Log In | Register
JFXGILLIS
Correctly Political: Essays and Commentary
Articles Posted: 83; Links Seeded: 532
Member Since: 3/2007Last Seen: 11/06/2009
Member Since: 3/2007Last Seen: 11/06/2009
29 Votes
38 Comments
The Dumbing Down of Voters
News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:54 PM EDT
Article Source: The Boston Globeadvertisement
[S]urveys show that increased schooling doesn't correspond to a higher aptitude for civics. To put this bluntly: Americans today are no better informed about politics than their grade-school educated grandparents.
Published to:
- Public Discussion (38)
- Public Discussion (0)
- DemGuys
- Down With Tin Horn Dictators
- Election News
- Historical Vine
- Media Watch
- MSM Incinerator
- NYTimes Forums Refugees
- Open Source Intelligence
- Political Analysis
- Psych, Soc, Philos
- The X Committee
- TV Lounge
- US News and Views
What's this?
Who's leading the conversation?
This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user
has on the current conversation.
The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd
row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera).
Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group
is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the
left, in their corresponding group.
Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the
number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative
one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their
relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.
18
4.7
3.8
{"commentId":1975794,"authorDomain":"jfxgillis"}
Why hasn't education helped voters become smarter about politics? Television is a big part of the explanation. Once television replaced newspapers as the chief source of news, this happened around 1965, shallowness was inescapable as Americans began judging politicians by how they looked and acted.
{"commentId":1975794,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jfxgillis"}
- 8 votes
#1 - Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:56 PM EDT{"commentId":1975841,"authorDomain":"spiffie"}
Great. We're doomed. Time to bring in the philosopher kings, I guess.
{"commentId":1975841,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"spiffie"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":1975878,"authorDomain":"jfxgillis"}
spiff:
Good idea. You, me. Got anyone else in mind?
{"commentId":1975878,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jfxgillis"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1976818,"authorDomain":"eric-albert"}
A subject, dear to me: I have known about this serious problem since I became an anti war activist during the Vietnam years. Here is a partially truthful piece, but self serving:
"Unfortunately, what the polls show is that Americans cannot make up for their lack of basic knowledge even if they shrewdly employ shortcuts. The harsh truth is that ignorant voters are sitting ducks for wily politicians. This is why millions were so easily misled when the Bush administration dropped hints that Saddam Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One study by the University of Maryland found that nearly 60 percent of Americans were convinced that Hussein was helping Al Qaeda when we undertook our invasion. A majority based their support for the war on this flagrant misunderstanding."
What is left out is the role of education, and the corporate media. The corporate media could have negated these lies with hard hitting challanges to their class, corporate elites.
But the corporate media has become a propaganda arm of global Capitalism, imperial policies, fascist foreign policies, they are the problem themselves.
Then there is the issue that in the 12 years of education most people get, empirical facts do not cut it to understand how our civil society works, as they hide the most blatant corrupting power relations, which conservative history books never analyze, let alone the criminal character of American foreign policies. It is not until you get into college you get an inkling of generic realtions, Western History, that explains, again, in mostly empirical terms, the development of ideologies, class regimes, that were the outcome of our institutitions.
Unless you start to link up with outside anti war groups, especially socialist and Green politics, left politics, does civil society come into focus as power relationships, that are based on class. If you become an activist in either the right wing or right Libertarian groups, you will never be able to confront the dominating corrupting relationship, as "class" and socialist, left ideas are filtered out. Instead you will get the other end of the more advanced version of propagaanda, superficially addressed in high schools, that any problems are the result of the state, "big government", which too denies that class states, are the products of both oligarhcies, and their deformed middle class elites.
So finally when you get some real alternative answers to the mundane, empricial data, that you get in freshman college, most people by then are specialized to go into their fields of expertise, which is the aim of the corporate system, to keep the public dumb, and their elites serviel. The whole system is afraid of ideas, afraid to encounter alternative press, afraid to debate real leftists, and so the outcome is wholesale ignorance and servility, the former deliberately by our highschool education, the latter by our Universities, that only allow specialized historians, philosophy majors, economics majors to make it into a productive paying field, by accepting all their lies and servile propaganda in exchange for the privileged middle class status.
Even here on Newsvine, when new ideas are put forward, the tendency by most is to dismiss, ignore, and not engage the left on an analytical level, but rather that they are opposed to terminology, opposed to any ideology, instead preferring the endless variable, counter facts, empirical approach, to avoid the larger questions. All these combine to produce a racist, servile, mindless outcome and hence like the Boston paper admits that the public is at the mercy of lies, and institutions that fail to inform, like the corporate media, the political class, and the ideological classes, all of whom participate in these criminal policies, corrupting ideas, distorting realities, that reduce most people into cheerleaders, warmongers, as they did in Nazi Germany.
{"commentId":1976818,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eric-albert"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":1976868,"authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
This is what you get if you put forward new ideas:
1. totally ignored
2. it's crazy
3. you're crazy
4. it won't work
5. it isn't new
6. any combination of the above
{"commentId":1976868,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1977098,"authorDomain":"nytimes-forum-refugees"}
Because they don't think as a liberal?
{"commentId":1977098,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"nytimes-forum-refugees"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1977743,"authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
There are sharp and less sharp, tolerant and less tolerant, observant and less observant, curious and less curious people, in all political groups, I think. I hope.
{"commentId":1977743,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1979897,"authorDomain":"caligiurijoseph"}
Key to a successful society and political system
{"commentId":1979897,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"caligiurijoseph"}
- 2 votes
{"commentId":1975923,"authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
Rick Shenkman? That's the guy whose book I'm picking up next chance I get!
I think a lot of this has to do with the perceived relevance of politics. We learn government as an American political science history. It's not "meet the men and women who decide how much you pay in taxes, and what you are paying for."
{"commentId":1975923,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
- 2 votes
#2 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:25 AM EDT{"commentId":1975972,"authorDomain":"joegrind"}
Time to send out those Newsvine invites.
{"commentId":1975972,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"joegrind"}
- 3 votes
#3 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:38 AM EDT{"commentId":1976122,"authorDomain":"adambecker"}
This is a good letter. The only part that's off the mark is the point at which he says young Americans are less aware than ancestors because they can't articulate the differences between the Democrats and Republicans. I doubt "one of the parties lies about their support for murder and encroaching on the most basic of civil liberties" was an acceptable answer in that survey.
{"commentId":1976122,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"adambecker"}
- 5 votes
#4 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:18 AM EDT{"commentId":1976209,"authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
Only two in 10 know we have 100 US senators. Only four in 10 know we have three branches of government and can name them.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!
{"commentId":1976209,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
- 6 votes
#5 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:47 AM EDT{"commentId":1976754,"authorDomain":"Wheel"}
James,
That particular knowledge is no part of NCLB and therefore deemed secondary.
{"commentId":1976754,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"Wheel"}
- 5 votes
{"commentId":1978380,"authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
Sad. Is there a logical argument to allowing people to vote when they have no idea what a vote means?
{"commentId":1978380,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
- 3 votes
{"commentId":1983529,"authorDomain":"jade-log"}
If you can't add you shouldn't do math. If you know sh*t about America you shouldn't vote.
{"commentId":1983529,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jade-log"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1976501,"authorDomain":"cubbingabout"}
Combine this with the chemical dumbing down by the use of psychiatric drugs that is happening and the forced use of vaccines containing theramil the mercury preservative and there you have a maliable population
{"commentId":1976501,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"cubbingabout"}
- 3 votes
#6 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:46 AM EDT{"commentId":1976545,"authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
All you need is to invite a gang of Newsvine trolls in here to prove this point. I didn't know surch a gang of self-serving, uninformed and callus imbeciles even existed on the surface of this planet. The nether world rues, they vastly outnumber decent people. I won't say "only in America", but I'm thinking it.
Dumb voters are more easily manipulated - and these days a lot of effort is being made to do just that. The supposed link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is a prime example.
{"commentId":1976545,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
- 6 votes
#7 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:09 AM EDT{"commentId":1977145,"authorDomain":"wharrison55"}
{"commentId":1978402,"authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
hehe - Yeah, really.
{"commentId":1978402,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1976815,"authorDomain":"SepticSkeptic"}
The supposed link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is a prime example.
That would be the dumbing down of Congress. I'm not sure too many voters were convinced. I think the Globe has a point about television. My parents chose not to own one specifically so their kids would read more. Now, one is an architect, one is FBI, one translates documents for a government contractor. I must be the dumbest of the bunch, I'm in the Army. But all of us grew up learning how to think, not what to think. Forget religion. TV is the opiate of the masses.
{"commentId":1976815,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"SepticSkeptic"}
- 4 votes
#8 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:21 AM EDT{"commentId":1977872,"authorDomain":"jade-log"}
Septic,...Granted TV stones people. The electronic Medusa. What bothers me was the phrase,
"...shrewedly employ shortcuts." Maybe that's the problem. We have been so conditioned to immediate gratification, that we no longer have the impulse to ponder. It's about Fast. The short cut gets you to a decision fast. We shrewedly (what?) employ them. "It's like so now, so don't go there." Many TV reporters can't speak English well. "Between you and I.!!!!!" Between is a preposition. Like "for, to, from." Would you ever say, "Is that cookie for I?" I hope not.
That's just one of many examples. We can't be bothered to read. An enjoyable exercise.
Now it's seen as boring, too linear. I guess there's no way to stop "progress."
{"commentId":1977872,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jade-log"}
{"commentId":1977411,"authorDomain":"defex"}
They want you smart enough to read their advertising and propaganda, but dumb enough to believe it.
{"commentId":1977411,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"defex"}
- 2 votes
#9 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:56 AM EDT{"commentId":1982546,"authorDomain":"jade-log"}
DeFex that is a frightening thought. When I taught I expected thought first, then grammar and expression. When we focused on reading the discussion was open to many points of view. I think we have lost a great deal because of the degradation of education.
{"commentId":1982546,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jade-log"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1977492,"authorDomain":"lazaruslong"}
You know, the term "dumbing down" presumes that we were smart once and now we're dumb. That flies in the face of history - the percentage of the population interested enough in politics (or anything else that did not directly affect them) to get "smart" on the subject has always been pretty small. Plato observed the phenomenon, and for the dumb among us, that was A Long Time Ago.
{"commentId":1977492,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"lazaruslong"}
- 1 vote
#10 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:11 AM EDT{"commentId":1977626,"authorDomain":"eco-geek"}
Only four in 10 could identify William Rehnquist, the long-serving chief justice of the US Supreme Court, more than two decades into his term.
How long ago did they conduct this survey?
{"commentId":1977626,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eco-geek"}
- 1 vote
#11 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:35 AM EDT{"commentId":1977754,"authorDomain":"cartoonmohammed"}
{"commentId":1981332,"authorDomain":"spmackin"}
Our government school system has dumbed and doomed generations that haven't escaped
the mind cloning process. We're graduating generations of serfs. I'll never underestimate the power of Stupid Humans In Transit.
{"commentId":1981332,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"spmackin"}
#13 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:34 PM EDT{"commentId":1982593,"authorDomain":"jade-log"}
Steve,... I'm the product of parochial grade school, Jesuit high school and college. This was when you took four years of Latin and two years of classical Greek. At University you wrote a thesis and had to pass orals. Then I went to a very liberal grad school with a great reputation. I taught for almost forty years. Now I'm unemployed because I'm too qualified. To be frank school is all about instruction; education is no longer addressed.
{"commentId":1982593,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"jade-log"}
{"commentId":1981448,"authorDomain":"gabby3239"}
You guys really don't understand that this country is going to hell in a hand basket. You see we don't live in America or the United States of America that place is gone and now we live in HANITY'S AMERICA and you owe your Allegiance to FOX NEWS , or you aren't a American Citizen anymore unless you are a CULTURE WARRIOR. That's what happened to America it all started with" you are either with us or you are with them " that was 6 years ago and now if you question a liar you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. I truly believe that the Constitution of America is dying and without it what is left of America really is not worth saving.
{"commentId":1981448,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"gabby3239"}
- 2 votes
#14 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:49 PM EDT{"commentId":1981616,"authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
I'd really hate it if you were right, Renard.
{"commentId":1981616,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1987940,"authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
Hey look, I'm with Renard on this one.
{"commentId":1987940,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
{"commentId":1996516,"authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
So am I, and I really hate it. I'd rather see - you know "rays of sun light streaming through dark clouds" or any such hope evoking image. You know what they don't say: "Every silver lining has a cloud."
{"commentId":1996516,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"eriktheread"}
{"commentId":1982002,"authorDomain":"mightyblogger"}
I hate to be the one to write it but, this is why we still have an Electoral College and why America is not ready for direct voting.
{"commentId":1982002,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"mightyblogger"}
- 1 vote
#15 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:09 PM EDT{"commentId":1982206,"authorDomain":"cartoonmohammed"}
{"commentId":1987970,"authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
The Electoral College? Yeah... Here's how that works these days.
1. The party picks Electors who would never, EVER, vote for the other party's candidate.
2. That means that instead of voting to give the nominees Electors, we're pretty much voting to give them points instead.
Let's face it, the Presidential election is a race to a number of points, not a number of Electors.
3. The winner per state gets all the points.
That means that if you voted for the loser, YOUR VOTE DIDN'T COUNT. Democracy? Nope.
{"commentId":1987970,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"stevehouse"}
- 1 vote
{"commentId":1983856,"authorDomain":"energynet"}
In a brilliant book by Rifkin a generation ago titled Time Wars, he pointed out the fact that the MSM had purposely moved the accepted sound byte frame from over 45 seconds down to 8 seconds.
This played a huge role in the dumbing down where more complex ideas, themes or subjects could no longer be developed discussed or even hinted at.
{"commentId":1983856,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"energynet"}
- 1 vote
#16 - Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:53 AM EDT{"commentId":1985247,"authorDomain":"lpwillham"}
The Dumbing Down of voters=OBAMA
Having spent some time on political blogs discussing the election with Obama supports, I was amazed by people who didn't know the difference between a caucus and a primary, thought Guam was a State. Did not know what the Electoral College is and its purpose. Thought that popular vote means you win automatically win the election.
These are sad times we live in. Just be glad people cannot "text" their vote in !
{"commentId":1985247,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"lpwillham"}
- 1 vote
#17 - Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:19 AM EDT{"commentId":1987247,"authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
The Dumbing Down of voters=OBAMA
Of course, all anecdotal evidence aside, all indications are that things are the opposite of what you claim. How ironic that you appear to be anti-Obama.
{"commentId":1987247,"threadId":"290197","contentId":"1579298","authorDomain":"mentalshift"}
- 2 votes
{"canLink":false,"threadId":"290197","isPrivate":false}
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
As a new user, you may notice a few temporary content restrictions. Click here for more info.
Start Tracking
Stop TrackingCOMPANY STUFF:
LEGAL STUFF:
- © 2005-2009 Newsvine, Inc. |
- Newsvine® is a registered trademark of Newsvine, Inc. |
- Newsvine is a property of
