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On Campus
Jul 14, 2008, 09:44AM

We're All Getting Dumber! Bahh!

Another Chicken Little joins the "technology is making us more ignorant" chorus and quotes from Morris Berman's "Dark Ages America." Remember that time when teenagers all read Proust and didn't waste their time with social nonsense? Those were real intellectual golden years, we're sure.

The nature of humans is to be bright, curious and ambitious. If Americans are growing up as woefully ignorant as polls suggest, the question to ask is why.

The answer lies in an ancient law of physics: Nothing happens without a reason. If young people begin school bright, eager and hungry for knowledge and come out at the end of school apathetic and apolitical, something is acting on them to make them that way.

Bauerlein expresses amazement that, with every opportunity in the world to learn, to act, to cause change, Americans don't bother. The answer is that virtually every source of power in the American republic is acting to deprive them of the belief that they can change anything.

Discussion
  • It's depressing to see a college journalist buying into this crap. Ever notice that all the surveys about "The Dumbest Generation" are conducted by people who, as Bill Clinton might say, "have more yesterdays than tomorrows"? Some people read, some don't, and that won't change. I wonder what a survey from 1900, when illiteracy was rampant, would show?

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  • "The answer lies in an ancient law of physics: Nothing happens without a reason." Wtf? Really, man?

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  • I was gonna' read his book, but then I remembered that reading isn't cool, so instead I got trashed on Listerine.

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