Are Americans hostile toward knowledge?

[Double Down]

Some of you might have seen this story today (it was No. 1 on the NYT most emailed list). Susan Jacoby wrote about book about how American culture, more and more, seems to think, like, knowing stuff is like, um, sooo stupid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html

http://The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”


The article also brings up Kellie Pickler's impressive performance on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" during which she was asked 'Budapest is the capitol of what European country?' and she replied "I thought Europe was a country?" She also didn't know France was a country.

How stupid are people around you?

And why do you think it's the case?

I mean, we mocked a presidential candidate (Gore) for coming off as too smart, and look what happened: We got what we deserve, frankly.

Jacoby blames evangelicals in part, but also talks about the "teach to the test" mentality and takes some shots at the left too.

It's not just limited to everyday joes and janes either. I've had editors and fellow reporters (at a major metro) who literally did not know where certain states were located, what the Bay of Pigs was, who wrote Grapes of Wrath or Old Man and the Sea, what Watergate was, etc.

 

[beefncheddar]

I never understood how deficient American students were until my Journalism 101 class. Professor handed us a map of the U.S. and told us to name all the states. I'm still not sure why. Regardless, after class he stopped me to complement me on getting all 50.

My response: People don't know their states? Seriously?

 

[Double Down]

I once got into a discussion with an editor about the state of Montana (I think it was the natural progression from discussing the 49ers quarterback, Joe) and he said, "Where is Montana? Is that one of those Canadian providences?"

 

[sportschick]

I once got into a discussion with an editor about the state of Montana (I think it was the natural progression from discussing the 49ers quarterback, Joe) and he said, "Where is Montana? Is that one of those Canadian providences?"

That editor is Dead. To. Me.

 

[sportschick]

And in a double post, right before I moved out to Montana I went to the At&T store to see about canceling my service because I knew they didn't provide service there, the guy at the story said, "People live in Montana?" I walked out and came back another day when he wasn't there.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

According to a recent Reuters story, one in four Japanese high school students can't place North Korea on a map.

That might be a country worth familiarizing yourself with geographically and otherwise. Japanese, American, Icelandic or Oceanic. Or whatever.

 

[MacDaddy]

I don't think there's any doubt Americans as a whole have a general disdain for knowledge.

If only more people believed in the Faber College motto.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Actual conversation in my newsroom several years ago:

Writer 1: Is Detroit a city or a state?
Writer 2: It's a city.
Writer 1: In Illinois, right?
Writer 2: No, Michigan.
Writer 1: Gawd, you're so SMART!

 

[Mystery_Meat]

I don't think there's any doubt Americans as a whole have a general disdain for knowledge.

If only more people believed in the Faber College motto.

Eat Me?

 

[Smallpotatoes]

A few months ago, I was watching a video of an interview with the late Arthur Jones, the man who invented Nautilus machines.
He was a ninth-grade dropout.
One of the things that he said was that a ninth-grade education in the 1930s was the equivalent of a Ph.D. today.
In his autobiography, he wrote that if you took modern-day doctoral candidates and placed them in an elementary school classroom in 1930's Oklahoma or Texas, just about all of them would flunk.
Do either of those statements seem like an exaggeration to anyone?

 

[GB-Hack]

A few months ago, I was watching a video of an interview with the late Arthur Jones, the man who invented Nautilus machines.
He was a ninth-grade dropout.
One of the things that he said was that a ninth-grade education in the 1930s was the equivalent of a Ph.D. today.
In his autobiography, he wrote that if you took modern-day doctoral candidates and placed them in an elementary school classroom in 1930's Oklahoma or Texas, just about all of them would flunk.
Do either of those statements seem like an exaggeration to anyone?

It seems like it to me, although I know that academic standards, what with the allowance of use of textbooks, calculators and notes in English exams have diminished the standards of high school education.

A while back, I saw the BBC do an experiment where they gave the editor of a London newspaper a standard "A" level English exam. He hadn't been to school in quite a while, and yet with the resources available to him was able to ace it.

 

[zeke12]

A few months ago, I was watching a video of an interview with the late Arthur Jones, the man who invented Nautilus machines.
He was a ninth-grade dropout.
One of the things that he said was that a ninth-grade education in the 1930s was the equivalent of a Ph.D. today.
In his autobiography, he wrote that if you took modern-day doctoral candidates and placed them in an elementary school classroom in 1930's Oklahoma or Texas, just about all of them would flunk.
Do either of those statements seem like an exaggeration to anyone?

They're a ridiculous exaggeration.

People are much, much smarter now than they were in 1930. What has changed is that the basis by which we define intelligence is much, much broader. There is no longer any accepted canon from which to delineate a base level of learning.

But, anyway, the point is the attitude toward scholarship and intellectual curiousity, not the levels of actual intelligence.

 

[Double Down]

A few months ago, I was watching a video of an interview with the late Arthur Jones, the man who invented Nautilus machines.
He was a ninth-grade dropout.
One of the things that he said was that a ninth-grade education in the 1930s was the equivalent of a Ph.D. today.
In his autobiography, he wrote that if you took modern-day doctoral candidates and placed them in an elementary school classroom in 1930's Oklahoma or Texas, just about all of them would flunk.
Do either of those statements seem like an exaggeration to anyone?

Both seem like exaggerations, especially the second. I'm an educated man, and while I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the Texas/Oklahoma elementary teaching curriculum of the 1930s, I'm confident that it wasn't literary theory or quantum physics. Sounds like Mr. Nautilus was trying to justify some of his own insecurities.

 

[Pastor]

Just recognize that a man that believes that evolution is false and that people were riding dinosaurs is still running for president and receiving massive amounts of votes.

I figure that spells it all out.

 

[Double Down]

People are much, much smarter now than they were in 1930. What has changed is that the basis by which we define intelligence is much, much broader. There is no longer any accepted canon from which to delineate a base level of learning.

But, anyway, the point is the attitude toward scholarship and intellectual curiousity, not the levels of actual intelligence.

It's an interesting point about the canon, Zeke. It's something I think a lot about when we talk about Klosterman, and his deconstruction of pop culture. To you and I and people our age, there is merit in exercise of breaking down something like The Real World because, disposable as it is, it's a reflection of modern culture. But to many (including those on this board) much of it seems like mental masturbation and Klosterman is faux intellectual. It's one thing to have very little grasp of world geography -- especially with our nation-wide shortage of maps so we can know about The Iraq, South America, and such as -- but I wonder sometimes if more kids are just focusing on different things to tell them about their world. A lot of young people still adore Catcher in the Rye, but for others, it isn't going to resonate quite as much as Buffy The Vampire Slayer might.

And, it's probably worth pointing out that there were certainly a lot of people who didn't know that Budapest was the capitol of Hungary in the 1930s, but they were working in the fields or raising children in a dusty shack in Oklahoma instead of going on American Idol or Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader. There are certainly dumb people now, and they also have 1,000 different ways to make their lack of knowledge seen and heard by others.

 

[zeke12]

People are much, much smarter now than they were in 1930. What has changed is that the basis by which we define intelligence is much, much broader. There is no longer any accepted canon from which to delineate a base level of learning.

But, anyway, the point is the attitude toward scholarship and intellectual curiousity, not the levels of actual intelligence.

It's an interesting point about the canon, Zeke. It's something I think a lot about when we talk about Klosterman, and his deconstruction of pop culture. To you and I and people our age, there is merit in exercise of breaking down something like The Real World because, disposable as it is, it's a reflection of modern culture. But to many (including those on this board) much of it seems like mental masturbation and Klosterman is faux intellectual. It's one thing to have very little grasp of world geography -- especially with our nation-wide shortage of maps so we can know about The Iraq, South America, and such as -- but I wonder sometimes if more kids are just focusing on different things to tell them about their world. A lot of young people still adore Catcher in the Rye, but for others, it isn't going to resonate quite as much as Buffy The Vampire Slayer might.

And, it's probably worth pointing out that there were certainly a lot of people who didn't know that Budapest was the capitol of Hungary in the 1930s, but they were working in the fields or raising children in a dusty shack in Oklahoma instead of going on American Idol or Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader. There are certainly dumb people now, and they also have 1,000 different ways to make their lack of knowledge seen and heard by others.

Right. It's the same argument I've had with folks who are up in arms about young people "getting" their news from The Daily Show or the Colbert Report. The step people skip is that "enjoying" those shows requires a pretty deep base of knowledge and an appreciation of the deconstruction of political events on a metatextual level.

The show is satire. You have to be reasonably well informed to find it funny. And people forget that a lot of the kids who can't find Budapest on a map can find any street in America on their iphone. A lot of knowledge that needed to be memorized in the past is easily available in a few keystrokes, leading younger people to put much less premium on it.

There are good and bad things about that, but they don't necessarily point to any kind of lowering of a base of knowledge so much as a shift in where knowledge is applied.

All that said, I think a prejudice against intellectualism is very real in this country and a very big problem.

 

[hondo]

Some of you might have seen this story today (it was No. 1 on the NYT most emailed list). Susan Jacoby wrote about book about how American culture, more and more, seems to think, like, knowing stuff is like, um, sooo stupid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html

http://The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”


The article also brings up Kellie Pickler's impressive performance on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" during which she was asked 'Budapest is the capitol of what European country?' and she replied "I thought Europe was a country?" She also didn't know France was a country.

How stupid are people around you?

And why do you think it's the case?

I mean, we mocked a presidential candidate (Gore) for coming off as too smart, and look what happened: We got what we deserve, frankly.

Jacoby blames evangelicals in part, but also talks about the "teach to the test" mentality and takes some shots at the left too.

It's not just limited to everyday joes and janes either. I've had editors and fellow reporters (at a major metro) who literally did not know where certain states were located, what the Bay of Pigs was, who wrote Grapes of Wrath or Old Man and the Sea, what Watergate was, etc.

Gore was mocked by a lot of people not because he was smart but because he a. felt the need to brag to the world how smart he was, and b. made a common mistake among liberals: his intelligence was often a smug sense that he knew what was best for everyone else.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

People are much, much smarter now than they were in 1930. What has changed is that the basis by which we define intelligence is much, much broader. There is no longer any accepted canon from which to delineate a base level of learning.

But, anyway, the point is the attitude toward scholarship and intellectual curiousity, not the levels of actual intelligence.

It's an interesting point about the canon, Zeke. It's something I think a lot about when we talk about Klosterman, and his deconstruction of pop culture. To you and I and people our age, there is merit in exercise of breaking down something like The Real World because, disposable as it is, it's a reflection of modern culture. But to many (including those on this board) much of it seems like mental masturbation and Klosterman is faux intellectual. It's one thing to have very little grasp of world geography -- especially with our nation-wide shortage of maps so we can know about The Iraq, South America, and such as -- but I wonder sometimes if more kids are just focusing on different things to tell them about their world. A lot of young people still adore Catcher in the Rye, but for others, it isn't going to resonate quite as much as Buffy The Vampire Slayer might.

And, it's probably worth pointing out that there were certainly a lot of people who didn't know that Budapest was the capitol of Hungary in the 1930s, but they were working in the fields or raising children in a dusty shack in Oklahoma instead of going on American Idol or Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader. There are certainly dumb people now, and they also have 1,000 different ways to make their lack of knowledge seen and heard by others.

Right. It's the same argument I've had with folks who are up in arms about young people "getting" their news from The Daily Show or the Colbert Report. The step people skip is that "enjoying" those shows requires a pretty deep base of knowledge and an appreciation of the deconstruction of political events on a metatextual level.

The show is satire. You have to be reasonably well informed to find it funny. And people forget that a lot of the kids who can't find Budapest on a map can find any street in America on their iphone. A lot of knowledge that needed to be memorized in the past is easily available in a few keystrokes, leading younger people to put much less premium on it.

There are good and bad things about that, but they don't necessarily point to any kind of lowering of a base of knowledge so much as a shift in where knowledge is applied.

All that said, I think a prejudice against intellectualism is very real in this country and a very big problem.

Isn't the complain more that they're getting their news first from TDS/CR in the way that there's conservatives that get their news from Rush?

 

[buckweaver]

My girlfriend has a quote whenever the topic of instant recall of knowledge comes up (obviously, I'm the type of person who can do that sort of thing, especially with baseball, as some of you know ):

She says: "I may not know as much as you do off the top of my head, but I know where I can look it up."

And she's right. Even though she's smarter than the average bear to begin with, she's got all the tools to find any information she needs at the drop of a hat. And that's equally important, in this day and age, as knowing it by memory.

 

[canucklehead]

I think in general people are stupid, not just Americans. Canadians too.
I'd be a rich man if I had a loonie for every time the morning newspaper sat untouched by our house guests, even though I place it right in front of them in the morning. I'll say something like "the paper's there, if you're interested" as I pour my first coffee, only to have them look over at it like it's a pile of dog ****. It's easier, I guess, to remain ignorant.
My brother in law, by the way, may be the most stupid person I've met. He once wrote a note to my wife (a newspaper person like me) in which he mentioned something about the Tasma Hall in India. We'll laugh about it always. He always starts dinner conversation with the lazy-ass 'So, what's happening in the world today?" Buddy if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you.
That might be a good thread. Who is your most stupid relative?
But I digress