America"

It's not just 'America'... it's everywhere in the western world... but the US is ahead of the game in the dumbing-down of the population. Funny thing about a lot of stupid people; they don't know they're stupid. They keep on spewing the same old tired crap, thinking they're so enlightened, yet come out on the wrong side of pretty much every issue.

Yes, have gotta agree. It's not that we're LOSING the ability to think, it's been LOST for a long time.

Besides, thinking takes effort & energy & giving a damn. Way easier to just go shopping, or let the waves of Reality TV wash over you. Critical thinking? No thanks. We prefer bread & circuses.

That Mark Twain quote nutshelled it for me: If God had invented people first, there'd be no need for sheep.

Goat Girl, I love you;-* !

JBPM,
I concur. And writing is bad everywhere; check out what passes as business correspondence these days. People who don't know basic grammar, punctuation, and spelling will comment that they're "not English majors." Middle and high school students ask, "How do you spell...?" and several adults I've worked with have no idea how to look up a word in the dictionary.
Basic curiosity and interest about the world around us is disappearing. Americans are embarrassingly ignorant about geography (even McCain thinks Pakistan borders Iraq). Many Americans still don't know New Mexico is a state. Debate skills are disappearing; people think he who shouts loudest or resorts to name calling wins the argument. My email inbox is constantly bombarded with nonsense that I can fact check with just a few clicks of a mouse, but that the sender believes because it supports his or her views. Never mind checking for sources and credibility. If it maintains an alarmist tone and says "send this to everyone you know," it must be true.

#
ezeflyer July 28th, 2008 3:28 pm

"In nature, stupidity would be weeded out. In the US, the oligarchy keeps stupidity fertilized and watered to keep the rest of us from flourishing."

ezeflyer, I think we are going to find that nature is going to have the last word here--one can look pretty healthy and successful while they are spending down their trust fund.

Goat girl you are so so right

#
ezeflyer July 28th, 2008 3:28 pm

In nature, stupidity would be weeded out. In the US, the oligarchy keeps stupidity fertilized and watered to keep the rest of us from flourishing.

ezeflyer, I think we are going to find that nature is going to have the last word here--one can be pretty healthy and successful while they are spending down their trust fund.

A question?

Are Creationism, and its newer slicker offspring, Intelligent Design, wittingly or not serving as proxies against the use of one's critical faculties--serving to remind all that thinking is not required since all answers are to come down from on high? An important part of a matrix, if you will, of messages that inform one that their thinking is neither necessary nor will it be welcome. I was told as much in the 2nd or 3rd grade , and it remains by dominant memory of school during that period.

elmysterio said:
"Funny thing about a lot of stupid people; they don't know they're stupid. They keep on spewing the same old tired crap, thinking they're so enlightened, yet come out on the wrong side of pretty much every issue."

True. I was debating a woman I know about the inaccuracies and bias on Fox "News." Her reply, "No, they are 'fair and balanced.'" She knows this because they tell her so every time she watches; therefore, it must be true.

Islamofascists aren't multicultural liberals, jruebl, they're religious conservatives.

The Evangelical Right is just as deluded and fanatic as the Multikultural Left. The Left has allowed religious fanaticism from the Middle East and from South America into our country based on retribution for past wrongs (i.e. that scary swastika guy and Native American Genocide.)

Basically, Multikulturalism in the public schools has contributed to the dumbing down of society. How? If a culture is an outward expression of someone's soul, wouldn't a citizenry be most curious about things it relates to, meaning the highest achievements of Western Civilization? In public schools, we used to read Plato and learn Latin. We used to study Mozart, Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound. Now we have dumbed down, superficial "multicultural studies" as a replacement. This has been the biggest slap in the face to Gen X and Y in a long time and so-called "progressives" keep wondering why these people aren't curious, have "ADHD" or are vapid idiots. Maybe Hip-hop will save the day.

Also, the Left refuses to take into consideration IQ and gifted children in the classroom. Why is it that we're finding that all these kids in the dumbed-down public schools with so-called "ADHD" are all working-class white males with IQ's over 130? Why is that? Oh I remember, ever since desegregation, public (non-charter) schools have to lower their standards to accomodate victims of dysgenic fertility. I remember being in grade school near an Indian reservation with children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome mainstreamed with intelligent white kids. Nearly all the class time was taken up catering to the FAS kid. Meanwhile said FAS kid beats up the highly intelligent curious kids. There is no mention of tracking, no higher standards, no literature, no philosophy. We spend the highest on public education in the Western world and get the worst results. WHY? MULTIKULTURAL EGALITARIANISM.

Basically the Left must believe along with the Evangelical Right that "God" or "Dog" created man in 6 twentyfour hour days as all equal beings. Hell, there are different kinds of intelligence, right? What about Emotional Intelligence (I'm gagging as I write the words "emotional intelligence.")

Sorry, its the truth. There is no room for Plato, Schopenhauer, etc. This is why college is the place for learning everything you should've in high-school.

Now I'm not a "Right winger" at all, but I AM a realist. Ever since the 60's we have had an explosion of Autism, ADD, etc. Why do all these kids have high-IQ's and why do a great many of them come from white working class families stuck sending their kids to public schools?

Hmm.

And if you take this as "racist" then so be it. That can't be helped.

Anyone here read Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West?"

Probably not. Maybe one of Howard Zinn's worker's collective ideas will save the day.

Did any of you read about the workers collectives and women in Soviet Russia?

Probably not.

Maybe you guys need to get in bed with the people you truly love: Evangelical Christians. You're one in the same.