{"id":42,"date":"2011-04-19T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2011-04-19T11:21:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T11:21:00","slug":"near-and-dear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"Near and Dear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near and dear to my heart\u00c2\u00a0is the dumbing down of the populace I see each day.\u00c2\u00a0Little things like simple math skills gone missing. A complete lack of\u00c2\u00a0knowledge\u00c2\u00a0of the world around us and how it works. Attention spans approximating that of a gnat.<\/p>\n

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All of these problems I believe are symptomatic of a change of attitude in society as a whole. A few generations ago, education was regarded as the way to a better life. Parents emphasized education as a way to a better life to their offspring. Somewhere along the way the whole process has been ditched in favor of \u00c2\u00a0the many faces of the cult of idol-ism. So now we have a growing group of semi-literate and scientifically uneducated people who follow the dictates of the talking head of the moment without critically\u00c2\u00a0examining\u00c2\u00a0anything. It scares me for the future.<\/p>\n

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One of the oft overlooked consequences of the dumbing down of America is the increasingly strident opinions of the populace. One of my favorite quotes puts it\u00c2\u00a0succinctly:<\/p>\n

People are getting dumber but more opinionated.<\/i> — Philip Roth<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can’t be much clearer than that. Check out your favorite letters to the editor page for classic examples. (Or listen to a call in radio or TV program since many are no longer capable of writing a coherent letter.)<\/i><\/p>\n

On the other hand, my\u00c2\u00a0rationalist\u00c2\u00a0mind demands that I also ponder if the dumbing down is real or just a a figment of my imagination. After all:<\/p>\n

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.<\/i> — George Orwell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what do you think. Is the increasing\u00c2\u00a0stridency\u00c2\u00a0of modern opinion due to the dumbing down of the populace or ….?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near and dear to my heart\u00c2\u00a0is the dumbing down of the populace I see each day.\u00c2\u00a0Little things like simple math skills gone missing. A complete lack of\u00c2\u00a0knowledge\u00c2\u00a0of the world around us and how it works. Attention spans approximating that of a gnat. All of these problems I believe are symptomatic of a change of attitude … Continue reading Near and Dear<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}