Government Dumbing Down The Herd Over The Years

[Vigile]

Hyperbole or not, it's a good rant.

 

The literacy rate in the 1840 census in the urban areas of America was almost 100%---only one person in every 579 in Connecticut was illiterate, for example. And, the definition of a literate person in the mid-19th century was far more sophisticated than common usage today. 170 years ago, the average person could read a novel which would be over the heads of more than 90% of today's herd members. For example, Last of the Mohicans, published in 1826, was a best-seller of the period, selling the equivalent of over ten million copies in today's market. John Taylor Gatto in Eyeless in Gaza says, "If you pick up an uncut version, you'll find yourself in a dense thicket of philosophy, history, culture, manners, politics, geography, analysis of human motives and actions, all conveyed in data-rich periodic sentences so formidable only a determined and well-educated reader can handle it nowadays. Yet we were a small-farm nation without colleges or universities to speak of." They did have the advantage of not being dumbed-down by government schools.

 

Now, let's jump forward a hundred years and see how the herd was being groomed. During World War II, 96% of the men drafted were considered literate by the Army, only a slightly lower rate than a hundred years before. The government schools were chipping away at the herd, but hadn't quite reached the stage of churning out significant numbers of illiterates just yet.

 

After World War II, the literacy rate started dropping sharply. Six years after World War II, the Army draftee literacy rate had dropped to 81%. During the Vietnam War, only 73% of draftees were considered literate.

 

Today, no one knows the true literacy rate, but it is likely less than 50% when measured by the same test the Army used over the years. A proxy for the literacy rate today is book sales, which are plummeting. How many book stores are left in your neighborhood? Very, very few. And, Amazon.com, which has captured many book customers, is also seeing their book sales drop sharply.

 

The triumph of government education is that the herd has been selectively culled to weed out the literate members, causing the remainder to be quite complacent and docile servants of the state, only too happy to vote for Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum every four years as their Puppet Masters dictate---why do you think the new President is beginning to be referred to as "Obushma" now? Bush and Obama are cut from the same cloth and tailored for the role the Power Elites chose for them to play. And, of course, a large pool of substandard humans makes them excellent cannon fodder for the incessant wars America seems to need to keep its great military-industrial complex rolling along. Are we truly out to "democratize" the world, or simply ensure our addiction to raw materials, most especially oil, is sated? If we are so concerned with democracy for all those alien nations, why don't we send our sons and daughters to fight and die in states which have none of the resources we so desperately require? This is the hypocrisy of America which the herd will invariably defend and deny, exactly as government propagandists have programmed their psyche to respond from an early age.

 

We've become a nation of dimwitted wage slaves who are little more "educated" than a New Guinea savage. The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night. Maybe that's what this country needs: devolution into a pre-space economy. Then, maybe the dullards would get a kick in the seat that makes them wake up to the reality of the modern world. Having to do without NASA for any length of time would quickly "educate" the herd into just how necessary a strong space program is for the country's maintaining its precarious lead.

 

We are, indeed, well on the road to becoming a nation of Eloi and Morlocks, as H. G. Wells wrote in The Time Machine over a hundred years ago in an age where society had a far higher percentage of literates than we do in today's dumbed-down herd. http://marketclues.blogspot.com/

[Vixentrox]

Dropping literacy is a problem for sure. I wonder about the dropping book sales though. Personally I buy less books now because they are getting so expensive. There is a ton of books I WANT to buy but really just can't afford it.

[Vigile]

Dropping literacy is a problem for sure. I wonder about the dropping book sales though. Personally I buy less books now because they are getting so expensive. There is a ton of books I WANT to buy but really just can't afford it.

 

I agree that dropping book sales might not be the best measure since there can be alternative reasons why.

 

This, OTH, is quite telling I think:

 

The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night.

[Tabula Rasa]

I'm not the smartest guy, I know a smattering of knowledge about science, religion, philosophy, and whatnot,but I'm surprised when some of the people I come across at some of the jobs I've had tell me they think I'm smart, when I know just a little bit about a lot of things mostly trivial things. I mean, I just barely graduated high school, and I have trouble with decimals and fractions, and my spelling skills and grammar have gone to hell.

 

So I'm a little puzzled.

 

 

 

Now on an unrelated subject...(I apologize, because I'm about to go ballistic for about five seconds. It's about a term the article writer used and another term. This is nothing against you Vigile, I have a bone to pick with the article writer.)

 

I am SICK and GODDAMN TIRED of the masses being referred to as "the herd" or "sheeple". Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but it seems as if some people like to toss those terms around to make themselves sound superior to people in general. I know that a lot of people are uneducated or undereducated, but it pisses me off when someone refers to most of humanity as being as dumb as steers, or docile as sheep. Humanity has it's faults, but dear sweet Ahura Mazda, we're not that bad.

 

Ahem, no offense to anyone, but I had to get that off my chest.

[Vigile]

I agree with your rant TR, I thought Isker made a good point the other day when he likened its use to Godwin's law.

[Vomit Comet]

The 1840s was before the industrial revolution. Most people living in coastal cities in the Northeast--which were considerably smaller than they would be later, and at that time the country was overwhelmingly rural--would have been merchants, tradesmen, and the elite. In other words, the guy uses some massaged numbers in places.

[oddbird1963]

Book sales may not be the best indicator of literacy rates, but I think the book sales statistics may be skewed anyway.

 

I think that a large percentage of book purchasers tend to buy books in multiple quantities. Myself, I have been on a book-buying rampage since January.

 

I'm wondering if book sales may indicate fewer individuals than one might think.

[chefranden]

I only buy a book I want to read if it can't be found trough the library. Free is a pretty good deal.

[Purple]

The 1840s was before the industrial revolution. Most people living in coastal cities in the Northeast--which were considerably smaller than they would be later, and at that time the country was overwhelmingly rural--would have been merchants, tradesmen, and the elite. In other words, the guy uses some massaged numbers in places.

 

I was thinking the same thing, his 1840s example only included cities, and cities then, cities now completely different animals. Book sales is really a bad indicator to me. What is and is not included? Someone mentioned libraries, there were not as many public libraries in 1840 as now. Also, there was no internet at all, anyone else read books for free online?

 

I do think there has been some dumbing down of people in general, but if you go back 100 years and 200 years, we had a very different culture, people act like this 2 class system thing is new. I'd be surprised if any of the 1840 stats include minorities, and please I am in NO way suggesting they do not read as much, I AM saying goverment education of minorities in 1840 was lacking.

[OpheliaGinger]

Most people prefer not to read books because it is much faster to just watch a movie of the book. Entertainment was also limited during the 1840s.

[Vigile]

You guys are all stuck on this book thing. The crux of the guys rant, at least in my mind is:

 

The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night.

 

I think that's absolutely true. And you could say the same for stolen elections, unjust wars, etc... Just don't take my goddamn cable.

[Dagan]

You guys are all stuck on this book thing. The crux of the guys rant, at least in my mind is:

 

The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night.

 

I think that's absolutely true. And you could say the same for stolen elections, unjust wars, etc... Just don't take my goddamn cable.

 

 

That's for sure. The most contentious issue in my town in the past two years was not the loss of over 1,000 resource jobs, or dirty politics, but the pending sale of our cable TV co-op to a big corporation.

 

Don't mess with the cable.

[mwc]

You guys are all stuck on this book thing. The crux of the guys rant, at least in my mind is:

 

The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night.

 

I think that's absolutely true. And you could say the same for stolen elections, unjust wars, etc... Just don't take my goddamn cable.

And so if not HBO the what? They'd all become "involved?" I call bullshit. This is specious. They'd go hang out. Get drunk. Jerk off. Whatever. They wouldn't suddenly become "enlightened." They wouldn't get "involved." They wouldn't do anything. They aren't interested because...get this...they aren't interested. Diversions exist because people don't want to deal with things and so the people "at the top" or "behind the scenes" take advantage of those very diversions. But there's no reason to believe that it went the other way. From a bunch of fully invested people that were somehow in the mix, then suddenly a diversion appeared from some sneaky "group," which led to the haves and have-nots. The more likely scenario is the "haves" noticed the "have-nots" were more easily manipulated if they just kept feeding them a steady diet of what they already were gorging themselves upon. They simply don't wish to engage at a higher level and the few exceptions in history show that the "have-nots" only rally around a wannabe "have" long enough to get them into power and go back to being the "have-nots" they always were complete with their diversions. For the moment it is cable. It was plays. It was gladiators. It was the races. It is also the internet. It will always be something. The masses will always have an opiate.

 

mwc

[chefranden]

"Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free"

[Vigile]

And so if not HBO the what? They'd all become "involved?" I call bullshit. This is specious.

 

Ha ha, I'm not sure where you came to this conclusion MWC. HBO isn't distracting people. He's arguing that people are too self involved, due in large part to a lack of understanding about more complex subjects, to care about something more abstract than what entertains them.

 

There's a reason that college students are the ones who protest in countries all around the world. They know more, and better yet, understand more than the huddled masses. Many times what they protest directly or indirectly affects their lives but the masses don't have a big picture perspective and can't understand how things that appear to them abstract affect their lives. Thus, as you said, they don't care.

[Legion]

I think the average man and woman in America feels mostly powerless to affect events at the national level. And so long as enough of them feel powerless then they are powerless. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

 

And even in those times when they do have a chance to affect events through elections it seems like they are given a choice between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, in essence the illusion of choice and power.

 

Of course, I could be wrong about all that.

[Vigile]

I think those of us who pay attention feel powerless. I think most don't pay attention. At least that's been my experience. Maybe if more people paid attention we'd be offered better choices? Dunno...

[Dagan]

I think the average man and woman in America feels mostly powerless to affect events at the national level. And so long as enough of them feel powerless then they are powerless. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

 

And even in those times when they do have a chance to affect events through elections it seems like they are given a choice between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, in essence the illusion of choice and power.

 

Of course, I could be wrong about all that.

 

No, I think you're right... but if people bothered to get off their couches and go vote, maybe America and other western democracies with declining voter turnout would work differently, and more in line with what the people want. Right now we get exactly what the majority of people who vote want. If that happens to be conservative, wealthy, middle-aged white guys, then so be it -- that's democracy, they're the ones who are voting. Those who vote get to make the rules.

 

I think the danger is that people simplify their choices to Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee because it makes it easier to understand. The news media doesn't help this, focusing on the presidential candidates as the be-all and end-all of government. Don't Americans vote for congressmen and women? For local government officials? Don't they realize how these lower-level elected officials have the power to influence politics at the national level, if they are motivated to do so by their constituents?

 

But it all starts by getting off the couch and going to vote. And instead of holding their noses and picking candidates at random, people need to take 15 -20 minutes to get informed about their candidates and make an informed decision. It's a civic duty, people should treat it as such.

[mwc]

Ha ha, I'm not sure where you came to this conclusion MWC. HBO isn't distracting people. He's arguing that people are too self involved, due in large part to a lack of understanding about more complex subjects, to care about something more abstract than what entertains them.

Well, I got it from this:

The typical herd member supports Congress saving a few pennies a year per capita by cutting NASA's budget, but would howl at the moon if their HBO went poof! in the night. Maybe that's what this country needs: devolution into a pre-space economy. Then, maybe the dullards would get a kick in the seat that makes them wake up to the reality of the modern world.

The "herd" is basically passive until their "HBO" is taken away. Then the argument comes that perhaps "dullards" need a little roll-back in time to get them motivated. This is specious. The "herd" or "dullards" have always been just this. Maybe we should roll-back to pre-industrialized days? That would REALLY wake them up? Pre-wheel days? That's when things surely took a turn.

 

There's a reason that college students are the ones who protest in countries all around the world. They know more, and better yet, understand more than the huddled masses. Many times what they protest directly or indirectly affects their lives but the masses don't have a big picture perspective and can't understand how things that appear to them abstract affect their lives. Thus, as you said, they don't care.

Yes. They're idealistic. That doesn't make them more knowledgeable or right. To head this path would say that in the past there wouldn't have been unnecessary wars. People would have been too educated. Only the necessary would have occurred. This is far from the reality of what happened. Many wars took place. Many wars with many "educated" and "enlightened" people right at the forefront. This argument is "elitist" (I dislike the term) but in this context I believe it apt. The students may be protesting for different reasons than the "herd" but how is it ultimately any different? You have people that have something they want for some reason and they're willing to fight for it.

 

The "something" may be some set of rights or it may be HBO. It's whatever is valuable to them. The person assigns the value. Another person may assign zero value to the same item. That's the problem with this article. The author assigns a high value to the things in his article and is critical when others do not assign like value to those same items. He likewise assigns a zero (or even a negative) value to HBO (and the like). Calling names to those who assign a high value to those items. He expects respect from people who then value those items? That's probably not going to happen. If people do not value literacy then rather than look down upon them by calling them "dullards" perhaps he should enlist their aid by getting them to understand the value of literacy and getting them to assign a positive value to it as well? They may be willing to fight for it then. They may also want their HBO too. Why not, right? But he can't explain why NASA is worthwhile. It's missing from the article. He can't explain why anything he wants is worth a damn. He fails to make his case. He's not literate himself. He's arrogant. Why should I bother with him?

 

mwc

[chefranden]

The Misery of knowledge

[Vixentrox]

But it all starts by getting off the couch and going to vote. And instead of holding their noses and picking candidates at random, people need to take 15 -20 minutes to get informed about their candidates and make an informed decision. It's a civic duty, people should treat it as such.

Yes, but again, when all you have is the same old democrats and republicans it doesn't really much matter which you vote for. The differences between these two shit parties in practice doesn't seem to be too great. America will be much better when these two parties are destroyed enough that they'll actually start acting responsibly and with integrity to win back voters.

[Vigile]

MWC, what I hear you saying is that everything is and always will be the same an no amount of education will change the way the world works. Is this fair?

[Dagan]

But it all starts by getting off the couch and going to vote. And instead of holding their noses and picking candidates at random, people need to take 15 -20 minutes to get informed about their candidates and make an informed decision. It's a civic duty, people should treat it as such.

Yes, but again, when all you have is the same old democrats and republicans it doesn't really much matter which you vote for The differences between these two shit parties in practice doesn't seem to be to great. America will be much better when these two parties are destroyed enough that they'll actually start acting responsibly and with integrety to win back voters.

 

Point taken. In Canada we have more than two choices; granted, the Èbig twoÈ Conservatives and Liberals are a bit like your Democrats and Liberals, but there are some big differences.

And protest voters can actually get seats via our NDP and maybe even Green Party in a few years... that is if Canada stops changing to emulate American-style politics (no offence).

[mwc]

MWC, what I hear you saying is that everything is and always will be the same an no amount of education will change the way the world works. Is this fair?

It is to an extent but overall I'd have to say no.

 

I understand the whole concept of "dumbing down." Like the concept of "grade inflation" in most schools nowadays. I see the issue.

 

Let me just say this all another way since it's on my mind. In this case it's (in broad strokes) NASA vs. HBO. People will trade one for the other. Personally, I like both and that's kind of the point. I've been to NASA in Florida a couple of times. I went on my Honeymoon (does that tell you something about me? ) and I've went again since (it's almost, but not quite, the same tour...I kind of like the earlier version better). Anyhow, I don't care for the cutting of funds.

 

I also would not care to lose my HBO. I like to just sit and stare at the idiot box. I like to shut off my brain and drool for hours and hours on end. When I was growing up I lived on the fringes of reception and we had just an antenna. We barely got the over the air channels and they weren't very clear. I watched a lot of crappy (in every way) TV. I read a lot of comics too. I also read our ancient encyclopedias and whatever else was around. Then I got a computer (a Vic 20) and wrote games for it (I couldn't afford any).

 

But what I'm saying here is that there was always two sides to my coin. Like the one who read encyclopedias and the one who read comics. I can't just read one or the other. That's not me. I have a hard time understanding people that only read one or the other but I know they're out there. I can't yell at those who read comics (not "graphic novels" for those who are getting offended...I read Peanuts, Scrooge McDuck and things like that) and tell them that they must read something more enlightening. That they're "dullards" (even if they may be) if they don't improve to a level I approve of. Likewise them "smarties" that read encyclopedias exclusively. They should have a little fun and read some lighter fair. But I imagine they wouldn't care if the "comic" budget were to be cut in favor of the encyclopedia budget. But why is that okay while the other is not? Because one is for knowledge and the other entertainment? People can learn social lessons via entertainment. Not just facts, though they can be conveyed as well.

 

So comparing NASA to HBO is not only a bad comparison (since I was not aware the government funded HBO) but the idea that people tolerate the cutting of funding because the government has dumbed them down somehow. The way I see it is the people simply cannot see the relevance of NASA any longer. I was speaking with my parents the other day and my mom mentioned how stupid it was to study things like the flight of flies and things like this. I told her that it could help with the creation of drone aircraft and the study of spiders could help create super strong materials for building bridges and buildings. That these studies actually could payoff big time in numerous ways. She then said "Well, why didn't the news say that?" She's not going to go out and learn about each and every thing. She doesn't sit in front of the TV all the time either. She simply can't absorb information like she used to and she especially can't understand "new fangled" things. The people that want the money aren't "selling" themselves well. NASA has sold the nation on cheap robot probes and useless junk for so long that the people will only fund more of the same or that we'll split the check with the rest of the world. NASA needs to get off their asses and SELL themselves as something relevant again instead of sitting there hat in hand. They need to find a champion for their cause and get them to the people that matter just like the Pentagon does.

 

HBO is relevant to people. NASA is not. HBO will advertise to you and tell you why it is you want/need/desire HBO. NASA? Well, WTF is NASA?

 

mwc

[Vigile]

I realize the op was full of hyperbole. It's a rant and that's why I placed it in the rants section. I wasn't expecting everyone to take it so literally.

 

From my personal observation America is being dumbed down and to their own detriment. It's not a dichotomy between HBO and the space program. The main point, as I see it is that people are too poorly educated in general to understand the implications of political decisions like this. America is in decline and it's jobs are being outsourced. The only way America is going to compete is to invest in scientific research and stay at the forefront of technological development.

 

Instead they are spending money they don't have to put more policemen on the streets, something that produces absolutely no return on investment and hacking away at programs that have the potential to dig themselves out of this rut. Moreover, they have become so anti immigration that they are now turning away the best and the brightest from other countries, something which in the past has given America a competitive advantage.

 

So while I think many of the claims in the op are unsupportable, I think the point he was making is entirely supportable.

 

Oh well, hopefully a multi polar system will be more stable than a US hegemony. I just hope that things don't get too messy as American struggles to hang on to its dying empire.

 

HBO is relevant to people. NASA is not. HBO will advertise to you and tell you why it is you want/need/desire HBO. NASA? Well, WTF is NASA?

 

My point exactly. NASA is relevant, people are just too ignorant to know so. They will find out when America's GDP continues to slide due to the fact that American labor is too easily outsourced and American companies are not providing high tech jobs because other countries outrun them in the technology race.

 

It works like this. Economies grow when wealth is created. The economies have only been growing based on bubble formation because new wealth is not being created anymore.

 

In the past new wealth was created with industrialization, the use of free trade which emphasized comparative advantage, and with the development of new technologies. The economies over the past few decades have been nominally shrinking and this has been masked by a Fed that has created a series of credit bubbles to cover up this fact. Those bubbles keep popping and bigger bubbles have been used to replace them. This time they probably can't produce a bubble big enough to cover it up.

 

If the economy is going to stand a chance to rebuild a real foundation, it must be built on new discoveries, such as an alternative energy source and/or other new technologies that add real value. So people think that research by institutions like NASA are irrelevant, but in reality, when they can no longer pay for HBO they will see just how relevant it really is.