FEAR, IGNORANCE, HATE

We are a stupid, dumbed down world, in particular my beloved United States of America, consisting mainly of stupid, dumbed down nitwits that have succumbed to swallowing the mindless minutia that are served up to them daily.

The term dumbing down describes the deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of schooling, education,  literature , cinema,  news media and culture. 

The idea of and the term dumbing down originated in 1933 as slang, used by motion picture screenplay writers, to mean: “revise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence.”

I'd say we were dumbing down, if the phrase itself didn't seem so dumb. But there's no doubt that we are. Study after study shows that modern society is getting ever more stupid with each passing year.

The comfortable assumption that we are always on an upward evolutionary trajectory is both arrogant and wrong. In fact, at this rate, soon we'll be able to do little more than grunt and point.

In the latest instance, a research team from universities in Sweden, Holland and Ireland found "a pronounced decline in IQ since the Victorian era, three times bigger than previous theoretical estimates would have us believe."

Yes, those repressed prudes,notoriously obsessed with keeping table legs covered up in case they gave men sexy thoughts about finely turned ankles, were actually substantially smarter than the free wheeling techno nerds of today. The scientists compared reaction times  regarded as a key indicator of general intelligence, productivity and creativity from the late 19th century to the present and discovered that our brains are definitely slowing down. 

The Victorians were positively geniuses: the average man in 1889 had a reaction time of 183 milliseconds, while the present day Mr. Dopey can only manage a sluggish 253 milliseconds.

I'm not surprised. We don't need studies and statistics to tell us this stuff, the evidence is staring us in the face every day.

In culture, in politics, in everyday life, superficial "puff"  and mindless rhetoric regularly triumphs over substantial, thought through ideas. 

Mindless Super Bowl hype, commercials that truly suck, endless diversions about Justin Bieber, The Kardashians, Reality TV, and all that creeps to the lowest denominator of humanity command ever more attention then the huge problems facing our world. 

So much easier on the shrinking brain then focusing on issues such as  Drugs, violence, corruption, war, unemployment, disease, etc. Keep it simple, don't think, just pretend that all is good.

Attention spans limited by the 140 character demands of Twitter, we often behave more like bored toddlers than adults, expecting to be continually indulged and entertained.

Radio and television programs urge listeners to text in their thoughts, however stupid, which are dutifully read out on air. It's all done in the name of democracy and openness and anti-elitism, but to my mind it's more often about flattering people and pretending to care about what they think.

What's worse, we are awash in corporate lingo, PR soundbites, advertising, all which further brainwash the dull, shrinking mind.

Political and Corporate corruption, poorly dressed up as innovative ideas or new initiatives, stink up the communication venues behind titles that insult what little thinking we still do for ourselves.

We live in a society where politicians are owned by the Corporations and Special Interest Groups. Their highly transparent use of dishonest but cozy sounding words, twisted to be used by those in power, whose only goal is to keep us polarized, divided, weak, and powerless.

Instead of our government fearing the people, the people fear the government and each other. This insures that we will remain divided, dumbed down, weak, disorganized and demoralized.

There are loads of these worthy-sounding words flying about, intended to take the bad look off the fact that that the whole dysfunctional edifice of government by politicians is predicated on maintaining, not ending, division.

All politicians suck. Period. No matter who.The people don’t matter to this gang. They pay no attention. They think in totalitarian terms. They’ve got the troops. They’ve got the army. They’ve got Congress. They’ve got the judiciary. Why should they worry? Let the chattering classes chatter. The government is comprised of thugs, liars, cheats. 
 
Americans who ask too many annoying questions or don’t demonstrate the right attitude toward government leaders can expect to encounter the hostility of an incipient police state, a thug nation that reflects the arrogance and the contempt for dissent that is the stock and trade of the nation’s phony "democracy".

Do they think some of us are too dumb to notice? 

I don't believe "they" even care, because in a mostly dumbed down populace, fear equals ignorance and results in hate, nothing really ever changes when that formula is the manner in which most people live their selfish lives.