h/t: Richard Dawkins Foundation Facebook
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QUOTATION: “On Education” / Albert Einstein
Reply
Monthly Archives: March 2013
RELIGIOUS SATIRE: “Mr Deity and the Advocate” / David Silverman
AMURIKAN IDIOCY: Thirty-seven Percent of Amurikans are Absolute Idiots! / Mark Morford
. . . A whopping 24 percent [of Americans] believe dinosaurs and man hung out together. Eighteen percent still believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
Do you believe in angels? Forty-five percent of Americans do. In fact, roughly 48 percent – Republicans and Democrats alike – believe in some form of creationism.
In sum and all averaged out, it’s safe to say about 37 percent of Americans are just are not very bright. Or rather, quite shockingly dumb. Perhaps beyond reach. Perhaps beyond hope or redemption. Perhaps beyond caring about anything they have to say in the public sphere ever again. Sorry, Kansas.
Did you frown at that last paragraph? Was it a terribly elitist and unkind thing to say? Sort of. Probably. But I’m not sure it matters, because none of those people are reading this column right now, or any column for that matter, because reading anything even remotely complex or analytical is something only 42 percent of the population enjoy doing on a regular basis, which is why most TV shows, all reality shows, many major media blogs and all of Fox News is scripted for a 5th-grade education/attention span. OMG LOL kittens! 19 babies having a worse day than you. WTF is up with Justin Timberlake’s hair?!?
It is this bizarre, circular, catch-22 kind of question, asked almost exclusively by intellectual liberals because intellectual conservatives don’t actually exist, given how higher education leads to more developed critical thinking (you already know the vast majority of university professors and scientists identify as Democrat/progressive, right?) which leads straight to a more nimble, open-minded perspective. In short: The smarter you are, the less rigid/more liberal you become.
POLITY IDIOCY: “Are Americans Too Stupid For Democracy?” / Joshua Holland
[…]
Widespread ignorance of objective reality poses a genuine threat to democracy. The people of the United States have ignorance in abundance.
The way representative democracy is supposed to work is pretty simple: you protect the fundamental rights of the minority (so it doesn’t become two wolfs and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner), and then the majority of citizens, acting in their own rational self-interest, elect representatives who will pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens.
That’s the theory, but “rational” is a key word in that formulation. What happens when lots of citizens don’t have a solid grasp of what’s going on in the real world?
Consider some examples that are especially relevant to our current political scene.
– People Don’t Recognize Their Lack of Competence, Can’t Judge the Competence of Politicians
– Politicians Think Their Constituents Are Much Further to the Right Than Polls Suggest
– The Wealthy Think the Wealthy Should Pay More Taxes, But They Don’t Think They’re Wealthy
– Americans Like Sweden’s Distribution of Wealth, and Think They Already Have
– Government Spending Has Decreased Under Obama, But Nobody Knows It
– The Deficit Has Been Stabilized and Is Shrinking, But Only 6 Percent of Americans Know It
– Foreign Aid Is Pocket Change
– So, Should We Just Give Up On Democracy?
PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: “The Shame of America’s Gulag” / Chris Hedges
Illustration by Mr. Fish
If, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” then we are a nation of barbarians. Our vast network of federal and state prisons, with some 2.3 million inmates, rivals the gulags of totalitarian states. Once you disappear behind prison walls you become prey. Rape. Torture. Beatings. Prolonged isolation. Sensory deprivation. Racial profiling. Chain gangs. Forced labor. Rancid food. Children imprisoned as adults. Prisoners forced to take medications to induce lethargy. Inadequate heating and ventilation. Poor health care. Draconian sentences for nonviolent crimes. Endemic violence.
QUOTATION: “Blasphemy” / Stephen Fry
QUOTATION: Krishnamurti / “Fear is one of the greatest problems in life.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti (May 11, 1895 – February 17, 1986)
Indian born speaker and writer on philosophical and spiritual subjects
Fear is one of the greatest problems in life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted and aggressive. It dare not move away from its own patterns of thinking, and this breeds hypocrisy. Until we are free from fear, climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, we will always remain in darkness. – Freedom from the Known,40
Always Question Authority 