Is the Idiocracy Here?


Printed on: Thu, Oct 04, 2007
Dumbing down of America
By Kelvin Wade

We love idiots in America. Whether it's watching "My Name Is Earl" on NBC, a South Carolina beauty pageant contestant explaining America's map problem, young celebrities self-destructing, a moron crying about Britney Spears on YouTube or the president of the United States, we get a kick out of feeling superior to idiots.

Yes, the president who once asked, "Is our children learning?" answered it last week in front of New York schoolchildren proclaiming that "childrens do learn." See what I mean? We love it.

The problem is we may be at the dawn of the Idiocracy. In case you missed it, "Idiocracy" was a Luke Wilson comedy last year about a future dumbed-down America.

What's not so funny is that award-winning director Ken Burns has said he was prompted to make his excellent World War II documentary "The War" because he'd heard that many U.S. schoolchildren believe the U.S. fought alongside the Germans against the Russians during the WW II.

To test our young people, the San Francisco Chronicle quizzed 34 juniors at San Francisco's Burton High School about World War II. Only eight could identify Franklin Roosevelt as the president during most of the war. While a couple answered George Washington and Richard Nixon, 18 left the answer blank. How would juniors at Armijo, Fairfield and Rodriguez fare?

Along the same lines, recently, more than 14,000 freshman and seniors from 50 universities across the country were given a civic literacy test by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Both groups scored a bit better than 50 percent. In other words, they failed. The results were consistent with last year's testing.

How can we live in the Information Age and be so uninformed? Well, a Pew Research Center survey found that 23 percent of those under 30 read newspapers while 60 percent of older folks do. These days people are content to get their information from a pea-brained radio shock jock or some dubious blog probably written by some 30-year-old guy living in his parents' basement who can more easily quote dialogue from the Lord of the Rings movies than anything from the U.S. Constitution.

What kind of people are we if we don't know our own history, customs and civic responsibilities?

Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue. We want people to come here legally and become naturalized citizens. To do that, they have to pass a civics test. As an American born on these shores, can you pass it? What do the stripes on the American flag represent? What is the introduction to the Constitution called? How many representatives are there in Congress? Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court today?

Why is it important to know history and government? Civics is important to the functioning and health of our democracy. We need more people participating in government, not less. We need more people voting. Everyone can't be a cynic or the system won't work. The last mayoral election we had in Fairfield, the mayor ran unopposed. That should never happen again.

If you want to find out how I did on the quizzes and take them yourselves, see my blog for the links.

We have a lot of fun laughing at idiots. But if we don't get it together, soon we'll just be laughing at each other. Peace.

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NOTES: It's alarming to me when kids don't know basic information about history. That's why it's funny to me when right wing radio pundits like Michael Savage frets so much about illegal immigration. There's a lot of worry about illegals coming here, not knowing the language and changing the culture. Well, what about the native born citizens who know less about who we are as a people then the newcomers?

How do we go forward practicing our democracy....how do we go forward as Americans without knowing our history? Seeing things on a continuum is what helps us progress. We have to be able to see where we've come from to know where we're going.

So I invite people to go to my other blog and take the quizzes for themselves. You can find that other blog by CLICKING HERE.

Also, for those of you who would like to see some of the video I referenced in the first paragraph of the column.....

The South Carolina Ditz


The Idiot in Chief

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