I've thought about this a lot, the dumbing down of America. There are some key influences that I think explain it. I'm a Buddhist, so first what I see is how the mind works, the self cherishing and self grasping to reinforce the fiction of a sense of self as a real, solid thing, as opposed to concepts, feelings that are transitory. me versus you, us versus them is the hallmark of a dualistic mind. When really, we are all inter-related and dependent upon one another. We live on the same planet. Depicting Obama as "other" "not one of us" "not like is" is a perfect example of such dualistic thinking.
Then there's the degradation of public education. In the late 60s I went to the Univ of Texas, a world class university, and my tuition was $125 a semester. Higher education was funded by the oil industry. Go out to west Texas, and every 10th oil well, when the arm went down on every 4th time, that was one for UT. But being filthy rich wasn't enough for the oil barons, because being fabulously filthy rich was ever so much better. So hey, let's cut taxes by cutting funding for higher education. I think that Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" philosophy, wherein chasing after money as the highest of moral endeavors, was also a big influence. It gave the oligarchs their justification.
Then there's the fundamentalist Christians, who by god don't want their kids learning about evolution or sitting next to and becoming friends with blacks, Hispanics, because they are "not like us." So hey let's use tax dollars to send our kids to charter schools and do home schooling.
Public education used to be something that Americans took great pride in. Teachers used to be respected. Kids used to be educated to reason and know science and history.
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