""Dumb And Dumber""
""Dumb And Dumber""
B.:
I wonder what the results would have been if this survey was conducted 40 years ago? ...
There might be a doctorate degree, a book deal, and a chat show career in this aspect of indoctrinated "Know Nothingness"". How it has been expressed through the pre, mid, and post ""American Century"".
This academic ''Compare and Contrast'' might just be a ''flat line'', rather than a Gothic or Lovecraftian decay, sliding down a descending performance curve, into a bleak, inbred cul de sac of Creationist dogmas.
I suspect the ignorance and, or misinformation about "The Bill Of Rights", and the U.S. Constitution in general, would have been on some level of "par" with the present day sample. Although the answers could have, to a higher percentage, been received in complete sentences and passable spelling and grammar.
Back then, a lot of - low - or - - slow -- , or --- no ---. learners were culled out in the junior high grades.
Less formal schooling was necessary to be a part of the 'industrial' work force. There was always the DRAFT [for men] and MARRIAGE [for women] to gobble up the drop outs, and keep them confined in a socially sanctioned institution. Death and prison has always been an structural option.
The punch line of this joke, inshrined in American Education, is that it has taken "The Bill Of Rights"' AND 'The Dollar Bill' to attract educated immigrants, who understand the advantages of one or both, to fill the intellectual void. This is how the Science and 'et al' has stayed world class since the beginning of The Republic.
With the present draconian economics of under funding schools, lowering of standards, AND outsourcing for highly educated talent, the U.S. may not be blessed with quality 'new' citizens, much less, marginal native born scholars. The prospective immigrant can stay ""home"' and still earn a middle class or higher living. The indigenous talent can lay, safe, in their warm and fuzzy cocoons and bask in the glow of peer approval.
Conformity, and subservience to authority, are as valuable, or encouraged by the status quo, as academic excellence. Mediocrity is ''good'' enough. Muddling through ''passes''.
Maybe our future is ""Dumb And Dumber"".
4too
