From: Steve Davies (Steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Sat Aug 16 2003 - 06:32:43 MDT
Samantha writes concerning Robert's link.
>My opinion about the cause is fundamentally that the mind abhors a vaccuum.
>American culture has become pretty devoid of much real sense of purpose or
>values beyond consumerism and "making it". The lack of substance is very
>palpable to many. Anything that seems to fill the void is an attractor.
>Religions are good at filling or seeming to fill this void. Add to this
>increasingly rapid change and economic uncertainty and new post 9/11 levels
>of fear and you have a very potent brew.
I tend to agree, but there does seem to be a marked difference between the
U.S. and other parts of the world. Anti-intellectual evangelical
Protestantism is becoming the dominant form of Christianity in Europe, as
well as in the U.S. and much of Latin America, but believers are an
increasingly small part of a generally secular culture (as the article
pointed out). It's the U.S. in particular that seems to have such a large
religious population. I'm not sure why this is myself. I suspect we are
seeing the appearance of large, self-contained subcultures that increasingly
reject and cut themselves off from what they see as the 'sinful'way of life
around them.
<snip>
>Another factor I am very sorry to have to acknowledge is that America has
>been dumbed down on purpose. With a non-black illteracy rate of 14% and
>black illteracy rate as high as 40% the problem begins to show itself.
>Polls of the lack of knowledge about the world among Americans, even very
>simply knowledge your average 6th grader would know, are commonplace.
>Another poll reports that over 50% of college graduates report that they
did
>not read another book after they graduated no matter how many years ago
that
>was.
It's the same over here. The ignorance of the students I teach is often
simply staggering. Last year I asked a student who had delivered a short
talk on the Dreyfus Affair what he thought the connection to zionism was.
Response: "What's Zionism?". Less than half the class knew.
>
>Massive sense of meaningless, lack of training in reasoning and logic,
large
>doses of subjectivism and cultural relativism among the educated,
uncertanty
>about the future - it all adds up to high vulnerability for comforting
>comprehensive memes. And yes, it also tends toward distrust of and anger
>toward the intellect as much of the imbibed intellectual fashion of the day
>taught fundamental meaninglessness and subjectivity and arbitrariness of
all
>values and value systems. The distrust of the intellect is because of
what
>the intellectuals tell them and because using the intellect would seriously
>threaten the new found comfort memes.
>
>- samantha
Dangerous, I agree. I think the tide is turning somewhat among the
intellectuals however, there is a growing reaction against the irrationalism
that found expression in such movements as pomo, I feel. Steve Davies
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