A funny and scary article in today's Times highlights the decline in value of intellectual pursuits. The gist of the article's message is: "Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters."In the artcile Susan Jocoby blames the educational system, religious fundamentalism that emphasizes feelings, faith, and a few basic moral precepts over learning and introspection (See Religious Literacy for more on that topic), the decline of universities' prestige in the 1960s and some popular culture issues as well. Maybe I should read her book, but from the article, she doesn't seem to offer many ideas for change. It's relatively easy to measure this decline, it's harder to figure out why it's occurring and how to reverse the trend.
3 comments:
Disney.
Disney should take a lot of blame.
Disney dummifies
Maybe amusement parks are a symptom of the issue, but I doubt they're the cause. As far as other Disney enterprises, I don't see how such a company can actually affect the intellectual development of an entire nation.
I s disney just amusement parks--no. not just the parks, the moronic simplifications of life, the happy meals, the conversion of children to consumerism at an early age, the mind numbing mushiness of it all.
I would not be surprised to see at least a negative correlation of time spent with disney entertainemt and intellectual achievement.
Disney is aimed at prevention of thinking. They do the thinking for the consumer. Of course, it's not just disney. Disney is just the archetype.
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