America is stupid. Like really, really dumb. The warning signs have been there for quite some time but last night was the icing on the cake. What should have been a historic rout for Joe Biden, a complete and total rebuke of Donald Trump’s Fascism, instead turned into a close and hotly contested election that Donald Trump could still win.
At this point it doesn’t even matter if Joe Biden ultimately wins because if half the country still thinks that voting for Donald Trump is a good idea after everything that he’s done, still thinks that he deserves to be in office after more than 200,000 of their fellow Americans died from COVID-19, still thinks that that he is the best choice to deal with Climate Change with the future of humanity and all life on Earth hanging in the balance, then it’s too late for us anyway. We’ve already lost. This election wasn’t just about Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, Republicans vs. Democrats. It was about good vs. evil. About science vs. fiction. And the fact that it was even close is a tough pill to swallow.
How did we fall so far, so fast? Lose our moral compass, forego all logic and reason, and become mindless sheep willing to hang on every word of a despicable, pathological liar? Surely, there must be some kind of explanation. Some evidence of this great betrayal to all the generations that have yet to come.
Well, I think there is. Or at the very least there’s a myriad of factors even if the true reason is harder to pinpoint. So, here’s a look at all the things that may have contributed to the Dumbing Down of America in recent years:
- The Rise of Social Media – The vast majority of people get their news from Facebook and otherwise spend all of their time in Echo Chambers that reinforce their narrow beliefs. Differing opinions are never even heard yet alone considered.
- The Decline of Newspapers – If people are getting their news from Facebook that means they aren’t getting them from traditional sources whose influence is waning. As a result Americans are becoming less worldly, less informed.
- The Rise of Fake News – And most of what they’re seeing on Facebook isn’t even true to begin with. Disinformation campaigns are poisoning a lot of minds.
- The Negative Influence of the Internet – In general, there is no more central voice, whether that be a government or media organization. The Internet has decentralized power and created a myriad of niche audiences that enable people to do their own thing and plug in when they want to or not. By and large this is a good thing as people have all of the world’s information available to them at their fingertips and can communicate with one another quickly and easily. But at the same time it’s almost too much of a good thing as society has lost control of the narrative. History used to be written by the winners. Now it’s written by the liars.
- The Rise of Cyberbullying – As great as the Internet is it’s a cesspool of hatred at times as people either hide behind anonymity while trolling one another or try to save face – with reputations on the line every flame war must be won at all costs. There is no such thing as mutual understanding anymore. Every conversation must have a clear winner and loser. And when that’s the case we all lose.
- The Rise of Smartphones – Our heads our stuck in our phones and in the sand at the same time. Slaves to our devices we fail to pay attention to what is happening around us while eroding our sanity and disrupting our sleep patterns. Our mental health is deteriorating and our cell phones are to blame. And worse of all we either don’t care or can’t do anything about it.
- The Decline of Scientific Appreciation – Technological feats used to get celebrated. Man landing on the Moon was an accomplishment marveled at for years. Now, SpaceX repeatedly lands a re-usable rocket on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean and no one bats an eye. Have we become desensitized to greatness? Meanwhile, there are still people among us who believe that the Earth is flat and that Climate Change isn’t real. Irreparable damage has been done to the institution of science. We need to do a better job of keeping our scientific accomplishments top of mind and celebrating our technological achievements so that people understand and appreciate the important role that they play in a functioning society.
- The Rise of Conspiracy Theories – A lot of people love a good conspiracy theory. I’m one of those people. Big Foot? UFOs? The JFK assassination? I’m all in. But conspiracy theories today have taken on a life of their own and have started to overtake reality. There’s even a QAnon supporter who just got elected to Congress. Clearly, this has gone too far.
- The Rise of Individualism – In developed countries birth rates are on the decline. As is national pride. Society is shifting towards valuing the individual over everything else. In theory, this could be a good thing as people make smart choices and enjoy their lives. But this also leads to….
- The Rise of Selfishness – People are stuck in their own little worlds and only care about what directly affects them. Most people live comfortably enough that most of the issues do not affect them and so they ultimately don’t care who the President is one way or the other since their day to day lives aren’t affected either way.
- We’re just not that smart to begin with – Technology has outstripped the pace of evolution. Most of us are still hardwired for basic survival. We think short-term, act selfishly, and have narrow attention spans. We’re not designed to operate in the information overload society that we currently find ourselves in. As a result important messaging gets lost in translation and people make poor decisions as a result of being misinformed.
- There are too many choices – YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, TV shows, movies, podcasts, social media channels, etc. Does anyone even read a book anymore? And what happened to the quality of our content? Where did all the wholesome family shows go? What happened to all the happy endings? Everything is dark and twisted nowadays. True crime podcasts proliferate. Snark saturates the airwaves. There is no reprieve from doom and gloom.
- The Decline of Role Models – Speaking of which who are our cultural icons right now?! An unstable Elon Musk? Where is this generation’s Mr. Rodgers? Our Bob Ross? Our LeVar Burton? Who do people today look up to? YouTube stars? Random influencers? Has our talent pool completely dried up? Or are we looking in all the wrong places?
- The Decline of Language – Do people even use full sentences to communicate nowadays or is it all just slang, shorthand, and emojis? Are we sacrificing a part of ourselves for speed and convenience?
But what’s really sad is that this isn’t even a recent development. The dumbing down of America has been going on for a while. Carl Sagan even noticed it all the way back in 1996 in his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In it he said:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…
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.”
Sagan was right and this election just confirmed it: America is dumb. And getting dumber by the minute. Is there any hope for us?
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