Оболванивание американского мышления

The Dumbing Down of the American Mind

There is a very dangerous phenomenon that seems to be occurring in the United States of America; something that I refer to as “the dumbing-down of the American mind,” a nearly willful tendency for Americans to forgo reality in favor of believing what they want to believe. But how could such a thing have occurred in such a proud nation, one that, according to George Bush, has become known as a bastion of freedom and democracy, a bright light for the whole world to see?

In my opinion, there are five factors that can explain such a phenomenon. First, there is the dumbing-down of education in our country. After having taught psychology at the college level for the past 39 years, I have seen our standards (what we essentially expect our students to accomplish in order to prove that they have learned something of value) go straight to hell! I began my career as an Instructor of Psychology back in 1966 at a very small junior college located only 60 miles south of the Canadian border, one with an enrollment of only 180 students, no doubt, a very cold and humble place in which to begin a teaching career!

And can you believe it, I actually required my students to read an entire textbook during the semester. And nobody got upset Not the administrators, not the parents, nor even the students! However, today, if I were to do such a thing, I would have an extremely difficult time getting enough students to enroll in my classes in order to keep my job. The problem: A very determined standoff between the remaining few teachers willing to maintain standards versus a generation or two of students who are nearly unwilling to learn, students who have “apparently gone on strike” with an attitude of “I dare you to force me to learn!” The result: The fact that leniency (a lowering of academic standards in our country) has won out at the expense of quality education in that of our high schools as well as that of our colleges.

Consequently, in my opinion, our country is slowly but surely becoming “a nation of near retards,” a collective group of individuals who have become so absurdly self-absorbed and disinterested in acquiring knowledge that we, as a nation, are slowly but surеlу losing touch with the reality of what is actually going on in the world! The best example is our population’s general sense of ignorance in relation to world history, and especially inability (or perhaps even unwillingness) to understand our own country’s complicity in relation to the 9/11 attacks upon our nation.