Why is American culture so dumbed-down, so anti-intellectual? Answer below.
News item: Many Americans actually believe that the Obama health care proposal would give the government the power to euthanize citizens.
How could such bizarre ideas be getting traction? There’s really only one explanation: Many Americans are easily misled because they are uninformed, incapable of attaining the knowledge they need to make intelligent decisions and incapable of critically analyzing the limited information that they do obtain. In plain English, they are ignorant.
And the unpleasant truth is that The System wants you stupid, and the stupider the better. In fact, if Americans suddenly became critical thinkers, questioning their government and expecting it to be responsive to their needs, The System would go into a state of shock.
Not that The System can be defined as merely the government – more accurately, it is defined as the government plus the corporate interests that really control it. These interests range from financial interests on Wall Street, to defense contractors that rely heavily on government spending, to consumer goods manufacturers and all of their ancillary industries, to huge corporate media conglomerates, to the auto industry and other large industries. In any fair analysis of power and influence in America (and not just political, but economic and cultural as well), corporate interests, not the people, will be found to possess it.
And that’s why The System wants you stupid. In a political structure that theoretically places power in the hands of the people, outside interests can only gain control through manipulation, and that process is much easier when the object of manipulation is oblivious. If the people, and not corporate interests, actually wielded power and controlled the government (remember that quirky term, “We the people…”?), The System would be thrown into a tizzy – it would spell the end of the corporate oligarchy. By molding the population into a passive, obedient and uninformed herd, corporate interests complete their quiet coup.
Since The System is controlled by corporate interests and not the people, the single most important goal of corporate interests – profits – must necessarily become the highest priority of The System (and therefore the government, which is such an integral part of The System). If somehow a population of critical thinkers and engaged citizens happened to result in the highest profit margins for the corporations that control The System, then The System would surely encourage the nurturing of such a population. As it turns out, however, a stupid population is much more profitable.
For example, only a stupid population can be easily hoodwinked into believing that huge military budgets are needed even when no plausible enemy exists. Military contractors such as General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed, Haliburton, and numerous others rely on a compliant public that sees military spending as a necessity. Peace would be disastrous to the bottom line.
Fear and hostility, always useful in generating military spending, can be easily stirred in a stupid population, whereas a population of critical thinkers would question militarism. The System must always have a justification for huge military budgets, whether it’s communism, terrorism, or whatever other “ism” will do the job.
That America outspends the rest of the world combined militarily is never mentioned in public discourse. That America is the only country with literally hundreds of overseas military bases (while most other nations have none) is also off the table as a discussion topic. And that America is the only developed country that cannot afford to provide health care for its citizens as a matter of right, not of privilege, is rarely mentioned as well.
And militarism is certainly not the only means through which The System finds profit in ignorance. Ignorance, as opposed to education and critical thinking, makes mindless entertainment hugely profitable, as is shown by the enormous corporate-dominated entertainment industry that generates both rubbish and cash flow in awesome quantities. In fact, the entertainment business provides a double service, as it not only generates huge corporate profits but it also helps to keep the public pacified and distracted. Too busy watching reality television and action news, funded by an ad industry that uses the media to project consumption-oriented imagery into the public consciousness, the public has little time for things like political engagement, dissent, civil disobedience and so forth.
The complementary nature of the various aspects of The System – an advertising industry supporting dumbed-down entertainment, which itself encourages conformity and passivity, which in turn stabilizes The System, which benefits greatly from the consumption-based society that is created via advertising and media – is remarkable. No clever conspirators could have consciously designed such devious synergy.
And consider for just a moment how intricately The System carries out its mission of serving our corporate masters. Through an ignorant public, The System can operate as it wishes, easily distracting the people whenever scrutiny would create discomfort for corporate interests. The War on Drugs, for example, a hopeless conflict lost long ago, supports entire sectors of The System while keeping the public’s focus away from meaningful debate and discussion of other issues. The War on Drugs gives ratings to corporate newscasts, provides justification for police budgets and wasteful government spending, and enables cynical politicians and media personalities to shift public attention onto minority communities and fan tensions of race and class. Indeed, what would The System do without a War on Drugs?
Probably spend even more time talking about the War on Terrorism, another enormous magnification of fear. Not that there aren’t bad people in the world who are sometimes a threat, but The System takes the public’s susceptibility to fear to levels far beyond reason, using the elusive terrorist villains to justify Big Government at its worst – a war machine, a money pit, and a threat to civil liberties.
Wars on drugs and terrorism are ingenious, not just because the achieve so much for The System, but because they are Orwellian in their perpetuity, never really ending. In all of these “wars,” there are few drug cartels or terrorists who actually need to fear, but that was never the purpose. The important thing is that the interests behind The System are funded, secure, and content. That enormous percentages of our citizenry must be incarcerated is an unfortunate aside, a bit of an embarrassment that we must face when we compare ourselves to other developed nations, which somehow don't lock up their citizens at such high rates.
Patriotism, called “the last refuge of scoundrels” by Samuel Johnson, also has an important place in The System. Corporate interests are inanimate, and therefore apathetic to emotions, including the emotion of love of country, but nonetheless they benefit greatly when the public in filled with national pride. War and military spending become much easier to justify when a public’s emotions are raised as such. The young want to fight, and the old want to help them. Sacrifice, which is usually made by ordinary citizens and not the corporate kind, is expected, and somehow the true beneficiaries of that sacrifice are usually the corporations, who tend to reflect record profits when the war machine is in gear.
Symbols, another of The System’s useful tools, can understandably stir emotions even in the most sober, thoughtful person, but in a stupid society they become exponentially more important. Flags, slogans connecting the divinity to the nation, words and emblems denoting patriotism – the more widespread such phenomena, the further down the slippery slope away from rational thinking a society has gone. And of course, all of these characteristics can be found at every turn in today’s America.
Stupid citizens can also be so manipulated to spend all of their money on things they don’t need, even to the point of depleting the equity in their homes (if they are even fortunate enough to own a home). “Spend, spend, spend!” we are told by all arms of the corporate media machinery from the youngest of age until the grave, and we gladly comply. Obviously, a nation of critical thinkers would be unlikely to willfully part with earned assets as such, but The System need not worry about such a population. Easy consumer debt and widespread consumer indebtedness are hallmarks of a modern stupid society.
An ignorant public can also be conditioned to fear tiny nations that pose no threat, such a Chavez’s Venezuela, for example. The System will insist that its hostility to such countries is based on democratic principle, which anyone with a modestly operative brain knows to be untrue. Our country has supported the most brutal of dictators and undemocratic states (Pinochet, Batista, Somoza, the Shah, Saddam Hussein, the Saudi Arabian monarchy, etc.) and backed aggressive action against many popular and democratically elected governments. But The System need not worry in the least about being called to task about such activity, because the public doesn’t know or care about it.
And then there’s the subject of religion. Now, of course very intelligent people can be found in various religious traditions, and it would be too broad to characterize religion itself as the root of America’s anti-intellectual crisis. But any fair assessment of America’s tendency towards stupidity would have to include comments about the enormous percentages who believe the Bible to be literally true, who reject evolution, and who honestly believe (with optimism) Armageddon to be just over the horizon. Surely this can’t be seen as a desirable trait for the single most powerful nation, the nation with by far more nuclear warheads than any other. And it’s especially frightening that many of the Bible-thumpers can be found in the military, even among the top brass.
Such religiosity is almost always endorsed by The System, not because the corporate entities have any hopes of eternal life in the hereafter (though one never knows), but because religiosity supports The System. Religion can provide a claim to morality (often unjustified, but that’s beside the point), but most importantly religion complements the patriotism and nationalism that are so vitally important to The System. God and country are two notes on the same scale, always part of The System’s hymnal.
Moreover, The System has learned that pandering to religious inclinations, especially with regard to the political issues that mean little to the corporate masters but so much to religious conservative voters, can be productive and win elections. The most opportunistic will support any social issue religious conservatives demand, but even those with more restraint will nonetheless give due respect to religious rhetoric and more subtle pandering. Give religious voters some occasional red meat, the cynics within The System all realize, so long as those voters support The System’s agenda.
There may be reason for hope and optimism. And if you find it, please let me know. In the meantime, I can only watch as enraged citizens attack those who try to reign in the war machine and perhaps suggest that a bit more be spent on health care and other “butter” items. “It’s socialism!” they cry, unable to define the term but dutifully certain that it’s un-American.
And the Dow is doing well lately, isn’t it?