Are Americans getting dumber? Well, perhaps more mentally lazy, yes

Susan Jacoby has just released a 1,500 page tome that answers with a definite Yes.

And, it’s drawing a lot of comment, even pushback.

That said, I’ve not read her book, but did see her appearance on Bill Moyers Now last Friday.

I think she’s overstated the thesis. I don’t think they’re dumber, in terms of reasoning skills. I do, though, STRONGLY think, as she herself said on Moyers’ program, that Americans are getting more intellectually lazy by the day. This is particularly true among various right-wing strains in America, whether neocons and military rightists blindly supporting the continued war in Iraq, religious rightists continuing to reject the firm scientific grounding of neo-Darwinianism, etc.

Nonetheless, anti-intellectualism isn’t the sole property of the right. Jacoby also talks about how separate women’s and minority history studies departments in college have effectively ghettoized these areas of study, for example.

That said, I totally agree with her. As I do with the idea that “dumber” means less knowledgeable about, as well as more intellectually lazy in, history, political science, psychology, and other social science areas.

If students are less informed in history, and the degree they are gaining in knowledge, or intelligence, is due to their own computer skills, or computer/tech type classes in public schools, I will “blame” a variety of forces.

1. Schools in being too business-conservative, not liberal, for moving public high schools in a more vo-tech direction and less focus on the value of and need for liberal arts, and similar actions.

2. Parents for being content with this. And, with many families, at least among native-born Americans, having fewer and fewer children, the “no parental time” excuse doesn’t go too far.

3. School bureaucracies for not leading the call for a school year long enough to match that in other Westernized countries. WHEN are we going to get a 200-day, or longer, school year here?