This explains a lot about our current situation....

[mpreorder]

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Isaac Asimov

[MH1]

1. For more detail, see book by Charles Pierce - Idiot America

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B002BH5HTY&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_HKOuEbPAZERG7

[Nay]

12. And the original book on the subject, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" by

Richard Hofstadter. From the 1960's I think.

[murielm99]

55. I read that years ago.

Do you think it is worth a re-read?

[Nay]

56. I haven't read it for quite a while, but I do remember it as being generally very

relevant. I may read it again soon to compare its conclusions with what's going on now.

[JHB]

58. Does Putin shit in a Kremlin restroom?

[rzemanfl]

2. I wonder if my socks are dry yet? BBL

[Sloumeau]

10. I guess my only question is...

will you ever actually finish your laundry?

[rzemanfl]

11. I will die eventually. n/t

[pansypoo53219]

45. nope. never.

[safeinOhio]

3. Mid-19th Century...

See the Know-Nothing Party. The name of the American Party. All for trade wars and anti-imagration.

[handmade34]

4. attributed to Jefferson

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."

[Butterflylady]

8. Ignorance is bliss.

[rickyhall]

9. Christianity - faith without wisdom

[mountain grammy]

15. Yeah there's that.

And you know it doesn’t only apply to Christianity.

[cos dem]

24. If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?

[zanana1]

67. I love it!

Can I use it?

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

66. Educated...

Which is why dismantling quality public schools has been a goal of the opposition at least since civil rights.

[WhiteTara]

5. Look to Rwanda for examples

of the hatred of intelligence in ignorant people and how with constant urging, it can become deadly for 100s of 1000s.
Welcome to DU btw

[certainot]

37. that was radio, and it is exactly the same problem here. it is the only unique advantage they have

in brazil bolsanaro thanks the "brazillian limbaugh" for his 'success' - a brazillian who broadcasts from studios in fucking virginia!

most of the successful russian social media memes piggybacked years and decades of talk radio - as did trump, who paid sam nunberg to listen to 1000's of hours of it in 2014. yet he goes on MSNBC regularly and they never assk him aboiut it! limbaugh gets a medal, yet media and political analystss never even fucking poll for it!

the problem is right fucking there but we keep analyzing politics like studying fish without the water

[TexasBushwhacker]

59. Otherism kills

800K people slaughtered in 100 days, but that conflict had been brewing for decades. Of course, the conflict between the left and the right has been brewing a long time too.

[WhiteTara]

60. You're right and that is one chilling

diagram.

[mountain grammy]

6. Stir in some religious fanaticism

And Boom 💥 the cult of ignorance explodes.

[Farmer-Rick]

7. I think Asimov missed an important ingredient. Where do the benefits from intellect go?

They don't really hate useful knowledge and smart people. I live with these anti-intellectuals and talk with them daily. What they really hate more than anything is that the benefits of science and people's amazing intellect have gone to the filthy rich and not to them.

The vast wealth created by our American intellectual accomplishments has not benefited them much. Hell, most of them are worried they are one illness away from bankruptcy. What is the use of smarts, if it only costs you more to stay alive or eat or take care of your children. Their life span is shrinking and they are getting poorer. What's the use of intellect if it only makes you suffer? This anti intellectualism is an overreaction to being forced to pay (one way or another) for others to benefit from our scientific advancements.

The filthy rich get everything and they get nothing, so what's the use of smarts?

[iluvtennis]

16. But there are many of us who came from the poor side of the tracks who worked our way thru college

to get an education, so I disagree with there premise that only the wealth has benefited from education. If you want an education in America, there is a road to get it - although it is indeed a harder road for the poorer folks.

However, although folks manage to get college education/beyond, it's a tough struggle to feel that you are progressing and getting ahead because the paycheck goes to living - housing, food, utilities, clothing, supporting school aged kids thru school, daycare, meducal/dental/vision, etc, etc, etc.

Now do the top wealthy in this country have benefits over those below them on the totem pole - Absolutely, and that needs to change. One small change would be to take the tax burden off of the poor and middle class who carry this country. There is no reason why the wealthy and rich corporations should be paying zero in taxes -- the loopholes should be eliminated and their income should be taxed just like ours.

(my opionion only)

[Farmer-Rick]

22. Yeah, back when I was young you could afford college tuition, rent and food on a waitress salary.

There were summer jobs where you could make enough to pay for a semester of college. It took me 8 years to get through college as I worked and paid tuition. Yeah, I had high SAT scores but not high enough for scholarships or decent scholarships that paid anything. And after the first couple of year of college, no one cared what your high school and SAT score were.

Now the cost of college is so extreme as to be put it out of reach for most poor people. It would take you years to save enough to pay tuition. Then when you come back home there are no jobs. So, the education doesn't get them anything around here.

Yeah, some of this anti intellectualism is completely irrational. But some of it makes sense.

[iluvtennis]

30. + agree that college costs need to be reduced - no reason for the high costs. And college loans

need to be changed to be no/low interest. Students should have to start paying them back until they have been employed for 2 years. And they should be able to pay them back over 20/30 year period so the payments are affordable.

[certainot]

36. for 30 years 1500 radio stations have been used to attac public ed, teachers, 'intellectualism', etc

they were used to defund and privatize and were locally coordinated to fight any effort to improve and fund, or help reduce student debt.

that whole propaganda operation was ignored by thinking americans because it hurts our ears.

and then we analyze symptoms of that ignorance as if it is the fault of this or that or fox and basically have to wait for luck - like its top and irreplaceable frontman limbaugh croaking from cancer for it to fade away

and from the student debt point of view it is incredibly ironic we continue to let 87 universities support 260 of the loudest stations! those unis continue to be the most effective places to protest and change all of this, and completely destroy the GOP

[Farmer-Rick]

38. Yeah, they certainly made anti intellectualism popular.

Limpballs is going to enjoy his time in hell.

[Joinfortmill]

48. Yup

[iluvtennis]

39. well said. nt

[rzemanfl]

52. I worked my way through school at a job where I earned union wages.

Try doing that now, over 50 years after I got my B.A.

[Xipe Totec]

18. So, the filthy rich reap the fruits of high intellect, but instead of hating the filthy rich

We hate the intellect that produced it.

Does that sum it up?

[Farmer-Rick]

25. Yeah, you are right.

We have been conditioned...well at least large numbers of folks here in the deep red south have been conditioned...to NOT blame the filthy rich at any cost. Wealth is proof of god's love, (That's why criminals are so wealthy). When our economy crashed, we bailed out the bankers that caused it, and blamed our politicians. They stoke racism and bigotry so people have someone besides the filthy rich to blame. Yup, yup, yup it is propaganda pure and simple.

[Locrian]

19. yes he totally misses some of the most momentous changes

He was not alive to see the erosion of the systems that had a lock on information and its dissemination. Yes, a lot of this is "the internet" and how it has become the source of information. Information that is accessible, instant - but yes subject to abuse etc.

What we are seeing right now is every "institution" losing it's grasp on "the narrative". It's not just fake news, or lack of trust, it's the fundamental change in what we know.

Think of EVERY "institution" and how they have become "diminished" in terms of how they are revered. These are social control structures for better or worse and they are being dismantled.

Religion - scandals, realization of what is fake and real
Academic - scandals, cheating, etc
Corporation - money over everything
Political - corruption
Medical - profits over people, bad science, mistrust, etc

This is really interesting - if you have an open mind to really look at what's happening.

[TexasBushwhacker]

43. Here's an essay he wrote

Listening to people talk about Deep Shit 101 makes my eyes glaze over. I can absorb it by reading it much better.

"Situational Assessmant 2017: Trump Edition"

https://medium.com/deep-code/situational-assessment-2017-trump-edition-d189d24fc046#.pghvstt0i

[Locrian]

44. yeah I amost posted that....

A lot of this admit-ably "deep shit" really puts people off

It needs to be really condensed down and will appear profoundly obvious - but for now I think people don't get what we're experiencing. Nobody "got it" when print came out, radio, or tv either.

[stopdiggin]

41. nice try there .. but I think that's lipstick on a pig

as the lovely, and so intellectual, Sarah Palin told us. And there's another old saying, "Pig ignorant, is just pig ignorant." No use trying to paint it another color.

(IMO) Anti-intellectualism is NOT a cry for help .. it's the base human instinct to pull back the crabs that might win free of the bucket. And at heart they know it.

[Caliman73]

42. And yet they vote for Republicans

The exact ones who believe in and promote policies that benefit the "betters" at the expense of everyone else.

Democrats are pushing to provide universal healthcare by redistributing some of the money hoarded by the filthy rich into access to healthcare with few out of pocket expenses, and these guys sit there and vote for the people who are trying to kill off the pittance of healthcare they got from the ACA.

It is a circular firing squad mentality

[iluvtennis]

13. Wow, that is spot on! nt

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. And Fox News exploits this to the max. n/t

[certainot]

32. it's not fox. fox is a decoy and symptom, the cartoon cliff notes for republican talk radio

fox is part of the free speech spectrum. 1500 coordinated unchallenged radio stations that follow the lead of one man, limbaugh, is not

there are political 'alternatives' for fox a click away - not for talk radio

fox cannot be coordinated at the local level

it'ss a monopoly propaganda messaging machine that has been ignored by the left 'intelligensia' largely because they mostly live in cities and they can't read it.

dems have to stop blaming fox or even social media. everything trump has done follows the talk radio script - the trumpers are DITTOHEADS

the worst part about blaming fox is that talk radio is very vulnerable now before the elections

the hate radio monopoly is very vulnerable - ready to push off the cliff now, with artificial intelligence enhanced transcription and the possible well deserved departure of limbaugh. it is not part of the free speech spectrum and it is not an expression of 'market demand' for hate and global warming demand and racism. the ad industry has to adjust for the possible loss of limbaugh on 600 major stations, many already artificially supported. any real activism aimed at rw radio will force the ad industry to start adjusting preemptively to protect clients. they're going to have to get many of those stations to switch programming or lose a lot of advertisers.

and there are 87 major universities supporting 260 limbaugh stations and they need to be protested until they quit

without talk radio trump and the GOP are total fucked. none of this trump disaster could have happened without limbaugh leading chorus of a few hundred liars on 1500 radio stations.

if trump/putin paid $1000/hr for radio then 1200 stations x 15 hrs a day are worth $5BIL/year

then the dem party will have to go 15 pts left.

[Cosmocat]

64. Its splintered past talk radio

People here were dead sure the internet would save the day, but the right wing has poisoned it ... the cancer has spread well past am radio.

[certainot]

68. internet is part of the free speech spectrum. it starts with radio and it's never been

easier to force the ad industry to democratize it. talk radio is the only medium they can do the unchallenged invisible repetition.

any dem candidate who walks onto the campus of one of those 87 universities and points out the stupidity will start a cascade that will make gop keeping senate impossible, whoever the dem candidate is. without that help they will be completely fucked.

then the senate can pass needed reforms

[lastlib]

17. Americans followed Ronald Reagan BECAUSE he had the alpha waves of a turnip....

NOT in spite of it.....

They followed him, and the GOPhers that came after (up to, and including, Herr Drumpf), BECAUSE he lacked the wisdom to be aware that he didn't have a monopoly on truth. They followed the ignorance because it paralleled their own.

I wish I knew how to change that. But we fail to change it at our national peril.

[DemoTex]

20. The Shallow State (ten miles wide and an inch deep)

Trump's America: Trumplandia

[Mendocino]

21. "I love the poorly educated"

[calimary]

23. Yep. The low-information voters.

[patphil]

26. It's a pretty darn big cult.

It's driven by an intellectual laziness that would rather be spoon fed someone else's "truth" than take the time and effort to discover what the actual truth is.
So these people will embrace convenient truths that coincide with their views.
It's part of a well known process. If you have a preconceived notion that someone else reinforces, you are more inclined to believe it.
The actuality of the truth of what these people believe is irrelevant.

For these people, ignorance is truth.

[Pluvious]

27. Cicero, 2 millenniums ago...

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."

[gordianot]

33. Cicero would have felt at home in 21st Century America.

Who better would recognize the fall of a Republic than one who lived in his times. Instead of military conquest we have to contend with actors of financial conquest. Most relevant he did not survive in what was to come.

[Joinfortmill]

49. Gives me the shivers.

[burrowowl]

57. Good old Cicero, I have his book in Latin, it is falling apart, as am I

[Newest Reality]

28. Good Quote!

Let's also consider that the ignorance is useful to some extent by those with vested interests. I would venture that if it were deemed important or useful, we would have an education system that would make ignorance and the lack of thinking skills, (how to think just as important, if not more so, than what to think) rare, considering it is compulsory anyway.

You don't want a nation full of people who are like Noam Chomsky or Issac Asimov, etc., if you want to preserve a given framework and capitalize on it, while managing to avoid threats to that system. We can consider people's willful ignorance and delusional thinking to be a problem, but how our country handles education and the dissemination of information in a broader sense is also very important.

You can fill kids up with all kinds of information, (teach for the test) and they will get a by rote stock of preferred information, (based on the value to a capitalistic, class-driven society) but it is more essential that they learn the HOW of thinking as early as possible, (based on stages of development) and that includes reason, logic and critical thinking overall.

Ah, Betsy DeVos, anyone? That is not to say that general education here, (for the masses) has been superlative, at least for a long time now. However, DeVos is a good symbol for the problem at hand.

Aldous Huxley's social classes in Brave New World seem to illustrate that well.

"A thinking man is a dangerous man." as I recall. That truism holds.

[Chipper Chat]

29. I blame fox news for mega brainwashing.

An Amurican tragedy.

[Mendocino]

31. Idioiocracy

[pansypoo53219]

47. i love that bad movie.

[rzemanfl]

53. Thank you. Hard to believe the movie wasn't promoted much so as

to avoid offending Dubyah voters.

[Dukkha]

34. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan sadly predicted these times

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

-From Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" chapter entitled "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" p. 221

[Joinfortmill]

50. And that is where we are now

[Mc Mike]

35. Excellent quote. rec, nt.

[defacto7]

40. Looks like you struck a good nerve!

I'll k&r this.

[Joinfortmill]

46. True, I remember this phrase from my childhood, "Educated idiot"

But what we are experiencing now is not anti-intellectualism, it's the embracing of "false facts". We're in a real mess here. A few folks who should have been aware, fell asleep on their watch.

[Different Drummer]

51. Never more true than it is right now.

DD

[redstateblues]

54. Especially in my region the South

There have been rays of hope in cities like Nashville but overall the level of ignorance is still appalling

[Prof.Higgins]

61. Trump cultists 'know' better than all the climate change scientists, right? n/t

[YOHABLO]

62. Rather than creating life long learners, we create consumers.

If we're not buying, they don't profit. God help us if they decide public libraries are a waste of tax dollars.

[whopis01]

63. Carl Sagan from 1995 (15 years later - same theme)

“The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance“

[Ingersollman]

65. I

have that very article from Newsweek posted on my bulletin board in my office. Asimov is one of my favorites!