Just to let you know, I started writing this post last night and I woke up this morning to this little bit of news - SAT reading scores drop to lowest point in decades

Surprise! Surprise!Wasn't this perfect timing! You have to love when a plan comes together!

But seriously, just how stupid are Americans?

According to this article from the Associated Press (3/1/06) “Homer Simpson, Yes -- 1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds"

"About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.

"The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms."

It would seem, pretty stupid, when we come across headlines like this.

Or perhaps you do know it when you see it?  Or Is it just because you are uninformed….unaware? If the answer is yes, then doesn't that mean you are ignorant?

Unless we attempt a definition of some sort, we risk incoherence, dooming our investigation of stupidity from the outset. Stupidity cannot mean, as Forrest Gump (Love this movie) would have it, stupid is as stupid does.

For me, this excerpt from Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter by Richard Shenkman is brillant:
“Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent. First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the
historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.”

I argue there is hard evidence pointing incontrovertibly to the conclusion that millions are embarrassingly ill-informed and that they do not care that they are. There is enough evidence that one could almost conclude -- though admittedly this is a stretch -- that we are living in an Age of Ignorance.

It would seem that this should be an Oxymoron considering our unprecedented access to information.  After all, we can now watch developments as they occur halfway around the world in real time. Unlike our parents, who were forced to rely mainly on newspapers and the network news shows to find out what was happening in the world; we can flip on CNN and Fox or consult the Internet. 

Our access is indeed extraordinary, but the Oxymoron can be traced to our mistaking actual consumption of the information. 

Is it any wonder then on the basis of their comprehensive statistics, Delli Carpini and Keeter concluded that only 5% of Americans could correctly answer three-fourths of the questions asked about economics, only 11% of the questions about domestic issues, 14% of the questions about foreign affairs, and 10% of the questions about geography. The highest score? More Americans knew the correct answers to history questions than any other (which will come as a surprise to many history teachers). Still, only 25% knew the correct answers to three-quarters of the history questions, which were rudimentary (aka simple). 

What about young people? Certainly, with all the vast amounts of information available to them , we are not getting any dumber.

Another excerpt from Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter by Richard Shenkman:
"They aren't watching the cable news shows either. The average age of CNN's audience is sixty. And they surely are not watching the network news shows, which attract mainly the Depends generation. Nor are they using the Internet in large numbers to surf for news. Only 11% say that they regularly click on news web pages.

Compared with Americans generally -- and this isn't saying much, given their low level of interest in the news -- young people are the least informed of any age cohort save possibly for those confined to nursing homes. In fact, the young are so indifferent to newspapers that they single-handedly are responsible for the dismally low newspaper readership rates that are bandied about. 

In earlier generations -- in the 1950s, for example -- young people read newspapers and digested the news at rates similar to those of the general population. Nothing indicates that the current generation of young people will suddenly begin following the news when they turn 35 or 40. Indeed, half a century of studies suggest that most people who do not pick up the news habit in their twenties probably never will. 

Young people today find the news irrelevant. Bored by politics, students shun the rituals of civic life, voting in lower numbers than other Americans.

It would appear that young people today are doing very little reading of any kind. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts, consulting a vast array of surveys, including the United States Census, found that just 43% of young people ages 18 to 24 read literature. In 1982, the number was 60%. A majority do not read either newspapers, fiction, poetry, or drama. Save for the possibility that they are reading the Bible or works of non-fiction, for which solid statistics are unavailable, it would appear that this generation is less well read than any other since statistics began to be kept. "

The studies demonstrating that young people know less today than young people a generation ago does not get much publicity.

How much ignorance can a country stand? There have to be terrible consequences when it reaches a certain level. Maybe we are seeing those consequences. Can you say - The Great Recession?

But wait, most of you probably don’t even know what that is.

Do America and yourself a service, put down Facebook and open a news website  or turn on CNN.