When did the US decide that education was bad?

[weemadando]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense?

I'm not saying Americans are stupid or any shit like that (so don't even try it IP), but why is it that playing the dumb-arse card is so successful for politicians.

[Joe]

Who thinks education is bad?

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Who thinks education is bad?

Look at the ACTIONS, not the words. Don't be surprised if you have to do some heavy research due to deliberate obfuscation of facts by the government...

I also noticed a rather steep decline in the quality of science education back when I was in high school, so I've seen this with my own eyes.

Weemad. I will say that Americans, by and large, are stupid. I've lived here for 23 years and I've seen enough to say that.

[Darksider]

but why is it that playing the dumb-arse card is so successful for politicians.

Because alot of voters are dumbasses.

Seriously. After the election, I heard some downright dumbass reasons for voting for bush.

Examples include:

My freind at school, who voted for bush because he will and I quote this "Punish the terrorists in Iraq for 9/11, and one of my mom's co-workers who voted for bush because "kerry was ugly" (And shrubby isn't?)

Appealing to the lowest common denomenator will get votes, and in the U.S., that's the lowest common denomenator

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense?

I'm not saying Americans are stupid or any shit like that (so don't even try it IP), but why is it that playing the dumb-arse card is so successful for politicians.

It was a popular response to the Vietnam-era opposition of the intellectuals to the war. Nixon's "silent majority" heard it, and gradually the idea became quite credible in a large number of people that intellectuals were hopelessly out of touch with the real world and a hindrance to any society rather than benefit.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It was a popular response to the Vietnam-era opposition of the intellectuals to the war. Nixon's "silent majority" heard it, and gradually the idea became quite credible in a large number of people that intellectuals were hopelessly out of touch with the real world and a hindrance to any society rather than benefit.

Plus, stupid people breed like rabbits.

[Patrick Degan]

And thus you have the Texification of America.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's not so bad. I like westerns.

[Raptor 597]

Like the Duchess said, it was the anti-intellectualism following Vietnam. However, the only reason this intellectual movement arose really stemmed from Soviet advances in the late 1950s and early 1960s - namely their space program. The US was seen as lazily so the colleges, especially the were beefed up. So these people supported by Kennedy allowed the movement not to be persecuted, but people such as McNamara, the other Bright Kids, and "dem Hippie college bastards" became the posterchild for reactionary spasms of the "Silent Majorty" who were disgruntled over 'Nam. America was really too ruralized too be intellectual in any degree except in the major cities before World War II.

[MKSheppard]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense.

Robert STRANGE McNamara.

[Trogdor]

Because alot of voters are dumbasses.

Seriously. After the election, I heard some downright dumbass reasons for voting for bush.

Examples include:

My freind at school, who voted for bush because he will and I quote this "Punish the terrorists in Iraq for 9/11, and one of my mom's co-workers who voted for bush because "kerry was ugly" (And shrubby isn't?)

You think those are bad? I know someone who I think voted for Bush because she liked the color red.

[Uther]

Because everywhere else politics are decided by intellectual debate and rational discourse.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense.

Robert STRANGE McNamara.

I DECREE THAT HE SHALL BE HANGED FOR HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Now where's a HAB Mock Trial when you need one?

[Darksider]

You think those are bad? I know someone who I think voted for Bush because she liked the color red.

Are you sure?

That is so fucking..........Ugh.

Why the hell is it that people like that can vote, but I can't because i'm below the age of majority?

I follow politics and know more about it than alot of people (Especialy THOSE people) but I can't vote becaue i'm still seventeen.

It just pisses me off.

[pellaeons_scion]

You think those are bad? I know someone who I think voted for Bush because she liked the color red.

I can fully believe this. I heard similar things during our elections ie: voting for howard because latham was ugly...yep, way to go on that thought process there

Is it just not 'cool' to be smart anymore? Or has it gone from the odd attack on intellectuals to outright support of being stupid? Thinking in that sort of vein reminds me of the dark ages, in which faith was everything, no matter what evidence was there. And the day that someones faith became important in secular affairs was a dark one indeed.

[tharkûn]

Education has long been seen as a force that turns good ole boys into ivory tower intellectuals ... who conveniently turn their backs upon huge swathes of the communal beleifs they grew up with. The right has been suspiscious of education for FAR longer than the 1960's. Even back with McCarthy you saw that the hawks were extremely suspicious of intellectuals.

What doomed education was the advent of Marxism and related theories within the education establishment coupled with the baby boomer entitlement philosophy.

Marxism has always appealed to the intellectual establishment far more than to the middle class; and since the inception of the ideology the most strident advocates of Marxism have been the intellectual elites. This association with marxism was poison to huge swathes of America because:
A. It was the banner of the enemy.
B. Anyone who ever thought that the educational establishment was inferior to "common sense" could point to numerous dumbass Marxists for conformation.

The baby boomers were the first American generation where education was an entitlement rather than a privilege. To an unprecedented degree young adults were assured decent jobs, university education, or the chance to drop out of productive society. Education no longer appeared to matter as everyone completed high school and university education become both less rigorious and more common in response to the draft defferments.

Between a minority of academics making asses of themselves over politics, and hanging everyone else through guilt by association and the baby boomers devalueing education you ended up with the net result that education became less and less respected.

The reason the everyman approach is so successful is because Americans are paranoid about intellectuals because a few highly placed idiots had their pet theories that were moronic.

[sketerpot]

Because everywhere else politics are decided by intellectual debate and rational discourse.

Perhaps you would prefer if politics were decided through the use of Tu Coque fallacies?

Or were you not trying to make a point, and just using this as a handy excuse to post a funny link?

[sketerpot]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense?

I'm not saying Americans are stupid or any shit like that (so don't even try it IP), but why is it that playing the dumb-arse card is so successful for politicians.

Education: reaction to the sorts of crazy Ivory-tower people who do such things as calling the Principia Mathematica a "rape manual" or publishing this parody as a serious article in Social Text.

Secularism: for some reason our popular culture is pretty secular (and sex crazed! yay! ) but most of the people in it are religious and there there's a widespread guilt-trip over secularism. Just look at all the people who loudly point out the True Meaning of Christmas (THE BIRTH OF CHRIST!!!!!) to anyone who will listen. I really don't know why secularism is unpopular, but I imagine some insight could be found in Fgalkin's Fundie Guide.

Intelligence: fully 50% of Americans score below the median score on standardized tests. Some people do better academically than others. Facing this bleak reality, is it any wonder that a lot of people downplay the importance of (or even the existance of) intelligence? There are several signs in my school saying that intelligence doesn't matter as long as you work hard. I'd say it's because it's a comforting idea, and intelligence is very hard to pin down.

Common sense: everyone values common sense, but people can't agree on what it means.

[Stark]

Erm, sketer, baby... thats how a median works. Like, half above, half below, thats your median. Isn't that the famously ignorant statement some politictian (I see Clinton) made in the 90s?

[Sea Skimmer]

America was really too ruralized too be intellectual in any degree except in the major cities before World War II.

WW2 also didn't help things very much, because so many kids not yet old enough to join the military dropped out of high school to get high paying part time jobs in war plants and then never returned.

[sketerpot]

Erm, sketer, baby... thats how a median works. Like, half above, half below, thats your median. Isn't that the famously ignorant statement some politictian (I see Clinton) made in the 90s?

I know full well what a median is. My point was that, when half the people out there fall below it (as they inevitably will), this isn't going to be a fun thing to contemplate for the lower half. It's only natural that there would be a big push in society to downplay the importance of intelligence, right or wrong.

[phongn]

Along with secularism, intelligence and common sense.

Robert STRANGE McNamara.

The real question is, can you say it like Teller said it?

[Patrick Degan]

Anti-intellectualism has been a longstanding American tradition. We even had a political party which proudly proclaimed itself the "Know-Nothings" in the 1850s, while President James Buchanan once seriously contemplated closing down the Patent Office on the theory that everything had already been invented. Think today's Fundies constitute an obnoxious presence on the cultural landscape? Read a bit about the Temperance Movement of the late 19th century.

[Darth Wong]

It doesn't help that religious people have been at war with intellectuals for hundreds of years, and America is extremely religious.

Only in America would a book be published called "Philosophy for Dummies" which earnestly claims that philosophy irrefutably proves the existence of God (an assertion which would make most real philosophers projectile-vomit their lattes in disgust).

[Ma Deuce]

Anti-intellectualism has been a longstanding American tradition. We even had a political party which proudly proclaimed itself the "Know-Nothings" in the 1850s

Actually, the official name for the "know nothings" was the American Party, who basically had no platform beyond anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic xenophobia: "know-nothing" was an informal name that didn't come from any anti-intellectual leanings the party may have had, but rather because it's members met in private and were very secretive about their party alliegence, and thus when asked about their role in the party by an outsider, their most common reply was "I know nothing".