How did we get here? The dumbing of America, from Reagan to Trump and beyond ( www.salon.com )

dingus , 10 months ago

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’ -Isaac Asimov

I kind of agree with Asimov here, I think the cult of ignorance has been with us a long time, I think it springs from the puritans who emigrated here to escape the “persecution” of living in Europe during the Enlightenment. I mean, we’re talking about dumbing things down for a country that historically had witch burnings and more recently a Satanic Panic? The cult of ignorance has always been here, it’s just grown cancerous due to proliferation of misinformation and disinformation.