Our Cult of Ignorance

A significant percentage of our people in the U.S. believe that all opinions are equal, have equal value, should be equally considered, and deserve to be heard.  That is absolute bullshit.  The notion that one person's ignorance is just as good as another person's knowledge is the fuel of ignorance that is driving our political debates and establishing what passes for our new cultural norms in the U.S.  As the late, great, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeatedly said — 'You are entitled to your opinion.  But you are not entitled to your own facts.'  Now, ... we have a major news organization, Fox ‘News’, and a major political party, our own Republican Party, that just makes up their own 'facts' to support whatever is their position of the day.  This practice, and the tolerance of this practice by the rest of us in the U.S. who are still sentient, makes us all, collectively, more ignorant and stupid by the day.  It also preconditions our population to follow those carnival barkers who sell simple answers for very complicated problems.

This is just the recent incarnation of a long history of anti-intellectualism in the U.S. that goes back to the early 1800s.  This current form dismisses the value of science, the arts, the humanities, and fact-based discourse with self-righteousness (usually based upon some form of extremist ‘Christianity’), ignorance, a focus on entertainment over learning, and the active cultivation of a culture that allows and encourages ‘others’ to do the hard thinking for us.  Symptoms of this trend are clear to see – video-based entertainment over hard learning, passive acceptance of what is said on the TV instead of using healthy skepticism (because, after all, thinking is hard and it is easier to have someone do our thinking for us), and a false belief that all knowledge is ‘fungible’ and subject to interpretation.  Now, we have Mr. Trump telling us that ‘only he can solve our problems.’  Really?  I believe that we have heard this dangerous nonsense before; and the result was ultimately World War II.

In the U.S., it would appear that we now believe that everyone is a ‘winner.’  The real world isn’t like that – but who cares?  We don’t!  We no longer prize having a command of basic facts like, oh, … geography, mathematics, science, history, civics; and we have managed to combine a faith-based thought process suspended from reality with a toxic anti-intellectualism that celebrates ignorance and holds all ‘opinions’ as being ‘equal.’  I can hear the conversation now in Middle School ‘That’s OK, Debbie, just remember that Billy’s opinion is just as important as yours.’  Well, … it probably isn’t – if Debbie thinks that the moon originated from the earth as the result of an early planetary collision and Billy believes that the moon is made of green cheese.  Now, ‘faith-based’ doesn’t necessarily mean assumptions based upon religion; but if you seriously believe that the earth is 5,000 years old then you need to go to that stool at the back corner of the class and put on that big pointy Dunce Cap – even if your ‘religion’ says otherwise – because we civilized folk believe in science.  That argument would be founded upon the quaint notion that God gave us a brain and expected us to use it.

Once upon a time, in the U.S., we had the Know-Nothing Party.  This political party, also known as the American Party, was prominent in the U.S. during the late 1840s and the early 1850s.  The majority of Know-Nothings came from middle and working-class backgrounds and these people feared competition for jobs from immigrants coming to the United States.  At that time, it was very much an anti-Catholic movement.  If this doesn’t sound at all familiar think Syrian Refugees, Islam, and what passes for the modern Republican Party.  Once you shift your focus like that you realize that Mr. Trump, now the Republican Party nominee for President, is riding herd on a political movement straight out of the Know-Nothing tradition – where there is a nativist movement that fears immigrants, fears Islam, fears the ‘other,’ and where the common core of the philosophical foundation for this movement is fear itself.

Indeed, this ‘Trump’ political movement foments a rabid culture of racism and anti-rationalism; where every fact is suspect; where every shadow holds a secret conspiracy; where rational thought is the enemy; where critical thinking is the devil's own tool; and where everyone who disagrees with you must hate ‘America’ – meaning that you must hate those who disagree with you as well.  In this mindset, no rational discussion is possible and the your political position(s) become articles of faith worshiping a false God. 

I remember a time when we in the U.S. feared nothing – even when faced with the possibility of Nuclear War.  We stood down the Soviet Union, put our people on the moon, cured polio, and developed vaccines for most of the world’s illnesses.  We developed the computer, the micro-chip, and had a sense that everyone had value; even as we walked through the trauma of our civil rights struggle – a struggle we are still engaged in today.  We didn’t scare so easily and stood for bold principles – even when we fell short of their achievement – yet we still strove for high ideals.

Now, … we have a political party who has chosen a leader who encourages our people to be stupid, and lazy, and just sit back and accept whatever they are fed.  Anti-intellectualism is encouraged and nurtured; because a stupid population is easily led.  The failures of our government to properly fund public education has left us with a large minority of our population, over the last several generations, that are both insular and ignorant – with that very ignorance actually being celebrated as something wonderful.  We have entire generations now whose attention is all consumed by reality shows, celebrity gossip, fashion news, and spectator sports.  After all, those who would dominate and dictate can do so easier if we are focused upon meaningless trivia.  As Dorothy was once told – “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”  (1)

These are, actually, just diversions; so that hard questions are not asked of the oligarchs that our Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United have placed in control of our government.  The Republican 'Culture Wars' over the last 30+ years have turned a significant minority of our population into hateful, resentful, lunatics – who, I fear, will be very difficult, if not impossible, to transition back into a modern society.  The attack on our Public School system, made by these same 'Culture Warriors' over that same time period, have only made that situation worse by creating what are now generations of ignorant and insular citizens who vote into office people just like them – hence the election of 2010 in the United States.

A large portion of Mr. Trump's voters come from this new ignorant class of citizens and I wonder if the situation has gone past the point of being recoverable.

References:

1.     Wizard of Oz - 1939

2.   The Cult of Ignorance:  https://www.sott.net/article/313177-The-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-United-States-Anti-intellectualism-and-the-dumbing-down-of-America

3.   The Dumbest Generation:  http://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generation-Stupefies-Americans-Jeopardizes/dp/1585426393

4.   Idiot America:  http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-America-Stupidity-Became-Virtue/dp/0767926153