Do Americans Suffer From an "Allergy to Thought?"
norm
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"This is a pattern that I see: an allergy to thought, to complexity [and] nuance - a kind of collapse into an intellectual relativism where opinions become fact... It's a dangerous thing... I think there's a growing hostility to knowledge in this country... Our national progress is being retarded because we have fallen into this discourse by slogan. We have fallen into this relativism where it's a conversation to stop and say, "Well, that's your opinion. [This is] my opinion...' Go back to the Athenian idea of political speech - it was a search for good answers. We're so far from that today that it's almost ludicrous for me to bring that up, but I want to remind us... We don't listen well as a society. When we listen, we listen in feedback loops to people who are likely to say what it is we think is right... We're in the process, it seems to me, because of this allergy to complexity and nuance, of devaluing the importance of education... I think universities are the last, best hope for pushing back against this because what we do is complexity and nuance."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/ ... mpaign=pbs
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/ ... mpaign=pbs
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"Professors have a professional interest in - indeed a professional duty to uphold - liberty of thought and discussion. But in recent years, precisely where they should be most engaged and outspoken they have been apathetic and inarticulate... The aim of liberal education is not to guard [students'] sensitivities but to teach them to listen to diverse opinions and fortify them to respond with better arguments to those with whom they disagree... As the controversies at Yale, Duke and Harvard captured national attention, professors from other universities haven't had much to say in defense of liberty of thought and discussion either. "
This part nails it ... Guarding sensitivities has become more important that free discourse of ideas, particularly when it comes to topics like race relations and terrorism. I'd argue that guarding sensitivies is just part of the problem, though. There is a real tendency towards emotional reasoning taking over the realm of intellectual discourse as well: People taking their strong feelings on an issue to be factual evidence of the "truth" in their position, along with a failure to even consider counter-evidence or to acknowledge that other people might be allowed to feel differently about a topic. Ironically enough, feelings about a topic can become so strong that the very capacity for empathy with regards to another person's position gets choked out, and then the labelling and demonization begin in earnest. By no means is this tendency confined to certain ideological positions or ends of the political spectrum, either.
There used to be a time when the average American was well versed in knowledge about the world. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the USA nearly 200 years ago he was struck by the knowledge and the breadth of understanding about things like politics and world events by the average American - and this coming from a European noble who thought of the inhabitants of the former colonies as little more than country bumpkins.
The decline can be traced back to the rise of the modern conservative movement with the attack on our institutions of learning and our free press. Ronald Reagan quite notoriously chipped away at the University of California system when he was governor - what used to be a free college eventually became a $3,000+/year university. We saw textbooks being edited and parsed for language the right wing felt inappropriate - things such as civics classes and the teaching of Evolution were removed from the school curricula.(I'm still shocked that otherwise intelligent people deny Evolution despite reams and reams of evidence supporting it). Propaganda and uncritical repetition thereof became the staple of our airwaves.
So as our population got dumbed down, even our news media started to think that real news wasn't necessary anymore so we've devolved into an "infotainment" society.
It's a sad commentary on our society when a comedian - Jon Stewart - was recently named the Most Trusted Man in America in an online poll, a title once held by the legendary journalist Walter Cronkite.
So if Professor Saxton wants to maintain civil and informed discourse in our society, we should start raising civil and informed people from the ground up again. We'd never have to worry about "political correctness" ever again if everyone was actually taught to become good citizens who thought for themselves and constantly questioned the status quo.
The context being removed ultimately distorts historical facts, negates timeliness of events and accomplishments and dismisses the need for discussion.
Example: Thomas Jefferson was a President of the United States of America so to remove him or even reduce him to this fact only, negates the timeline of events and his accomplishments and dismisses the need for discussion. This is based solely on someone's religious belief.
Example: One of the basic founding principle is freedom of religion. The right of educators to acknowledge the Constitution as giving you the right to bear arm and dismissing the same knowledge of the right to freedom of religion is a distortion of historical fact. Ironically, this is based on someone's religious belief. It is also a clear example of dumbing down America because on the one hand by refusing to teach the right to freedom of religion, they are promoting separation of church and State. On the other hand, they're promoting a certain religion- the very thing freedom of religion allows any group to do.
Example: The removal of the word democratic for republic. You would think that TX had would have a reason for this remove, when the word democratic is inclusive for the people's right to chose their leaders. To replace it with republic which in essence means a country headed by an elected person who is not a monarch is a play on words. The Constitution sets out the fact that America will not be republic in the process of how officials are elected. It is through this democratic [vote of the people] is accomplished. This distortion is based solely upon egos - the personal awareness that the word democratic could be associated with Democrats, therefore, the use of republic is easily associated with Republican.
The dumbing down of America is easily accomplished because it is taught at an early age. It is hard to overcome, even by professors when teaching positions are at risk for trying to teach the historical truth. Discussion, even emotionally, opinionated discussions laced with facts offers a person the opportunity to explore the other side of the coin. How do we compete in a domestic and global market, where intellect is the key to marketability?
didn't jefferson write the declaration of independance?? politicians from texas cite this founding document all of the time, should we not teach our kids about this document or any of the men who helped frame this country?
i don't consider it an "allergy to thought" because an allergy is an over-response to a certain stimuli....i prefer to think of it as "a willfull ignorance"...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The right-wing extremists who want remove Jefferson from the history books in Texas probably believe their actions to be justified due to the fact that he fathered children with a black woman. I doubt they verbalize their objections in such blatant terms, because after all we all know that bigotry and racism is wrong. Anyone who has ever visited Monticello has seen first-hand that the man was a visionary and a genius, not to mention one of the greatest statesmen this country has ever produced. A visit there would probably frighten the hell out of them because they might begin to feel themselves having respect for the man.
It's all about fear. Those who belong to sanctioned belief systems render individualists as pariahs because they threaten the security derived through fellow true believers and their credos.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
~I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulette I could have worn.~
Henry David Thoreau
Nice post. People want fast info, the same way they want fast food. It's become a junk culture.
I wonder what the stats are on how many Americans read books?
And on the subject of books, it's disgusting how 'Borders' and 'Waterstones' have killed off most of the independent, small bookstores. These big chains are just in it for the money. I bet most of the people who work at these places are clueless when it comes to literature.
How Waterstone's killed bookselling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/no ... ookselling
'..."They simply treat books as a commodity," says Nicholas Spice, publisher of the London Review of Books, and one of the chain's sternest critics. "There's no sentiment to it. If it's celebrity biographies that are going to sell, then that's what they'll focus on. They're not looking at it from a cultural perspective."
Is that a problem? After all, I am the one who brings sentiment and culture to the book-buying experience. Spice's thought, though, is that Waterstone's has lost its literary soul in stooping to compete with supermarkets and stationery retailers WH Smith. "A big retail business will inevitably move to the lowest common denominator position. Their commitment to book quality has to wane." Why? "Because once companies get big they draw in business management that doesn't have any sensitivity to the product. That's certainly the case with Waterstone's: the books knowledge of the people who run it is relatively small. Staff aren't paid well, so turnover is high and knowledge of what they're selling falls."
"The emphasis given to the few is staggering," says Mark Le Fanu, general secretary of the Society of Authors. "It's our mid-list authors, who may not write the most commercial books but who often write the best, who are suffering. The big corporate publishers dominate the shelves and squeeze out smaller publishers."
Most people I've encountered, from various walks of life, are emotionally unable to accept that they may be "wrong." They become defensive, angry, or they shut down if an idea challenges their preconceived notions.
I actually love learning new points of view. This does not threaten me at all. My entire life is continually a process of learning, unlearning, and seeking the best understanding. Here are two brief samples:
My parents (who never owned a bible) put me in Catholic catechism classes from the age of 5. When I was 12, I recognised the poohockey that the church was selling. I walked away, knowing full well that refusing the "communion" could provoke my father to violence. My peers urged me to fake it so I would get presents from my Catholic relatives. I stood my ground.
In my early 20s, I became ill with severe breathing problems, insomnia, FAT, and even arthritis at times. I saw a range of doctors who prescribed me all manner of pharmaceutical drugs, radiated me with X rays and CT scans, and performed surgery. Nothing helped much, and everything had gross side effects. The doctors told me that disease "just happens." They did not know what caused it. I refused to believe that, and was curious to understand what caused disease. I read several thousand pages from books at my local library.
I cured myself completely of insomnia, fat, and arthritis by going organic. I figured out that my inability to breathe through the nose was merely food allergies. I now avoid the symptoms 100% by not eating the foods I am allergic to.
No doctors, no tests, no 'medicine.' I opened my mind and learned a better way.
If I had caved to peer pressure or fear when I was 12, I would be a different person today. If I had blind faith that conventional doctors were the final word on Health, I'd be a suffering wretch.
Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty — so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.
which dovetails with this quote from Al Gore's excellent book The Assault On Reason:
It is too easy — and too partisan — to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason — the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power — remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.
I don't think people are "allergic to thought" but what I do think is that people are believe fervently in ideas and concepts and then tune out all other's ideas and concepts, and this is largely due to propaganda being thrown around like feces from both the right and the left. People still think about these issues but only about why THEIR OPINION is correct or why the other side of the story is incredulous.
People haven't stopped thinking... they've been coerced into thinking that they either must be a capitalist or a communist, a democrat or a republican, a dogmatic religioso or an atheist, and so on. With all that we know about quantum entanglement we should be able to realize that causality is much more complex than a > b, we are all cosmic schmucks, and belief is the birth of ignorance. If people stopped having such hard-line beliefs about everything they might all go stark-staring-sane.
wow ... great story ... thanks for sharing ...
i find with the medical profession these days - it's a lot about getting you in and out ... in getting my WFR (Wilderness First Responder), i learned that diagnosing illnesses is ultimately about listening and being open to ideas ... is it any wonder that cancer rates continue to rise as we continue to put toxic things into our food, our water, our air? ... people now get cancer and just think - oh well, i guess i was unlucky ...
+1
I think some people wait to talk, instead of listening.
Ignorance is still the issue.
Exceptional funding to early education can help solve this problem of opinion vs. fact.