About some things, Americans are incredibly stupid. For instance, I’ve kept an eye on science and religion related ignorance for years. 15% of Americans don’t know that the Earth revolves around the sun. Half of the people in the United States (an allegedly “Christian Nation”) can’t name Genesis as the first book in the Bible.
There are a lot more statistics where those came from. If you’d like to read a few dozen zingers, read Rick Shenkman’s article in Alternet, “Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?” There are some real head-shakers in Shenkman’s article. Several might have you wondering whether we should require citizens to pass rudimentary intelligence tests in order to vote. Shenkman’s compilation of stupidity had me wondering this. I know that this is an extremely controversial idea based on the way it has been misused in the past. It is clear, though that huge numbers of people have no idea how their government is designed to work, who is running their government, the basic characteristics of the scientific method, the basic facts of the religions to which they cling, or rudimentary principles of geography, history or economics. Now really . . . should such a person vote? This question makes me squirm.
I’m not really suggesting that we should take official government action to keep people from voting based on their intelligence levels. On the other hand, reading Shenkman’s article makes me wonder whether our “Get out the vote” campaigns should be focused on getting people to vote only if they know something other than their favorite TV shows and sports stars. Rather than “get out the vote,” perhaps we should have “vote only if you’re informed” campaigns. Here’s one of Shenkman’s many statistics that especially got me thinking in this entirely unacceptable way:
In the election of 2004, one of the hot issues was gay marriage. But gauging public opinion on the subject was difficult. Asked in one national poll whether they supported a constitutional amendment allowing only marriages between a man and a woman, a majority said yes. But three questions later a majority also agreed that “defining marriage was not an important enough issue to be worth changing the Constitution.” The New York Times wryly summed up the results: Americans clearly favor amending the Constitution but not changing it.
What is stupidity? Early in his comprehensive article on the lack of comprehension, Shenkman designates the five types of stupidity:
First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who’s in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country’s long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.
Although the article at the top of this post, “Ignorant America,” is full of compelling statistics, it (like many articles documenting American stupidity) is also riddled with many questions that confuse trivia for knowledge. How important is it for most Americans to know the name of the Secretary of Defense? Isn’t it possible that someone can be rather up to speed about America’s military policies without actually knowing the name of the Secretary of Defense?
America is obsessed with trivia and it is not unusual for trivia to masquerade as something important for tests that purport to measure intelligence. Knowing lots and lots of facts, though, especially the inert facts common for trivia buffs, is not the same thing as being intelligent. If these two things (knowledge and facts) were equal, we would regularly have great insights and discoveries occurring as a result of Trivia Nights, yet I don’t believe that has yet happened even once.
The problem with many intelligence tests is that they only measure ability to recall bits of information rather than detecting true understanding, much less wisdom. For this reason, many of the questions used to illustrate how “stupid” we are resemble the same problems found in many formal “intelligence tests.” A thorough review of those problems with IQ tests can be found in Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man (1996).
I recognize that we all have our focus when it comes to understanding the world. Someone who is dedicated to one field of study might not know as much about other fields of study. It is also important to remember that all of us have huge gaps in information. If we have dedicated our lives to understanding nanotechnology, how much are we actually going to know about the history of classical music ? If you work as a professional athlete, should we really be expected to know all five of the specific legal rights granted by the First Amendment? (Did you know that one of those rights is the right to petition the government?). Having written this, I think it’s more likely that those who truly excel at a field tend to be rather well-rounded.
There’s probably more than a few people who would insist that the scientific method is the be-all and end-all of intelligence because of its insistence on proof. There is an uneasy truce between belief and proof, however. In the area of religion, belief is often said to be justified even in the absence of proof. But don’t forget that even very smart people find an irresistible urge to believe many things that they cannot prove.
Here’s another caveat for those who walk around wagging their fingers (like I do) at the large number of “stupid” Americans. Howard Gardner has put forth a strong argument that there were actually multiple intelligences. He holds that the concept of “general intelligence” is highly suspect and that there might not be such a thing as GI. There are those who are incredibly talented at reading the moods and motives of other people (he calls this interpersonal intelligence), but who don’t do well at mathematics. There are people who are terrifically talented in musical ways (e.g. Hillary Hahn), but might not be very good at biology (I’m not suggesting that Hillary on is not good at biology– because I am deeply infatuated with Hillary Hahn, I assume that she is excellent at everything she does!). Many of us do know some “absent-minded professors” who can talk for hours on esoterica such as Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative but who seem inept at coping in the real world on a day-to-day basis. In the category of super-intelligent, I would quickly place my plumber (who can talk knowledgeably about almost anything, it seems) and a carpenter who has done work at my house, who has a superhuman grasp of his profession. I can’t imagine being as good as he is at the many arts of transforming a house, even if I trained for 20 years at the foremost “carpenter school.”
Having recognized these caveats, I am nonetheless saddened that there are hundreds of Americans I have personally met who seem to be almost completely ignorant of most things and who don’t seem to care. They live eternally in the present (like young children) and they have no interest in knowing the cultures or accomplishments of other people living in other places. Why is it important to know about humans living in different places and in different ways? Because we are part of a massive global economy where our local actions, in the aggregate, have massive global consequences.
Many of these un-curious Americans have well-paying jobs–some of them are even wealthy. Their idea of traveling is to take their own culture with them, for instance, to seek out “hot” tourist spots and to patronize American restaurant franchises like Hard Rock Cafe while visiting foreign countries. And that’s assuming that they have any inclination to travel at all in the first place. Many of them don’t see the need to travel or to know about the cultures of others.
I am not intending to criticize those who have never had the means to study seriously or to travel widely. For instance, I have spoken to many people who clean the offices where I work. It is common for these folks to have to work two and sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. There is no way that such a person would have the opportunities to expand his or her intellectual life because they are working way too many hours cleaning up messes made by people like me. The targets of this rant are those people who have every opportunity to become more knowledgeable about the world but who have turned it down repeatedly.
How is it that so many Americans have gotten as stupid as the Shenkman article suggests? It sometimes seems that somebody is so incredibly un-curious that you wonder how it is that he or she didn’t self-destruct many years ago? It happens to me on a regular basis. I am surrounded by people who haven’t the faintest idea how an automobile works, or how electricity works, how the body works or how government works. I’m not insisting on a sophisticated knowledge of these topics, but a simple working knowledge. For instance, what is the difference between direct current and alternating current? What are the constituent gases of water? In a very simple way, describe what is happening inside of a nuclear power plant to create the energy? What are the three basic branches of American government? There are all too many Americans who don’t know and don’t care.
A week doesn’t go by when I haven’t met someone who does not know how to make change with coins or has no idea how to outline and write a simple coherent letter. I constantly meet people who simply presume that every other person A) does or B) should think the same as them. This matters, because many of these uncurious people do presumably vote (It’s probably more polite to use “uncurious” rather than the pejorative “stupid”). And it’s obvious to me that many people fear the concept and promise of biological evolution without knowing what evolution is. They express political opinions on energy policy without having any working knowledge of the geopolitics of petroleum. They take stands that homosexuality is “unnatural” without realizing that humans are animals or that hundreds of other species are, to some extent, homosexual. They take strongly held religious positions without any idea about the origin of the Bible, the changes made to the Bible the immorality of many sections of the Bible or the thousands of contradictions in the Bible.
How has this happened? Perhaps one factor is that we’ve worked so hard to make our surrounding world “smart” is that we don’t have to be smart. To be a cashier at McDonald’s, you don’t have to know much mathematics. The pictograph-laden cash register and the other parts of the McDonald’s corporate system do most of your “thinking” for you. The idea that we’ve made our world intelligent so that we don’t have to be intelligent was explored at length by Andy Clark in a book called Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again (1997):
We use our intelligence to structure our environment so that we can succeed with less intelligence. Our brains make the world smart so that we can be dumb in peace . . . It is the human brain plus these chunks of external scaffolding that finally constitutes the smart, rational inference engine we call mind. Looked at that way, we are smart after all—but our boundaries extend further out into the world than we might have initially supposed.
[Being There, p. 180] Americans have worked very hard to design environments that allow us to survive even if we’re not very bright. I suspect that we are now suffering because we have so successfully created such a world where we don’t have to be very smart.
We are now entering a dangerous new era, however, where our “smart” world (a world that can only function on cheap oil) is no longer so smart. Not only is out system failing to mesh with the new reality–individual humans are no longer very smart, because for decades our “smart” world has allowed many of us to sit around without much mental effort and to reap the harvests of smart technology and cheap oil: endless amusements, cheap food, indoor climate control at the push of a button, the ability to call on the miracles of modern medicine to compensate for the abuses we give to our bodies. Our smart technology has trained us to be un-smart and un-curious. I really do suspect that countries that haven’t had it as good as America (with regard to technology and availability of cheap energy) are now better positioned than America to thrive in the coming years of expensive energy, where personal initiative and inventiveness will again be of higher value to most people in most places.
I need to bring this post to a close, though I don’t have any satisfying conclusions. Rather, I am haunted by the thought that too many of us are failing to work to make the most of our opportunities to understand our world and improve the world. Perhaps this kind of behavior is based upon an emotional attitude. I’m thinking of the famous quote by Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Maybe our approach to knowing (or not knowing) the world does boil down to an emotional attitude, an attitude that can sometimes equate with nihilism. For many of us, I’m afraid, the unexamined life is worth living.
Robert Heinlein worte many essays and articles regarding the steady increase in anti-intellectualism in the US. He advocated the idea of some sort of qualification test for voting rights. A variation of this concept was exlored his book "Starship Troopers" where voting rights were only given to those that had served in the military.
Much of the dumbing of America is the result of commercial interests working independantly toward the goal of making the general public into the "perfect consumption resource". This is an unfortunate side-effect of dollar-democracy. ( The "vote with your dollars" attitude ).
Niklaus: I sense that you are correct. Just ask yourself who runs the government these days–who finances the campaigns? As long as the people can afford enough distractions and baubles, why would the government want most citizens to be informed? It would be inviting lots of trouble-makers, reformers, people to hold the government accountable, people that might stop invasions like Iraq. Keep them ignorant and happy seems to be AOK with the government.
In an ideal world, having vast numbers of citizens showing massive ignorance about how to be informed enough to participate in the government would be cause for massive educational and government reform. It would be cause for a national emergency.
The modern facist corporatist state cannot survive where there is a continuous influx of persons knowledgeable enough to be aware of their oppression.
We have seen the sytematic repression of the middle class and lower classes in removing opportunities for education, employment and healthcare except as beneficiaries of their corporate masters.
The continued repression of the masses has been allied with a pernicious ethic of "individualism" which facist corporatist state uses to undermine collective supports and responsibilities except as approved by their fiat.
We are steered to not care about the "others" by labels issued by our masters which frame their issues in billion dollar campaigns to convince us their hand-picked lackey is the kind of guy we'd like to share a beer with, rather than one which will allow freedom, opportunity and the quality of life enjoyed by our parents.
The first thing we do is reclaim the American Revolution as belonging to us all, and not just the rich, white, monied property owners. I've seen some visions of a new American Revolution here:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/01/ameri…
But, ultimately, we are each of us, personally responsible for the world which we live in and give to our children. The question to us, are we prepared to re-take the American Revolution and own it so our children may have a better world?
Related post at Alternet. Here's the link.
Here is undeniable evidence of American stupidity from the NYT:
In short, we could have been burning about half the oil we're currently burning, if we only had a brain.
And consider this:
Here's the full story.
I agree that Americans as a whole are stupid, and politicians facilitate this. Obama tells people what they want to hear, and omits any facts that might dampen the American voting public's smile. McCain employs this same tactic, though not as much, and has suffered in the polls.
Even when the intelligent solution prevails in politics, I feel sad. I feel sad because I know it didn't win because it was right, but because enough ignorant people were swayed into voting for it. Thus politics becomes the battle over the ignorant which is why it has become so damned stupid.
america does suck but there are many stereotypes about us being stupid its kinda ridiculous. But I'm still going to move to some other country when I get older. the education system here is shit and I dont want my kids to grow up ignorant like many here have.
Yes, I think that it can be said that americans are stupid or some other term that lowers them from thows with higher brain function. Also, I believe that from birth on their own before thier "educated" their stupid or some other term that lowers them from thows with higher brain function, and even has they educate them selves it's like the blind leading the blind. I keep hearing them say that we're the strongest nation and the most advanced but strong how and advanced from what! Is a man with a gun stronger then a man with out one? Does a man with a computer have a stronger mind then a man with out one? Is two against one a fair battle?
Advenced, advenced how, technicaly advanced?
Is being more technicaly advanced better then being more religious.
Richard : I think the stats speak for themselves in that we Americans generally have much higher rates of identifying ourselves as religious.
It is an overall good post but some of your taking points are indeed biased and fallacious and do not represent objective surveys upon knowledge an intelligence. But other than that great.
Case in point:
'They [stupid people I presume] take stands that homosexuality is “unnatural” without realizing that humans are animals or that hundreds of other species are, to some extent, homosexual.'
It is a common fallacy that proponents of homosexuality (to be natural) state that it [homosexuality] is prevalent in many other animals and species therefore it is natural. This is fallacy because just because something exist in another animal doesn't make it more or less natural. Erectile function disorder also exist in other animals besides humans. Does that mean, "Aha! Since it (E.F.D.) exist in other animals it is "natural." No, sperm count is collected from the norm and anything above or below the norm is considered "abnormal." There is much SCIENCE to back up that the female and male reproduction systems, both in organ and function, are meant for reproducing. If anything homosexuality is a genetic disorder; if the previous scientific module is to be used.
Not to deviate from topic I just wanted to use that to point out about blending your personal beliefs into your writing and not fall succumbed to, "any one who doesn't believe in what I believe is stupid." Stick to facts…
P.S. Would anyone know the statistics of Americans who think that this is Democracy vs. who know it is a Republic?
Ben: I'd disagree. As used in most arguments, "natural" refers to the state of nature, meaning how nature works when it is uncontaminated by human culture–natural things include all of the things that animals do out in the wild. That's my read, anyway. I would consider the following things to be "natural": cancer, erectile dysfunction, empathy (see the writings of Frans De Waal), and homosexuality.
just fyi, that wasn't the usual "ben" who posts here, somebody must have stolen my identity
I don't know how you Bens keep from confusing each other. That's why I'm not a Ben.
Ummm…fake Ben: Homosexuality has been observed in many species in the wild, thus it is "natural".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_…
Don't get me started on those "damn gay giraffes"! 😉 j/k
Ben (the other one) writes:—"It is a common fallacy that proponents of homosexuality (to be natural) state that it [homosexuality] is prevalent in many other animals and species therefore it is natural. This is fallacy because just because something exist in another animal doesn’t make it more or less natural. Erectile function disorder also exist in other animals besides humans. Does that mean, “Aha! Since it (E.F.D.) exist in other animals it is “natural.” No, sperm count is collected from the norm and anything above or below the norm is considered “abnormal.” There is much SCIENCE to back up that the female and male reproduction systems, both in organ and function, are meant for reproducing. If anything homosexuality is a genetic disorder; if the previous scientific module is to be used."
That paragraph is so full of cock-eyed logic it's difficult to know where to begin. But I will take just one aspect for now.
Just because the male and female genitalia are designed for reproduction, that does not mean that this is ALL they are designed for. The communication of pleasure and emotion is equally part of their function, and that part can be taken as separate from the reproductive aspect. People who for many reasons cannot reproduce can still find pleasure in the same act.
Which sort of begs the question of what "nature" intended in terms of sexual pleasure.
As for the rest of your argument, I imagine it boils down to whatever you find offensive, questionable, or disgusting is unnatural and therefore indefensible. What you're really doing to elevating personal taste to the level of moral dictum. Bad, Ben. Bad boy. Sloppy reasoning, horrible philosophy, and really questionable application of apparently misunderstood science.
Just a statement on your last point (making the world around us smart so we don't have to be), sadly I refer to wikipedia as my memory. I laugh about it, but wow.
Also, politicians thrive on this. I think very few politicians would be in office today if it weren't for their ignorance spreading propaganda and people feeling comfortable and just being lazy. This is not to say that I don't like and back many of them, but they are full of it.
Finally though, if we didn't let anyone who wants to vote vote, it would set us back quite a bit. I definitely think that pre-voting propaganda should change as you mentioned. That may have a lot to do with people like you (and me) though. In addition, this makes a very legitimate case for the Electoral College.
Perhaps Ben (Latter) is confusing his fallacies with his phalluses.
Erich,
I don't know what's up with the Zeitgeist at the moment, but you seem to have created a post on Americans' stupidity around the time a number of other people began concentrating on this topic (in all honesty though, it's likely to be a perpetually recurring theme).
For instance, Bill Maher recently posted about American stupidity on the HP:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule…
Actually, I also posted on this subject myself (but not as well as you or Mr. Maher) at another website:
http://asociologist.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/gues…
I wrote my post because I felt a sense of desperation about humanity's current ability to wisely guide itself. I say humanity (and not just Americans) because I know that so much of the world's direction is dictated by America. Given the number of historically-important challenges we currently face (e.g. global warming), I wondered how the world is ever going to step up and solve these problems with such un-inquisitive citizens at the helm.
Like you, I don't have a satisfactory answer. However, it does feel good to know that there are other people out there who sense the depth of the problem and who seem to be taking a truly thoughtful look at the matter(rather than simply being dismissive of the "idiots" they have to deal with).
My question to you Erich, is what are we going to do about this? How will the few inquisitive, thoughtful, tough-minded and sensitive individuals in the US ever work together to solve our problems? With so much inertia in our populace, we need a plan. How will we come together to make this plan, and how will achieve it?
Jeff: I have no plan, but any solution would need to convince people to get more informed about the workings of their government, to be more self-critical of their own biases, more empathetic and less xenophobic, less addicted to amusements such as TV, celebrity gossip and sports spectating, more interested in drilling down through suspicious claims, especially when we are biased toward those claims, and more willing to work harder for our knowledge base. How are these things as starters?
One thing we can do is teach our children critical thinking. If enough of us do that, the candle won't completely burn out.
Jeff: Perhaps this recent satire from The Onion comes frighteningly close to my sometimes world view: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/television_p…
Erich: I agree with most of what you said (with the exception of sports watching). In general we need to get people thinking critically about issues that affect them, and especially about their deeply-held but unexamined beliefs. However, I would also add another thing that we need more of: empiricism.
I’ve actually come across a few people who surprise me with their comparatively well-thought-out view on social problems. However, when I try to talk to these people about the issues they seem so concerned with, I find out that they know few specifics about the matter at hand. These people are perhaps the most dangerous ranks of the uncurious.
For instance, I’ve met people with an elaborate philosophical worldview about “individualism” and the problems of “socialism,” and yet who have never considered the complexities of what these airy terms actual mean. These individuals have droves of abstract arguments about the ideal of a “free market,” and also a few cherry-picked details from world history. However, they’ve never taken the time to read news reports (much less scientific research) that would provide empirical evidence on the mechanics of poverty, or economics, or politics, etc. The danger comes in when these home-grown philosophers are confronted with a vote on social policy. For instance, they might vote for a policy that supports “the market,” confident that they possess (compared to the rest of the general public) an elaborate understanding of the situation. However, prior to their vote, these people failed to consider whether their assumptions matched with reality; and after their vote, they also seem unconcerned with whether their favorite plan actually increased “the market” in any practical sense. Ultimately, the problem here seems to be a fundamental unconcern with empirical validation of one’s theories.
How are we going to make people more curious? On first glance, it appears very tough to strike at American indifference. With thoughtful Americans trying to stem pressing issues, it’s difficult to see how they would have the resources to overcome the deeper problem of American un-curiosity.
One thought that occurs to me is that we look to the Europeans. They seem (at least in formal testing) to be much more informed than the average American. Maybe (if someone was sneaky about it) it would be possible to have a group of European policy-makers look into our education system?
I recognize that few people reading this post (much less this comment) will have the power to affect Americans’ indifference to critical thinking. However, I do think it would at least be helpful if we knew the best solution to the problem of American indifference, so that if a solution does cross our path we are ready.
Oh, and to lighten the mood: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_moro…
Sorry to comment so frequently on just one post, but I thought the following article goes well to your point about the over-engineered world in which we live:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor…
Jeff: Good example. Thanks.
I have no doubt about the ignorance of many in this country. I'd like to know how other nations compare.
While overseas, I was not always impressed with the knowledge of fellow ex-patriots.
I once made the winning answer on quiz night because I was the only one that recognized Adolf Hitler in a World War I photo. None of the Germans believed me.
Ha!
*sigh*
Really? You're trying to play the nation/culture comparison game? And if so, where's the (gasp) science?
– The majority of the original post contains little more than anecdotal evidence of isolated smart people and generalized dumb people. I could do that with any culture on the planet, but nevermind– anecdotal evidence is not evidence (Erich– you're a lawyer– you should know better)
– It's a common stereotype of "whiney liberals" that they hate american culture and somehow hold the europeans in high regard. It seems to be happening here. Why?
– I've lived in several foreign countries (see my website for the list). People are stupid everywhere; people are smart everywhere.
– Why not go with a headline like "Why are People Stupid?" Why bring the nation-state into it? What is to be gained by that?
– Have you ever lived overseas and really experienced another culture? For every episode of "Masterpiece Theatre" out there, there is an episode of "Takashi's Castle". Europeans don't spend hundreds of hours watching NASCAR or NFL, but they do spend hundreds of hours watching football and Italian boobies pop out in goofy game shows.
But okay– let's talk about 'dumb Americans'
The United States:
– holds the record for nobel prizes
– world's largest economy and highest GDP
– holds the majority (35 out of 50) top universities worldwide
– middle of the pack in secondary education– certainly a concern to be addressed
If it makes you feel better to think that your own culture is dumb and that you're the rare exception, great. It's not accurate, nor scientific, but whatever you need to suck down that latte.
/time to get back to the Dallas-Philly game…
dave,
I attended college in the late 1970's. I found the There were many foreign students on the campus as the college I attended was well known for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) department. While many of the students would hang out with with old friends from high school, I was one of the few Americans that spent more of my free time with the international sudents than with other Americans. Among my friends were Iranian, Armenian, Iraqi, Saudi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Nigerian and Vietnamese students
For over a year in college, I had an Iraqi girlfriend.
I found it interesting how each culture emphasizes different social concepts. Arab culture, for example, values family and friends much more than material possessions. Iranians value fairness and justice rather highly.
I also found the preconceptions that the international students had of Americans and American life to be rather interesting. Many from severl different countries had expected the US to be a place where life was care-free and no one worried about anything outside of their social lives. Much of this stereotype was based on their exposure to American movies and TV shows.
One of my roommates, A Nigerian, believed that to have sex with an American girl, all he need do was approach the girl of his choice and tell her what he wanted. Apparently he had seen a lot of porn movies.
One day, I was approached by a smartly dressed Asian man who identified himself as Naoki Oba and he was studying the American educational system in an effort to improve the Japanese educational system. Apparently, at the time, the Japanese educational system produced graduates highly skilled in math and science, who at the same time seemed unable to innovate.
I remarked on this in a comment to this post.
Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is being unable to apply knowledge. If most of what you know is trivial grabage, then it is likely that you will be unable to apply that knowlege.
Top be fair, the accusation of stupidity can only be leveled at people who fail to understand the things that serve their own interests. America has been and still is largely isolated. International news is still mainly something that happens on tv.
I worked with a very bright woman from Ireland once who was completely ignorant of the War of 1812. She'd been a history buff and had done quite well in it at school in Ireland, but to her that war was entirely Napoleonic and they didn't even address the fact that there'd been an American "front."