A quote shared by a friend of mine on Facebook...

[YoungDemCA]

"In the last twenty years, we have lost the thirst for knowledge and enlightenment, while venerating swamp rats, duck killers, pawn shop hacks and Larry the Cable Guy, while at the same time whining about China, Korea and Japan eclipsing us in technology, research and finance, yet anyone who seeks knowledge and understanding is denigrated, their knowledge and research discounted, ignored or defiled."

-The original author of the quote unknown.

Thoughts?

[Sherman A1]

1. Excellent!

sums things up rather well..

[Adam051188]

2. quintessential endstage capitalism

[YoungDemCA]

3. Bread and circuses...

Well, circuses, at least.

[Adam051188]

4. property shouldn't think.

[Depaysement]

49. Maybe crumbs

Falling off a table.

[Prophet 451]

5. I think it's entirely accurate

and I'm sharing it to my FB friends.

[arcane1]

6. If not for the contemporary references, it could've come from Carl Sagan n/t

[valerief]

7. We're too busy with our War Fever. nt

[kairos12]

8. People voted for Shrub because he was the person they most wanted

to have a beer with. Intellectual capacity and curious mind need not apply. Rethugs will try the same in 2016. If they nominate Cruz he is the person I would most like to see in a real life "Saw" movie.

[logosoco]

9. Those who seek knowledge are also shouldered with great debt. nt

[BrotherIvan]

39. I believe that there must be some way out of the college/debt system

There are many ways to further one's education that doesn't involve lifetime debt. It will take a cultural/ideological shift, but I have learned far more on my own than in university. I encourage any young person who asks me how to get into my alma mater to think long and hard about it before pursuing that path. There are actually good sites that list books and resources to deeply self-educate. Most university classes are not difficult and college life centers far more on social activities than academics. For all that money, it's definitely not worth it.

As the quote above illustrates, in most of society, intellectualism is denigrated. I was far more successful in my job interviews when I did not list the name of my school. I have had more than one manager sneer and ask me if I thought I was "smart or something." Except when I worked for European companies who also requested my grades; for those companies, education was very important. We value money far more than knowledge or skills.

[logosoco]

40. It is sad that it is like this and we do need to do something about it.

I dropped out of school at age 15 (I did get my GED at age 16 and my AA at the age of 43, but was lucky enough to be poor enough for grants! haha). I usually skipped school even before dropping out because I liked to read and I knew what I wanted to read and learned as much, but of different things, than I would have going to classes.

My son recently graduated with a BA, in biology and education. He is in the Peace Corps now. He is very excited about the role the internet will have in educating people. (He has debt, but considering how much that degree cost, it is pretty minor.). I am amazed at the amount of knowledge at my fingertips right now.

In my lifetime, and I am just about 50, it seems like intelligence is not as valued as it used to be. And people seem to like it that way, just based on the fact that fox news is still on the air.

[BrotherIvan]

42. I wish your son the best of luck

I wish I had done something like that. He will get so much real life experience and get to see things that will shape his ideas. Our current idea of going to school and then jumping into a job is by design to narrow our world view and turn us into merely consumers. People should be encouraged to travel and learn about themselves before they settle down.

I am always lamenting that intelligence is no longer valued. I can see why to some extent; the "smart" people are usually arrogant CEOs or financial types that we must laud while they are paid huge salaries for being little more than criminals. If we valued intelligence and education, we wouldn't pay our teachers so little and our coaches so much. I now think of the pursuit of knowledge as my special hobby. I have often been scolded for being "too intellectual" at gatherings, so I stopped going for the most part. It is sort of isolating when you can't have a conversation above mundane subjects. But oh well, there's a whole world of books to read, so there's never a dull moment!

[logosoco]

45. Thank you! His experience is teaching the whole family many things!

My 6 year old grandson was asking me about going to college, if people "had" to go! I told him he had plenty of time to grow and learn before he is even at that point to decide.

I look back on a life of doing many menial things...hotel maid, dog groomer, vet assistant...and I am more pleased with myself than if I had been a high paid CEO in some company with no care for people or the planet!

The quest for learning is never ending! Enjoy the ride and the stops on the way!

[BrotherIvan]

47. That is just what I needed to read

Sometimes it seems like the world is going to hell, but it's not because there is always hope. Reading about your family made the world seem a little better. And I agree, the travel and experiences and worthy things I have done in my life mean more to me than anything. I wish our society told everyone that truth.

You might think about encouraging your son to share his experiences in a blog or even here on DU. I would love to read about them.

[freebrew]

55. Knowledge is free...

it's the documentation of it that costs.

[alterfurz]

10. "The tyranny of the ignoramuses...

...is insurmountable and assured for all time." -- Albert Einstein

[Demoiselle]

13. I've never heard either of these wonderful quotes before.

Thanks! Not that I'm very cheerful at the moment..

[ymetca]

17. One of my all-time favorite Zappa lyrics

... is from his album Joe's Garage:

Information is not Knowledge
Knowledge is not Wisdom
Wisdom is not Truth
Truth is not Beauty
Beauty is not Love

[alterfurz]

30. con't...

Love is not music.
Music is the best. – Frank Zappa

[freshwest]

11. Thanks, MSM! And alternative media demonizes science and civil society. Utterly despicable.

[Historic NY]

12. Exactly, there was a time I couldn't wait to watch TV...

series like the World at War and others. National Geographic doesn't even show educational stuff....they have been successful in the dumbing down of society. I spend a great deal of time now doing historical reseach on line, thankfully they haven't wrestled that away. People that use my FB community site always tell me its a pleasure to learn new things.


I'm borrowing they quote.

[trof]

21. And then there's the "History Channel".

Up now "Secret Access: UFOs on the Record".
Next up: "Pawn Stars".

[KittyWampus]

22. Vikings!

Don't you dare disrespect Vikings… even if it's filled with historical inaccuracies.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. Used to call it the Hitler Channel

because for awhile they were mostly running old WWII footage (probably because it was cheap). But at least it was history. Now it's just crap.

[KittyWampus]

32. Also gone through the "Bible" phase and "Aliens" phase.

Hitler, the Bible, Aliens. sheesh.

[CrispyQ]

33. The Learning Channel, now TLC.

Gone are the specials on implosion, extreme heat/cold, big machines, junkyard wars, origins of the universe. Instead we have Baby Boo Boo or whatever the fuck her name is & I'm not even sure she's on that channel, but it's all the same garbage on stations that used to have fairly decent programming.

We're a nation of morans who just want to be entertained.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

15. As a researcher, I can't disagree and I'm saddened by the anti-intellectualism of Western culture.

[ReRe]

16. K&R

Well, I don't know who said it, but every word of it is true.

Anyone who says it's cool to be ignorant is literally out of their mind. There are people who hate and detest intelligence and knowledge. I know. I lived in the back country where this is felt. If you have a brain in your head, they distrust you. And now, it's like one has to be one of these characters to be a Republican politician. Science? Bah humbug! They hate it.

[mountain grammy]

18. It's very accurate except for one thing: I think it's been the last 30 years.

34 years ago, America lost it's collective mind and elected a bad actor to the presidency in a huge landslide, giving conservatives a mandate to spread their agenda across the country. We've been losing the battle ever since.

This quote says it all, but we haven't lost our thirst for knowledge and enlightenment, it was crushed by the heavy hand of conservative governing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. It goes back a lot further than that.

During my freshman year in college, which was 1965-66, the book "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" by Richard Hofstader was required reading. The tendency to distrust knowledge and intellectuals arises at least in part from the evangelical Protestantism of the 19th century (and they're still doing it). I might still have that book - should dig it out and read it again.

[NewJeffCT]

35. Yep - Eisenhower himself

ran against the pointy-headed intellectuals in the Democratic Party back in the 50s. And, he's one of those Republicans that gets a modicum of respect here on DU...

[mountain grammy]

41. you are right! I was also a college freshman in 65-66

and that book was required reading in my American History class. I really must re-read it.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, YoungDemCA.

[JEB]

20. We have banks putting massive burdens of interest on aspiring students.

Instead of endless war, why not endless free education? A highly educated population seems like a significant tactical advantage.

[Divernan]

23. Long before Larry the Cable Guy there were The Beverly Hillbillies

Way back when that first aired, around 1962, I wrote (back then one wrote long letters to absent friends) to my former high school physics lab partner/good friend that I was disgusted by this program. She wrote back agreeing. We had gone through our teenage years watching the Golden Age of television in the 1950's: Yes the technology was primitive by today's standards, but the quality of writing, directing and acting on these programs was light years better than today's standard pap. The Beverly Hillbillies marked the strip mining of American Culture. How appropriate that the nouveau riches of the Clampets came from oil, i.e., Black Gold/Texas Tea.

Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies seems to be the perfect role model of who the networks wanted to cater to with his "sixth-grade-educated-brain." Jethro was just smart enough to be able to read, willing to accept any media fads pushed at him, and had plenty of disposable income at hand. The perfect American television viewer.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a great article discussing the marvelous quality of the Golden Age of Television (and don't forget the underlying element of tension/excitement because these shows were brjoadcast live).
http://www.museum.tv/eotv/goldenage.htm

"As crucial as these elements were, perhaps the most important reason leading to the success of this nascent television art form was the high caliber of talent on both sides of the video camera. Whereas many well-known actors from the stage and screen participated in live television dramas as the 1950s progressed, it was the obscure but professionally trained theater personnel from summer stock and university theater programs like Yale's Drama School who launched the innovative teletheater broadcasts that we now refer to as television's "golden age."
. . . . . . . .

"In 1949, 24 year-old Marlon Brando starred in "I'm No Hero," produced by the Actors' Studio. Other young actors, such as Susan Strasberg (1953), Paul Newman (1954), and Steve McQueen, made noteworthy appearances on the Goodyear Playhouse. Among some of the most prominent writers of "golden age" dramas were Rod Serling, Paddy Chayevsky, Gore Vidal, Reginald Rose and Tad Mosel. Rod Serling stands out for special consideration here because in addition to winning the 1955 Emmy for "Best Original Teleplay Writing" ("Patterns" on Kraft Television Theater), Serling also won two teleplay Emmys for Playhouse 90 (1956 & 1957), and two "Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama" Emmys for Twilight Zone (1959 and 1960) and for Chrysler Theater in 1963. Serling's six Emmys for four separate anthology programs over two networks unquestionably secures his position at the top of the golden age pantheon. For television, it was writers like Serling and Chayevsky who became the auteurs of its "golden-age." Gore Vidal sums up the opportunity that writing for television dramas represented in this way: "one can find better work oftener on the small grey screen than on Broadway." Chayevsky was more sanguine when he stated that television presented "the drama of introspection," and that "television, the scorned stepchild of drama, may well be the basic theater of our century."
. . . . . . .
"In addition to actors and writers, some of the most renowned Hollywood directors got their big breaks on television's anthology dramas. John Frankenheimer directed for the Kraft Television Theater, Robert Altman for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Yul Brynner and Sidney Lumet for Studio One, Sidney Pollack for The Chrysler Theater (1965 Emmy for "Directoral Achievement in Drama&quot and Delbert Mann for NBC Television Playhouse. These are but a few major directors who honed their kills during television's "golden age."

[KittyWampus]

25. the talent was just as high in the 60's and 70's but women weren't doing the housework in heels

like June Cleaver.

The Odd Couple
Mary Tyler Moore
All in the Family

For political and cultural cutting edge:

The Smothers Brothers
Laugh In

Monty Python's Flying Circus.

King Fu was ground breaking in it's own way

[Divernan]

36. Talent, yes, but your examples are limited to comedic programs

(and no fair counting the Brits' Monty Python - the Brits have continued to produce high quality televised dramas through the decades).
Of course, there have been exceptions, i.e., exceptional programming of high quality, since the '50s Golden Age - but not anywhere near the level/number of serious, dramatic programs of that decade.

M*A*S*H, for example, was a notable exception with a strong anti-war message, but the message was delivered by quirky characters and slipped in between laughs.

Basically, I simply wish to make the point that the dumbing down of the American viewing audience started before Larry the Cable Guy. I was a television viewer from it's earliest years - my god, I remember a round screen on the first TV I ever say, in 1949! A Raytheon which looked like the window in a clothes dryer.

[MisterP]

26. then anything with a tree in it got crushed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
(and don't we have a STEM surplus anyway?)

[Divernan]

29. Fascinating article - thanks for that link.

[trof]

24. Good ol' H. L. Mencken:

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

[KittyWampus]

28. I do think there are groups in our society which respect knowledge and learning

and have certain expectations of its members.

I think belonging to certain societal groups can influence what we actually do achieve academically.

Why some groups don't value academic achievement as highly as others?

Different reasons for different groups.

[tech3149]

34. Thank You! that's a keeper n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

37. I miss SwampRat.

[1StrongBlackMan]

38. My thoughts ...

two words"

"Kim" and "Kardashian".

If that does not prove the author's quote, I do not know what will.

[Skittles]

43. sounds like Tyson or Nye

[whereisjustice]

46. kids graduating college with good grades, stocking shelves, while millions of jobs go to China/India

We see the product of trillions of investment in communist China as they begin to assert their military dominance in the region.

And for the record this isn't just a Republican problem, if you can't find a majority Democratic Party consensus to end offshoring jobs and ending destructive trade agreements ripping apart the middle class, that's because the plutocrats on "our" side of the isle like it that way just fine.

[Enthusiast]

48. The rural redneck culture celebrates ignorance.

[The_Commonist]

50. To be fair, I don't think it's just "the last twenty years."

After all, the spiritual ancestors of the Tea Partiers were called "The Know Nothings." They were around in the 1840's/50's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

And of course, the Romans did a lot to cater to "The Mob." That's where we get the whole idea of "bread and circuses."

I'll leave you with this quote attributed to Socrates:

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Same as it ever was...

[tooeyeten]

52. Money rules

Why isn't there a cure for cancer? Why isn't there a vaccine for the Ebola virus for the poor and sick in Africa?

[Moostache]

56. Sorry, but "cancer" is not a single disease.

"Cancer" is an uncontrolled cellular division that afflicts every kind of cell in the body and can and does metastasize into other cells and systems. You can no more "cure" cancer than you can drink the oceans. What we can do is develop more and better targeted treatments that increase survival rates and allow people to survive long term battles with cancer.

I have survived cancer once (so far), but I was extremely lucky in the circumstances of my diagnosis and my further luck in having an encapsulated tumor that was able to be surgically removed completely. My mother has been fighting cancer for the last 11 years. Her mother died of cancer before reaching 50 years old. The same cancer that claimed my grandmother's life in less than 3 years has been held at bay and spared my mother by a factor of 4 in one generation...that's real progress and makes a HUGE difference.

My grandmother passed when I was just 18 months old...I never knew her. My children have all gotten to know my mother and learn from her and love her for a minimum of 6 years and there is no price tag on that. The medical industry, the researchers and the doctors and nurses are NOT the same as the greedy ass corporate conglomerates or private equity firms that chase profits at all costs, human or otherwise.

[tooeyeten]

57. You're not alone

In my little family, we've had cancer three times, and today for all the holding at bay, cancer impacts many more times than in.history, but my point is there are no cures etc, because a lot more money is made from treating, and if money can't be made there's no vaccine for the poor. It's a very large global picture, impacting all of humanity, versus the corporations that make money IMO.

[deutsey]

53. Anti-intellectualism runs deep in America

After WWII and especially after the USSR launched Sputnik, that changed briefly.

Seems like there was a resurgence of it in the late '70s that culminated with Reaganism, from which we have yet to recover.

[sinkingfeeling]

54. I agree, but believe it really started earlier, like 1980.

[tooeyeten]

58. Back to at least the robber barons

As I recall the GI bill, which included education, was opposed as socialism.

And remember in the South it was a crime to educate a slave, and don't forget the Jim Crow south which was a way to keep blacks from voting since many could not read to vote. The very rich like to put their names on buildings of higher learning but seldom support the education for the least in our society.

[Grins]

59. I disagree.

The opening words should be: "With the rise of the conservative movement in the early 1960's we have lost the thirst for knowledge and enlightenment...."

[lark]

60. Truth

The PTB, aka the 1%, want Americans to be stupid and uneducated so have created the "elitists" meme to downgrade anyone who seeks knowledge. The more stupid the American people are, the less money they will require to be paid and the 1% can get even richer.

[Dont call me Shirley]

61. Cult-like mega religions, Bill Bennett, Reagan/Bush, Multi-media monopoly,

Foreign owned and privately owned school curriculum companies Pearson and Common Core,
The high cost of higher education, violence and fear advertising in all aspects of life, debasement of women and minorities, extended length of workday/week, chronic financial stress, chronic pollution and unhealthy food stresses, firing/unhiring professors who do not tote the university big donors' line...

Not in order of importance. List is incomplete, feel free to add on...

[rtracey]

62. WOW

What a true statement about this country. I have been a big advocate for developing solar in this country. Many of my "friends" basically sh*t on the idea of solar power, wind, and thing but gas and oil. Trouble comes in all forms, but when a Kardashian is better know then many famous teachers, lawmakers, businessman, etc. there lies the problem. The youth of this country will be running this country in the next 10-20 years..... Duck Dynasty, Justin Beiber, and Chumley for the Pawn Stars is not going to cut it.