In the world and in our own culture, the idea of “stupid Americans” has appeared again and again, from Homer Simpson to the capturing of stereotypical American behavior in the word “’Murica.” Few people are able to deny that the United States has its fair share of ignorance, but when you think about it, it’s really only ever a joke to us. The issue of American anti-intellectualism is, to the average American, not an issue at all.
In the past, that was less of a problem– because while America has always seen itself as a country of the working man, that was actually true. Despite many actions worthy of criticism, the attitude of “do, don’t think” actually achieved a great deal. Many of America’s technological leaps came from the great minds fleeing world wars or the Soviet regime. Higher education was limited to those who wanted to dedicate themselves to scholarship. The collective ignorance of citizens was limited in its effects by the limitations of trade, communications and international politics. Today, none of these things are true.
But despite the fact that we live in a world where being well-informed and capable of critical thinking actually matters, many Americans are holding on tighter to their belief that too much learning is undesirable and that opinions are ultimately more important than facts. There are many reasons why we haven’t been able to accept this necessary shift. Often, what’s to blame is simply the fact that people dread giving up the way of life they’ve had for so long, a perfectly understandable fear. But there are more dangerous factors at work. For one, corporations who stand to gain greatly from an uninformed and distracted population are enormously powerful in our country. They have spent billions trying to convince us that regulations on business in any form are bad for America while lobbying and bribing legislators strengthens democracy. At the same time, there has been a broad crusade against science as a whole—it appears in the anti-vaxxers endangering children, in the fossil fuel and manufacturing lobbies gagging the researchers who work to protect the public, or the creationists who think that school systems should instill a fear of basic scientific tenets in students.
Americans have at their disposal greater communication and access to information than have ever been available in human history. But while the Internet has brought opportunities for open conversation and organization, the debates constantly raging over politics more often cause people to fall deeper into herd mentalities. The Internet has intensified, not improved, the American aversion to critical thinking. People are presented with a selection of facts to ignore or accept as they please, while discussion and entertainment move so rapidly that thinking takes away from the immediacy of the online experience.
As the pace of the world grows ever faster, we need to step back from impulse and complacency. Education, the media and government institutions all have the potential to open discussions and expand people’s viewpoints instead of feeding biases and anger. Solutions don’t lie with any one person, but with an understanding of our responsibility to talk and deliberate about the issues in our country.
– By Colin Battis