Back in the 1990s, there was this cultural analysis and criticism that was popular at the time: the belief that that was an almost conspiratorial attempt (by whom? the media and education system, of course) to dumb down America.
Thus we saw an influx of books that dealt with this topic, often coming from right-wing or conservative writers who weren’t satisfied with the argument that there is a moral depravity in American culture--but believed there is an intellectual depravity as well.
There is even a website, deliberatedumbingdown.com, described as: “Written by whistleblower Charlotte T. Iserbyt, it is the result of what she discovered while working in the US Department of Education and her subsequent research on the subject.” The website reflects hundred of pages of exposed policy that is concerned with this cultural phenomenon of dumbness.
In particular, a culture of stupid people who would rather watch television than read a novel (and not a best-selling novel either—a novel that preferably has dust on its covers and comes from the library). Dumb people are not just a nuisance, according to these cultural critics, but reflect an epidemic, a sickness in our society, infected by the people (educators and entertainers) who control information.
There is a political dimension to this “dumbing down of America” that un-self-consciously promotes an educated, elitist, and remarkably conservative agenda.
Affirmative action, bi-lingual education, multi-culturalism, post-modern or post-critical theory: all of these (read liberal or progressive) intellectual attempts directly contribute to the dumbing down of America in this conservative view.
Returning to the classics, resisting pop culture, English First and English Only—these are the sort of practical steps that people believe need to be taken in our culture so that we can avoid the Middle Ages we are obviously about to be sent into because of all the dumb people we are around.
What amazes me about the rhetoric of the dumbing down of America, beyond the political aspect, is the fact that intellectuals, whether pundits or academics (at least the ones who are concerned with this dumbing down) are exempt from the epidemic of stupidity.
I started to think, are people as stupid (uneducated and non-informed, unconcerned, not enough, but not intelligent) as the dumbing down people seem to argue?
I look back to the English courses I taught years ago at two very different colleges, one a community college and the other a four-year state university. I was teaching the generation that is, supposedly, the direct result of this dumbing down.
At first glance, I saw evidence of “dumbing down”—one student writing that she believed being asked to read a novel while enrolled in college is purposeless and a nuisance. She told me she didn’t understand why there wasn’t a movie for every book. Yet, her writing did not strike me as an incredibly dumb or even uneducated person—she appeared lazy. Most likely, she just had different priorities.
I got groans from my students having to write a ten-page paper. Was this because of being dumb? Other professors got around this resistance by giving multiple-choice tests (and never essays). Did acing these cater to their dumbness? From the conservative, pro-elitist education perspective, essays were more challenging and multiple choice was the preference of the dumb.
One student told me how much he enjoyed my course because, when I came to class, I didn’t go over the same material in the textbook, nor did I show up and just give the exam date. I know that some other professors would have gone through the motions of teaching while they went through the motions of learning. But does this resistance suggest stupidity? Or is dumbness just a form of mental laziness?
The fact is that I cannot even get on board with the anti-laziness campaign. I watched my students working full-time jobs while taking a full load, sometimes even more than one job at a time—not a sign of laziness. From their perspective, they didn’t have time for reflection, much less a lot of reading.
On top of that, not all of them could afford the textbooks they were asked to buy, most often than not, the reason they stated why they aren’t keeping up the required reading in a class. The result appears to me in this context not as much as a dumbing down but a sapping out that seems to cause weariness. I see a numbing down, rather than dumbing down, of our culture.
I look back at another context for this evidence of dumbing down—the non-academic environment of a bar. I got to hang out at one a lot while in grad school since my husband worked at one.
This would, it would seem, to be the bastion of stupidity, especially in the context of a bar where mainly high-school graduates who work in blue-collar or service industry jobs (if they have a job at all)--truckers and waitresses the primary clientele.
Of course, I saw the intimidation factor, the belief that if people have not gone on to higher education, they must be dumber than my husband and I, who were both in doctoral programs. They would say, “I was never good at English” and seemed impressed when I told them that I taught college.
And yet, one could argue, this was a demographic of people who never was educated in the first place, nor had the incentive or opportunities that my students had, so how could they be dumbed down in the first place?
But I don’t fully buy this—dumb, in my mind is not the same thing as uneducated. It’s not just about not knowing things.
For example, I don’t know very much about “health management” but I certainly would not say I am dumb. Dumb seems to be a much more nebulous quality that doesn’t seem to be directly related to how much education—or book learning--a person has about a particular subject.
Perhaps I would be more convinced about the rampant stupidity in our culture if I had not been an English professor hanging out in a bar. I would talk to other people at the bar, drunk or sober, or somewhere in between, and have perfectly intelligent conversation dealing with various authors, movies, politics, psychology, the meaning of life, and I did not feel I had to talk down in these conversations.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t ever educate the person I am talking to, but it also doesn’t mean that the education is one way. I would hear stories, life-experiences, that I have not had, and information and tidbits I would not necessarily be able to get out of books.
But, most of all, I simply do not see this dumbing down that appears to be crucial to understanding our culture.
I react to this notion of a dumbing down on an aesthetic level, partly because it strikes me as arrogant. To claim there is a dumbing down is to position yourself as smarter than everyone else. It reminds me of a teenager who thinks all adults are stupid—how different is the pundit or academic who argues that our culture is in danger of becoming stupider than it already is.
Perhaps it is also generational. I like pop culture, and I like television and movies, as much as I liked to read. I don’t immediately believe that anything that is for the masses, i.e. the product of capitalism, is suspect.
So, as I read the claim, Americans are getting dumber, I can’t help but shudder, thinking, of all the things to be concerned about in life, why does this have to be one of them?
Nothing I’m saying precludes the idea that the world can be dumb. Just that often we are the dumb ones as much as anyone else is; dumbness is in the eye of the beholder, and we are loathe to look in the mirror.
Saying others are dumb a way to dismiss them. Especially if our evidence they are dumb is that they disagree with us.
Maybe the wisest way to navigate life is accepting how dumb you really are. At least then you’d admit you have a lot to learn.
(Dixie, our sweet dork dog)