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 population's general sense of
ignorance in relation to world history, and especially that of our
inability (or perhaps even unwillingness) to understand our own
country's 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 week's 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 doesn't 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 world's 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
president's stubborn unwillingness to go along with 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 don't
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 other's 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!

http://www.countercurrents.org/us-soderstrom230405.htm