America the Ignorant

On the book review program on C-Span today one of the presenters was Rick Shenkman author of "Just How Stupid Are We?" subtitled "Facing the truth about the American voter."

Mr. Shenkman is a historian who comments on the appalling lack of basic knowledge that most Americans have about their country or the world for that matter. He contends that this lack of knowledge allows most voters to be easily manipulated by politicians and their Madison Avenue campaign apparatus. He quotes some astounding statistics regarding how few Americans can name the three branches of government, know that there are 100 senators, and even after five years of war can find Iraq on a map of the world. He also points out that in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and even though it was never stated reason for the Iraq war by the administration, fully 50% of American voters still think Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Yours truly is not surprised by these findings and recall that it was many years ago that some wag opined that as a politician one can never go wrong underestimating the intelligence of the average voter. Even Jay Leno has picked up on this with great comedic effect with his man on the street interviews.

My own view is that the American people are not stupid. It is clear, however, that most of them are blissfully ignorant and almost intentionally uninformed. One may ask how can this be in an age of media overload, instant communications and 24/7 news channels. I believe the problem is that most people have complete lack of curiosity about anything that doesn't directly affect them personally and immediately.

Building on a point in an earlier post, you see the seeds of this phenomenon in the active resistance to excellence in our public school systems. Unfortunately for most kids today it is cool to be ignorant, and ignorant teens grow into ignorant voters.