WAS: What Adults are Saying about Comfort in Ignorance

Intelligence is essential currency in the modern world and too many are comfortable without it. This is playing with fire.

One remarkable feature of America as a superpower is it has long invested heavily in public institutions to propel its world standing. Government post-war development in infrastructure, communication, basic research, medicine and an unparalleled military has long put the US near the top of the world heap. This has fueled status as “international leader” all the while our blue ball spins with dozens of currencies worldwide pegged to the US dollar. Even more impressive was America’s investment in public education.

This resulted in what was for a very long time primary (and especially), secondary public education systems that were the envy of the developed world. What motivated this was an odd mix of economics, geopolitics, the Baby Boom and a type of Washington pork-barrel legislation that was better (not perfect) at sharing the nation’s spoils than the shill-encrusted system of compromised lobbyists and lawmakers that now predominates. There was also a widely held belief guiding this—that an educated citizen was one best suited to complete civic duty and optimize pursuit of individual freedom. It was a righteous ethos that moved many born and bred Americans from coal fields, farms and dreary mill towns to higher ambitions and more satisfying purposes by the standards of the day. In short for millions, the development and excellence of American education institutions unlocked access to the world and endless possibilities!

Those days have passed. At the secondary level all those education dollars from years ago have unraveled as universities have selected a corporate mentality by which to grow and manage operations. Too often universities show no resemblance to the mission of the classical academy with a publicly appointed mission (scholarship, public service, research). At the primary level not only have certain political movements wrecked the system, they have used public dollars to do so. The pernicious school voucher system that started in 1990s Ohio and has spread to many other states uses public education monies to broadly support private schools. This way those with children possessing sufficient social status, but insufficient household funds, can enjoy the private school benefits of all the other Smith’s and Jones—and especially—steer clear of all those other kids who are different and less desirable. While hardly the only reason, this approach has killed public schools in states that permit ( no wait, embrace) this practice. (See: Arizona, Ohio and many southern states).

At its core education is about unveiling the possibilities of freedom—to learn, think, know and many other things. The basic function of being literate indeed is a central human function, but it is also the gateway that unlocks all other cognition that might be arrayed for bigger purposes. When entwined with modern education methods the world instantly changes to one of limitless possibilities. Just as Dorothy’s black-and-white, tornado flung existence turned vibrant upon opening the door, that’s what education (and appreciation for education opportunities) can do. A monochrome world becomes real and colorful and a key pillar on which to optimize self- actualization.

It takes little imagination then to realize that education facilitates knowledge and its application in many forms. In most places and times this is almost always a valued currency. So then, why, has America, for awhile now not merely in the era of number 47, so broadly dismissed knowledge and those who are knowledgeable? Knowledge for both aesthetic and applied purposes has long been a pillar of Western thought that opened a real and authentic life. Somehow we have shifted both education systems and the knowledge created from a valued national resource that free’s people, to a value-judged status symbol.

Especially in an immigrant country post-heavy industry— it was knowledge that delivered the ever rebooting promise of America. It is, what in but a single generation, could help turn a family of Italian peasants into heads of state, community leaders or Wall Street icons. Though not exactly fairy dust, knowledge was a serious stimulus that used to be a calling card and door opener. Now in an American era that is hard to describe without severe pessimism, it has flipped to become a collective home-arrest ankle monitor that threatens to intellectually shackle us, or worse, silence us. What’s even more sickening is far too many prize and embrace ignorance—their own and as seen elsewhere. This is not merely a challenge for well-educated folk, professionals or those entrusted with guarding, developing or deploying knowledge resources. It affects us all and most ironically, its most damning impact may be to those forsaking it to pursue a more streamlined and simplified ignorant life. This is an amazing and perhaps unprecedented reversal to the American zeitgeist.

The evidence of this is everywhere: Just a cursory review of educational achievement against international standards, or our politics and the increasingly perverse relationship it holds with our media, or the dozens of daily micro-encounters where too many others have become dishwater dull—all of it—is facilitating a new America filled with mumbling idiots. In an increasingly perilous world the danger from this is extreme.

What’s worse, amid the many information technologies and foreign interest motives that facilitates all of this, few care to sound the alarm. This offers much threat to Americans, their security and any hope of enjoying a reasonable status in an increasingly fracturing international order as Earth burns. To be dumb or dim (for whatever reason, chosen or not), is not a life sentence to penury and steerage class social status. Those who judge themselves this way are incorrect. But, nor is it a basis on which America can move forward to encounter the colossal challenges of the modern day. More than ever, today’s and tomorrow’s solutions are to be driven by brain power. The more we ignore that the more we invite a return for everyone to a peasant life.