Life in the Boomer Lane watched a comedy clip recently, in which a reporter (fake) attended a Trump rally (real). First, he spoke to some of the people in the parking lot, waiting to go into the rally. He asked one young man how Trump was going to defeat ISIS. The answer was “Bomb them.” He then asked the man where, exactly, the bombs would be dropped. After a deer-in-the-headlights moment, the man answered, “They will go to Israel. (Pause) Well, not Israel exactly, but close by. They will go to Israel and drop the bombs close by.” (LBL hopes the Israelis are prepared for this eventuality.)
Since LBL isn’t very optimistic about the state of most American’s knowledge about anything other than TV shows, she was pretty darn impressed that this man even knew the name of a country in the greneral part of the world in which ISIS exists. On the other hand, the Cult of the Dumb in America, like the disappearance of the continental ice shelf, is accelerating.
Americans love not to know stuff. There are some outstanding reasons why. Knowing stuff complicates things. Knowing stuff takes time. Knowing stuff makes you reasses what you already believe or heard on talk radio. And, after you have spent a lot of time to know stuff and have really thought about it, you realize that so what, all that knowledge does is to upset you. It’s way easier not to know stuff. There are several categories of people who don’t know stuff:
People Who Don’t Know Stuff But Think They Do
This category includes the 25% of Americans who think the sun revolves around the earth (NPR), the over-50% of Americans who think that religion is written into the Constitution (USA Today), and the 42% of Americans who believe that God created man in his present form less than 10,000 years ago (Gallup).
People Who Think That What They Don’t Know Isn’t Important to Know Anyway
This category includes the 30% of Americans who don’t believe climate change is real, the 50% of young people who don’t think it’s important to know the locations of countries where news is being made (NatGeo), the 27% of Americans who believe that it isn’t important to read books (Smithsonian).
LBL must now insert something she has been waiting to rant about for years. In her considerable time spent on plains, trains, buses, doctor’s and ER waiting rooms, she is always aware of a large number of people who sit and stare into space. They have no book, no magazine, no distraction. They sit and stare. They seem perfectly happy doing so. LBL, on the other hand, can barely keep her attention on her book. She keeps sneaking peeks at them, waiting for them to take a book or Kindle out of their purses or pockets or start screaming from sensory deprivation. But they never do. They seem perfectly happy to sit for hours, staring straight ahead at nothing. LBL has been seated next to such people on l-o-n-g plane flights, who stare at the back of the seat ahead of them, for five or six or seven hours at a stretch. These people scare LBL a lot. The result is that LBL has now spent almost as much time staring at them as they have spent staring into space.
People Who Don’t Know Stuff and So They Decide to be President
Back in 2007, a National Research Council report found that only 28% of high school science teachers consistently followed the National Research Council guidelines on teaching evolution, and 13% of those teachers explicitly advocated creationism or “intelligent design.” LBL suspects that the first percentage would be far lower today and the second far higher.
So, what’s to be done? If you are a thoughful person who does like to know stuff, you should know that soon, it may be illegal to know anything. People who do know stuff will be forced to meet in secret and talk about all the stuff they know. You will have to operate in public, smiling and nodding as others talk about the earth being flat and cavemen chasing dinosaurs and geography consisting of the world being made up of a bunch of countries with stupid names and people who can’t even speak right.
When you think about it, we will all be a lot happier to not have to clutter our brains up with anything. If God wanted us to know stuff, he would have stuck it in our brains from the get-go, right? LBL is now finished with this post and will devote herself to finalizing her trip to Florida. Florida, for those of you who are geographically challanged, is a place somewhere far away from here where it is warm and there is fun stuff to do and beaches and a lot of water and the people there are smarter than most other people on the planet because they speak English. Except for the ones who came here illegally to wreak havoc and run amok and take everyone’s job away and litter and things like that.
Kate Crimmins
February 29, 2016
Gah!
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Uh huh.
Anonymous
February 29, 2016
Keep head covered at all times or wear a wig. You are great risk of running into brain snatches in Florida! But weather is lovely.
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Florida gets a bad rap, for sure. But, ah, the beaches, the ocean, the warmth, the Mickey, and all that great material for Carl Hiaasen.
Keith
February 29, 2016
Renee, this is terrific and frustrating at the same time. The sad part is the rhetoric is now being substituted as truth, even believed by those who disagree with the source. For example, many Democrats believe the stimulus act of 2009 failed, as that is what Fox News and Republican candidates said for years – the “failed stimulus.” When I tell people it did not fail per six econometric firms, even Democrats look at me funny.
Today, people find it hard to believe the economy is doing pretty well, with 72 consecutive months of job growth, 4.9% unemployment and a doubled stock market since Obama became President. They would rather believe Trump who said the Bureau of Labor statistic is wrong and unemployment is closer to 30% or 40%. We would be in a sever depression, if that were the case. Yet, why did we buy more cars and light trucks than ever before in 2015? I do recognize we have a declining middle class and poverty problem, but that has been occurring over the last 35 years.
Thanks for pleading the case. We are guilty as charged of being an uninformed electorate. Keith
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
I have been asking about that for a long time, now. I know I’m not brilliant, and I know I’m not an economist, but everything I see tells me that the economy is in pretty good shape. And, given what a pile of doo doo Obama was handed, he’s done a pretty credible job of getting us to be on solid ground now. But, in spite of that, the Republican candidates keep yelling about the terrible shape we are in. The demise of the middle class started way before Obama.It started with a tax system that favored big business, unfettered Wall St, and the doing away of rules that kept banks responsible. What am I missing?
Keith
February 29, 2016
Renee, you are not missing anything. The decline of the middle class has been attributed to technology, outsourcing, offshoring, downsizing, and the suppression of wage growth over the last 35 years. I am frustrated by the blatant mistruths that are used without repercussion in campaigning, especially by the leading candidate on the GOP side. Factcheck.org has noted he has lapped the field in lying, with only 24% of his adjudicated statements at year end being truthful. It is hard enough to govern with facts, it is extremely difficult when using rhetoric. Correcting Trump, we are not the most taxed country in the world, most white homicides are not committed by black felons, and global warming is not a hoax invented by the Chinese to steal our jobs. I believe he knows better, but is saying stuff his audience wants to hear.
I do agree with him on Cruz being untruthful and cheating. Cruz is the only candidate who would be worse than Trump in my view. Cruz cannot be a solution to the problem because he is the problem, leading efforts to prevent collaboration from happening and singlehandedly almost causing us to default on our debt. We were saved by ten female senators who told him to get out of the pool.
Sorry for the soapbox. Keith
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 1, 2016
I like the soapbox, Keith. Trump and Cruz both say whatever is expedient, with no repurcussions. And I’ll share with you my terrible prediction for the election. If Trump is nominated, protestors will show up in force, wherever he speaks. And his people will have free rein to react. The journalist who was roughed up yesterday is just the beginning.We are in for much, much worse.
onereasonableperson
February 29, 2016
You know the kind of “not knowing” that bothers me the most? The kind where a seemingly intellectually minded person takes a source, in this case a comedy routine, as the absolute truth and uses it to paint the people who oppose a particular viewpoint as stupid.
It’s not like a crew filming for a comedy sketch would edit the film to find only the funniest answers or anything.
The easiest thing in the world is to think of yourself as superior in every way and condemn anyone else as an idiot. The harder thing is to try to understand the opposing point of view.
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Thanks for your input. Methinks I’m being smacked on the hand with a ruler. Yes, comedy shouldn’t be used as abolute truth. Yes, film crews edit to find only the funniest items to present. No, I’m not superior in every way. In fact, I’m not superior in any way. But this post wasn’t about Trump. When I write about Trump I’m very clear about what I think of him. This post was about the dumbing down of America, supported by research in many areas. It’s a far greater problem than Donald Trump. As for Trump, he isn’t an idiot, and neither are his supporters. But let’s talk about him for a moment. Most of what I’ve heard from his supporters distills down to a dislike of Muslims, a belief that he will protect our borders, and a feeling that because he has been so successful in business, he will be successful in running this country. We’ll put Muslims and Mexicans aside. Because I do my homework, I took a look at how he has been so successful. What I found was that his success has been at the expense of thousands of people who stood in the way of his goals or who lost their jobs or thier investments when he decided to close his casinos. If you want to educate yourself about Trump, read http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/08/16/donald-trump-atlantic-city-empire. I was born and raised in Philly. Atlantic City still holds a part of my heart. Trump played fast and lose with that city, until there was nothing left of it. He can spin reality any way he chooses, and people can believe whatever they like. But truth doesn’t much care about the hype or the spin. Talk to the people who got slammed. They deserved far more than what they were handed. Trump is no hero to me.
onereasonableperson
February 29, 2016
If you were calling Trump an idiot, I’d have no real issue with you. What I hate beyond measure is dismissing his supporters. Sure, some of the people who are voting for him wouldn’t be on the top of my invite list to dinner, but I think that’s true for any candidate. I think that a good number of his supporters feel abandoned by the party that was supposed to be on their side but who is actually bought and paid for by Big Business. Trump is the first protest candidate who has a real shot.
What’s more stupid – voting for Trump or voting for the same type of people who got the party where it is now?
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
I don’t think Trump is an idiot, and I don’t think his supporters are either. But I do believe that a lot of Trump supporters would be in for a rude awakening if Trump were elected. I am aware that many of his supporters feel abandoned by their party. But the choice they are making now will be more damaging to them. Trump IS big business. You ask what is more stupid. My answer is giving one’s precious vote to a candidate whose track record is one of greed and disregard for those whose lives he impacts. All I would ask is that people do their homework and take a hard look at the guy who tells them consistantly how smart, how rich, how successful he is. It won’t take much digging to get at the truth of what Donald Trump really is.
Lorie Smith Schaefer
February 29, 2016
“Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.” ~Gore Vidal
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Laughing. Oh my. I wish that were true.
Lorie Smith Schaefer
February 29, 2016
We can only hope. “I love the poorly educated!”
Jill Foer Hirsch
February 29, 2016
Willful ignorance. Science denying. As a species, we never seem to learn from our history. We have to burn our hand on the stove a hundred times over again and still don’t believe it’s hot. Scary.
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Willful ignorance is a great way to put it.For me, the worst is over climate change. My fear is that we will soon be able to burn our hand on the stove without the stove even being on.
Deb
February 29, 2016
Dear LBL,
May I join your secret support group for those who know stuff and want to talk about it? I’m embarrassed about my affliction, of course, but I’ll be happy to start the ball rolling. “Hi, I’m Deb, and I like to know stuff.”
Keep giving ’em hell, LBL!
Deb
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Thanks, Deb. I’m scouting out secret locations for the support group. It will have to be someplace where people don’t go anymore. A newspaper office?
momshieb
February 29, 2016
This post is terrifyingly funny….I swear, I cannot sleep at night because of my dreams of a Trump Presidency and all the zombies who will cheer when it happens.
Life in the Boomer Lane
February 29, 2016
Funny thing is that I truly wasn’t thinking about Trump when I wrote the post. It was about the general dumbing down of everything, which started way before Trump (Was there ever a Trump-free world?). But I see that people immediately think of Trump supporters. They are an example of that, for sure. But as their numbers grow, it gets harder and harder to dismiss them. It’s a tidal wave. Even during the 60s when I wore armbands and marched, I wasn’t nearly this upset or irate or seriously concerned about this country.
Jean
February 29, 2016
One of the third-party movements in the United States in the 1850s was the anti-immigrant “Know-Nothing Party,” a refuge of angry working-class and middle-class white Protestant men. Turns out there’s a long history in the United States of people tuning out political complexities and preferring to know as little as possible. I don’t know whether that is reassuring or even scarier than thinking Trump is an aberration.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 1, 2016
It makes me feel better, although the complexities of our present world have far higher consequences for that kind of mentality. Another fear I have about a Trump presidency is that he will fill his cabinet, etc, not with the best people, but with the ones who cheer whatever he says or does. Can you imagine Sarah Palin on the cabinet or as Secretary of State?
notjustagranny
March 1, 2016
I tend to agree with you about the dumbing down of society and it’s not just in America. You only have to look at the furore in the UK at the moment about the so-called Brexit issue and you’ll have to same opinion. In last year’s elections we had UKIP which is probably an echo of Trump’s followers….they don’t have a clue but they think they know everything, and as a result they are led by the nose by a charismatic speaker. Frankly I think that alongside of t.v. dumbing people down, trashy magazines and ‘celebrity’ are a huge influence on the space gazers. I fear that ‘stupid’ is as stupid does. Thanks for a great read….it’s more or less my own thinking. Although I often look at the South African situation/government and that’s even more scary.
Life in the Boomer Lane
March 1, 2016
Ah, thanks for weighing in. Sad that others are experiencing the same downward trend. The more knowledge that exists in the world, the more resistant people are to taking advantage of it. I’m most distressed over the resistance to science. No matter how much science discovers, people are dug in about climate change and evolution. If you want to think that cavemen and dinosaurs played together, fine. But if you choose to ignore climate change, the natural cycles of the planet are impacted. And the result will be catastropic for our children and grandchildren.