Why Americans Are So Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for it
Sure propaganda, government secrecy and Fox News have a lot to do with it. But there are broader societal pressures as well.
TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT
Consortium News / By Lawrence Davidson comments_image COMMENTS
Why Americans Are So Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for it
Sure propaganda, government secrecy and Fox News have a lot to do with it. But there are broader societal pressures as well.
April 8, 2013 |
In 2008, Rick Shenkman, the Editor-in-Chief of the History News Network, published a book entitled Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter. In it he demonstrated, among other things, that most Americans were: (1) ignorant about major international events, (2) knew little about how their own government runs and who runs it, (3) were nonetheless willing to accept government positions and policies even though a moderate amount of critical thought suggested they were bad for the country, and (4) were readily swayed by stereotyping, simplistic solutions, irrational fears and public relations babble.
Shenkman spent 256 pages documenting these claims, using a great number of polls and surveys from very reputable sources. Indeed, in the end it is hard to argue with his data. So, what can we say about this?
One thing that can be said is that this is not an abnormal state of affairs. As has been suggested in prior analyses, ignorance of non-local affairs (often leading to inaccurate assumptions, passive acceptance of authority, and illogical actions) is, in fact, a default position for any population.
To put it another way, the majority of any population will pay little or no attention to news stories or government actions that do not appear to impact their lives or the lives of close associates. If something non-local happens that is brought to their attention by the media, they will passively accept government explanations and simplistic solutions.
The primary issue is “does it impact my life?” If it does, people will pay attention. If it appears not to, they won’t pay attention.
Bureaucracies position the worker within closely supervised departments where success equates with doing a specific job according to specific rules. Within this limited world, one learns not to think outside the box, and so, except as applied to one’s task, critical thinking is discouraged and one’s worldview comes to conform to that of the bureaucracy. That is why bureaucrats are so often referred to as cogs in a machine.
That American ignorance is explainable does not make it any less distressing. At the very least it often leads to embarrassment for the minority who are not ignorant. Take for example the facts that polls show over half of American adults don’t know which country dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or that 30 percent don’t know what the Holocaust was.
We might explain this as the result of faulty education; however, there are other, just as embarrassing, moments involving the well educated. Take, for instance, the employees of Fox News. Lou Dobbs (who graduated from Harvard University) is host of the Fox Business Network talk show Lou Dobbs Tonight. Speaking on March 23 about gun control, he and Fox political analyst Angela McGlowan (a graduate of the University of Mississippi) had the following exchange:
McGlowan: “What scares the hell out of me is that we have a president . . . that wants to take our guns, but yet he wants to attack Iran and Syria. So if they come and attack us here, we don’t have the right to bear arms under this Obama administration.”
Dobbs: “We’re told by Homeland Security that there are already agents of Al Qaeda here working in this country. Why in the world would you not want to make certain that all American citizens were armed and prepared?”
Despite education, ignorance plus ideology leading to stupidity doesn’t come in any starker form than this. Suffice it to say that nothing the President has proposed in the way of gun control takes away the vast majority of weapons owned by Americans, that the President’s actions point to the fact that he does not want to attack Syria or Iran, and that neither country has the capacity to “come and attack us here.”
Teaching Critical Thinking?
The schools are designed to prepare students for the marketplace and to make them loyal citizens.
As troubling as this apparently perennial problem of ignorance is, it is equally frustrating to listen to repeated schemes to teach critical thinking through the public schools. Of course, the habit of asking critical questions can be taught. However, if you do not have a knowledge base from which to consider a situation, it is hard think critically about it.
The truth is that people who are consistently active as critical thinkers are not going to be popular, either with the government or their neighbors. They are called gadflies. You know, people like Socrates, who is probably the best-known critical thinker in Western history. And, at least the well educated among us know what happened to him.
ほとんどのアメリカ人というのは国際政治に興味ももっておらず、自国の政治制度についても知らないが、それでていて、政府の国策には従順で、単純な解決法や不合理な不安に左右されてしまうが、それは、アメリカ人が、自分に影響のある地域のことだけに関心をもち、自分の枠組みの外に出ようとしないからであるが、その結果、広島に原爆を落としたのがどこの国か知らない人が半数以上おり、ホロコーストさえ知らないのが３０％もいる始末である、と。
教育が悪いのだという人がいるが、しかし、学歴は高くても、無知と凝り固まった偏見で例えば、創造説を取る人だっているわけである、と、批判的な思考法を形式的に身につけていたとしても、それを適用する基礎知識に欠けるから、役にたっていない。
かりに、常々批判的な思考ができる人がいても、あのソクラテスのように、政府と大衆には人気はないだろう、と。
ーーーーーこれ、別に、アメリカだけの話ではないわけで、日本でも同じで、日本のニュースは国際ニュースが少ないし、日本以外の国際関係について特に興味のある日本人というのは、私を含めて、わりに少ないんじゃないか。
官僚的な型にはまった思考というのも、これまた、われわれの日常生活というのはそれで事足りることが多いので、そんな風なのが癖になっている。
その意味で外国の本を読んだり、あるいは、外国で暮らしてみるというのは、いままでにない枠組みに接する絶好のチャンスであるとは思うのですが、人によって、自分の古い殻を破れない人たちもいる。日本人でもいますし、また、海外からきた記者なんかにも多い。
批判的思考、とか、議論の吟味、といったことは、とても大事なことで、お互い研鑽していくのが望ましいがしかし、日本人でもアメリカ人でもそうできているとは限らない。
そういう意味で、日本でもアメリカでも似たようなものなのですが、ただ、先日もいましたけど、アメリカ人のなかには、自分たちが創造的で、批判的な思考ができて、日本人はできないと思っているひとが案外多い。そこが、また無知なところですけど、アメリカ人に創造的な人も、批判的な思考が得意の人もいますけど、それが一般か、といえば、この記事の筆者のいうように、そうではないわけです。
日本でもクリエーティブな人も、批判的な人もいる。もちろん、私のように凡庸で無知も多いわけですが、なんていうか、日本が朝鮮を併合していたときに奢った日本人がいたように、植民地意識をもったアメリカ人がいるのは残念なことだが、事実であります。自分が無知であることを知らない。ソクラテスのようにはなってない。
じゃあ、日本人はどうか、というと、欧米人に卑屈でアジア人に尊大という人がいないわけではないので、これまた、似たような状況なのかもしれないですね。
