I found this OpEd piece in the Washington Post today. I love reading their Sunday OpEd pieces in general - that’s when the good ones usually come out. It discusses, as the title implies, the dumbing of Americans as a cultural trend. It points out that the trend is not exactly new, but we have reached a new level because whatever we don’t know (like world geography or foreign languages, for example), we deem as unimportant in the first place. As an aside, I am not claiming to be much smarter than a lot of my fellow country-men, but I do try to learn about stuff outside of my little world. I fully admit to wasting far too much time reading Perez Hilton and letting my brain melt, for example!

Anyway, the author gives a great example of how this has changed the face of American politics. FDR came up with the idea of ‘fireside chats’ to explain to the nation the details of the war - can you imagine our current president leading a discussion on the details of Afghanistan and Iraq every week? If he did, how low do you think those ratings would be - say they put it on against 24! I bet a lot more people would tune into watch fake US officials beating the hell out of people (like only Jack Bower can) than listen to one rationally (boringly!) clarify the horrible details of real problems.

Anyway, it’s an article worth reading.