The Dumbing
Down Of
The American Mind
By Doug Soderstrom
23 April, 2005
Countercurrents.org
There
is a very dangerous phenomenon that seems to be occurring in the United
States of America; something that I refer to as the dumbing-down
of the American mind, a nearly willful tendency for Americans
to forgo reality in favor of believing what they want to believe. But
how could such a thing have occurred in such a proud nation, one that,
according to George Bush, has become known as a bastion of freedom and
democracy, a bright light for the whole world to see?
In my opinion, there
are five factors that can explain such a phenomenon. First, there is
the dumbing-down of education in our country. After having taught psychology
at the college level for the past 39 years, I have seen our standards
(what we essentially expect our students to accomplish in order to prove
that they have learned something of value) go straight to hell! I began
my career as an Instructor of Psychology back in 1966 at a very small
junior college located only 60 miles south of the Canadian border, one
with an enrollment of only 180 students, no doubt, a very cold and humble
place in which to begin a teaching career! And can you believe it, I
actually required my students to read an entire textbook during the
semester. And nobody got upset. Not the administrators, not the parents,
nor even the students! However, today, if I were to do such a thing,
I would have an extremely difficult time getting enough students to
enroll in my classes in order to keep my job. The problem: A very determined
standoff between the remaining few teachers willing to maintain standards
versus a generation or two of students who are nearly unwilling to learn,
students who have apparently gone on strike with an attitude
of I dare you to force me to learn! The result: The fact
that leniency (a lowering of academic standards in our country) has
won out at the expense of quality education in that of our high schools
as well as that of our colleges. Consequently, in my opinion, our country
is slowly but surely becoming a nation of near retards,
a collective group of individuals who have become so absurdly self-absorbed
and disinterested in acquiring knowledge that we, as a nation, are slowly
but surely losing touch with the reality of what is actually going on
in the world! The best example is our populations general sense
of ignorance in relation to world history, and especially that of our
inability (or perhaps even unwillingness) to understand our own countrys
complicity in relation to the 9/11 attacks upon our nation.
Second, there has
been a tendency for folks in our country to compartmentalize their religious
beliefs from that of science and philosophy. Now it is important to
understand that religion is based upon faith (knowledge that comes from
personal experience). Science is based upon research (knowledge that
accrues from the experimental process). And, of course, philosophy is
based upon logic (knowledge based upon rational thought). One is no
better than the other, and in our search for truth each should be allowed
to complement the other. However, within that of the Christian fundamentalist
community (one that did so very much to enable Bush-Cheney to be elected),
there has been a deliberate attempt to discount what we have learned
from science (as in global warming), as well as that of rational thought
(that the world was created in a period of one weeks time). These
folks believe that their religious beliefs are absolutely independent
of anything and everything else in life, that their beliefs about God
are more valid, and should be allowed to supersede every other source
of knowledge. It doesnt matter to them if what they believe makes
no sense at all or if what they believe is in absolute conflict with
that of scientific evidence. To them, there is no gray, nothing but
black and white, no critical thinking, nor even a willingness to listen
to the other side. There is just us (the good guys) and
them (the bad guys), and, regardless of what you say, I am right and
your are wrong, and if you do not agree with me, then you are going
to go to Hell
. and that is that! Probably the best example
of such is an abject unwillingness on the part of so many folks in our
country to face the mounting evidence that such a Godly country (The
USA) led by such a fine Christian man (George Walker Bush) could have
led our country into such an atrocious war while, along the way, having
perhaps committed an amalgam of crimes against humanity. You see
to hell with logic and scientific evidence, the truth (reality) is simply
a matter of what I want it to be!
Third, in our country,
there has been an absolutely inordinate interest in the procurement
of freedom (a need for each to protect his or her own rights), at the
expense of a reasonable concern for responsibility (an interest in the
welfare of others). As a prominent philosopher once indicated
How wonderful it is that we decided to erect a Statue of Liberty on
the east coast representing our concern for freedom, but how terribly
unfortunate that we failed to erect a statue of responsibility on the
west coast representing a corresponding need to be responsible. Such
an absurdly disproportionate interest in our own personal rights at
the expense of an interest in the needs of others has lead our country
to a kind of narcissism rarely seen at any other time in the history
of man. Imagine a nation of individuals that represent only four percent
of the worlds population demanding the right to consume 35% of
its wealth. It is almost as if Americans see themselves as having a
moral right to plunder the earth and to hell with everyone else. And,
of course, one of the best examples of such selfishness is the presidents
stubborn unwillingness to go along wit the Kyoto Accord a world-wide
effort to lessen the impact of global warming, much of which has been,
and, of course, will continue to be caused by the tremendous polluting
power of our own country. It is almost as if we, as a country, believe
that we have the right to do whatever we want, and to hell with everybody
else in the world. Almost as if might makes right and so
.. screw
you!
Forth, there has
been an obdurate tendency for those in our country to become increasingly
chauvinistic and bellicose. Chauvinistic in the sense of believing that
patriotism, acting the part of a consummate American, is essential in
order to be considered a decent human being, and, of course, translated
this means, If you dont like America the way it is, then
you can just get the hell out! And then such a chauvinism paired
with a bellicosity that is moving us towards militancy, a willingness
to castigate, an insistent urge to go to war against anyone, perhaps
even everyone, who happens to simply disagree with us; those inside
our borders such as liberals, humanists, democrats, or socialists, as
well as those outside our borders such as Moslems, Palestinians, the
freedom fighters of other countries, or even those of the Middle East
who have the rather ridiculous belief that just because
the oil is located on their land they seem to think they have the right
to control others access to it!
And finally, there
is a tendency for the people of our country to have become increasingly
ethnocentric, for our citizens to believe that our way (the American
way) is the one best way of doing anything and everything in life
..
and that anyone (any nation) that disagrees with us is simply out of
step and therefore must be wrong! For example
the belief
that Christianity, fundamentalist Christianity, is the right religion
and every other religion in the world is wrong, and will therefore lead
people to go to Hell. The belief that capitalism is the one correct
way for a nation to distribute its wealth, and any other way of distributing
wealth, such as socialism, is unacceptable, if not evil! And, in regards
to governance, the belief that democracy is the only acceptable way,
and that all others such as that of a Moslem theocracy in Iraq is wholly
unacceptable (of course disregarding the rather glaring hypocrisy of
the religious right who would certainly not object if they were able
to transform the United States government into some kind of Christian
organization)! Unfortunately, such a way of thinking has, no doubt,
led far too many of our citizens into becoming the worst kind of scoundrels;
bigots believing that we, as Americans, have the right to tell anyone
and everyone else in the world how they ought to live their lives!
In conclusion, it
is my opinion that such factors as I have enumerated have led our nation
into a very dangerous quagmire, one of abject arrogance and ignorance,
a very bad combination indeed! Arrogance in the sense of believing that
our nation can do no evil, that we can make no mistakes, since our nation
has quite obviously received the a priori blessing of God allowing us
to do anything and everything we as a nation feel led to
do. And, of course, such a myth has been compounded by the rather farcical
assumption that our president is a man of God. And, of course, ignorance
in that the people of our nation have, no doubt, allowed themselves
to become quite under-educated, our belief in God tends
to restrict honest and rational thought, we have endeared freedom to
the point that it has severely inhibited our ability to comprehend our
moral responsibility to others, and we have become so terribly ethnocentric
that we are nearly incapable of understanding that people around the
world have a right to choose what is best for them. Consequently, as
a result of so many things having gone wrong in our nation, our mind,
the way that we as Americans think, has become so terribly dumbed-down
that we are on the verge of losing nearly everything we have attained
over the past 229 years since we became a nation. I have no doubt that
pride always cometh before the fall, and given such an arrogant degree
of ignorance that has seemingly befallen so many in our country, it
is high time that we, as a nation, come to our senses before it is too
late or the imperialistic desires of the Bush-Cheney administration
will utilize every bit of our collective dumbness to take
our country to a place that we dare not go
that of
a long-standing imperial desire to conquer the world with the unfortunate
likelihood of ending up in a world war
.. something
that no sane human being should want regardless of how dumb they just
might be!