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[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.
The Dumbing Down of Voters
Seeded on Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:54 PM EDT
Article Source: The Boston Globe- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (38)
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.
- 8 votes
#1 - Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:56 PM EDTGreat. We're doomed. Time to bring in the philosopher kings, I guess.
- 5 votes
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
- 3 votes
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.
- 3 votes
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."
- 2 votes
#2 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:25 AM EDTThis 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.
- 5 votes
#4 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:18 AM EDTOnly two in 10 know we have 100 US senators. Only four in 10 know we have three branches of government and can name them.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!
- 6 votes
#5 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:47 AM EDTJames,
That particular knowledge is no part of NCLB and therefore deemed secondary.
- 5 votes
Sad. Is there a logical argument to allowing people to vote when they have no idea what a vote means?
- 3 votes
If you can't add you shouldn't do math. If you know sh*t about America you shouldn't vote.
- 1 vote
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
- 3 votes
#6 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:46 AM EDTAll 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.
- 6 votes
#7 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:09 AM EDTThe 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.
- 4 votes
#8 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:21 AM EDTSeptic,...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."
They want you smart enough to read their advertising and propaganda, but dumb enough to believe it.
- 2 votes
#9 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:56 AM EDTDeFex 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.
- 1 vote
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.
- 1 vote
#10 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:11 AM EDTOnly 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?
- 1 vote
#11 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:35 AM EDTOur 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.
#13 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:34 PM EDTSteve,... 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.
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.
- 2 votes
#14 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:49 PM EDTSo 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."
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.
- 1 vote
#15 - Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:09 PM EDTThe 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.
- 1 vote
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.
- 1 vote
#16 - Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:53 AM EDTThe 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 !
- 1 vote
#17 - Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:19 AM EDTThe 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.
- 2 votes
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