Is it just me, or did none of the reasons for this decline have anything directly to do with being an American?
All over the world, people want to do exactly what the guy complains about: tune in, turn on, and drop out.
You can either view this as the beginning of the singularity or a sign that we're all going to turn into mostly immobile blobs of flesh wired into a continuously self-pleasuring electronic grid. Or perhaps both of those things are the same thing. As far as me, I'm optimistic that changes in society and technology will lead to great advances in human knowledge and science. I think as some generations plug into the grid other generations in other cultures will do all the heavy lifting. On the other hand, when it comes to difficult things, like space exploration or politics, I'm not so optimistic. It's hard to have a democracy when people don't know what "agriculture" is.
hard to have a democracy when people don't know what "agriculture" is.
According to the journalist's source, when posed the stumper about definining agriculture, "Not a single student could do it". I sometimes feel like I'm the only adult who actually remembers being young, or remembers going to school. Remember school: Often enough, a teacher (or professor) would stand up, clear his throat, and grandiloquently ask,
Now, could somebody define the word "agriculture"?.
Of course, everyone rolls his eyes, and nobody answers the stupid question. NOBODY answers those questions--because you automatically become an idiot when you do so:
I believe I know the answer, sir. Agriculture is the process of raising edible plantlife on a large scale for purposes of trade and direct consumption[1]
Obviously, the journalist's methodology suggests that he himself is a functional illiterate. NO--you don't ask your friend the cranky high school teacher his opinion and then extrapolate it out to the world. Bad science. Bad reporting.
People don't change that much, really. Evolution is slow. A stupid generation (evidenced by IM-engendered spelling skills) can easily be followed by a smart one. Genuine declines in intelligence are possible, but that has to do with dysgenics, a subject which most San Francisco newspapers generally won't touch on.
[1] I got this off the top of my head--I hope it's right.
I didn't view it as science or reporting. I felt the guy was just trying to write his weekly column. Such articles are typically mismashes of personal stories, legend, observations, opinion, etc.
There is a bit of generational relativism going on (as far as opinion, not science or fact.) Are we really worse off than those generations 100 years ago that could live off the land? Probably not -- unless we need to start living off the land again. Then it would suck. We're evolving into something. I think it's interesting to speculate about what that might be.
I quote James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, page 293:
"Students did the work on time, writing real definitions to the first two and last two terms, but for the thirty or forty in the middle they free-associated whatever nonsense they wanted. 'Hawley-Smoot Tariff: I have no idea, Mr. De Moulin,' might be one entry. Or 'Blue Eagle: FDR's pet bird who got very sad when he died.' Educational theorists call such acts "day-to-day resistance" -- a phrase that comes from theorizing about slavery...
"Of course, fooling the teacher is of little consequence. Quite possibly my sister's teacher even knew of the ruse and joked about it with his colleagues, the way masters chuckled that their slaves were so stupid they had to be told every evening to bring in the hoes or they would leave them out in the night dew."
So, no, you're not the only adult who remembers what school was like.
And school is worse today -- students have more restrictions, more rote testing, and less academic freedom than ever. No wonder they feel and act like imprisoned, rebellious slaves.
All over the world, people want to do exactly what the guy complains about: tune in, turn on, and drop out.
You can either view this as the beginning of the singularity or a sign that we're all going to turn into mostly immobile blobs of flesh wired into a continuously self-pleasuring electronic grid. Or perhaps both of those things are the same thing. As far as me, I'm optimistic that changes in society and technology will lead to great advances in human knowledge and science. I think as some generations plug into the grid other generations in other cultures will do all the heavy lifting. On the other hand, when it comes to difficult things, like space exploration or politics, I'm not so optimistic. It's hard to have a democracy when people don't know what "agriculture" is.