Stupid Chic

The big news this week was the President signing the repeal of the U.S. military's don't ask, don't tell policy. Long overdue and good news that was. Less reported were two stories that particularly caught my attention. One was a new Gallup poll that shows that 78% of Americans doubt the theory of evolution; the other was the number of Americans trying to get into the military who couldn't pass the entrance exam.

According to the Gallup poll, fully 40% of respondents believe that our planet was created by a supernatural being less than 10,000 years ago. I would sincerely wish that we were just being punked by the pollsters but, living in the South as I do, I'm actually a little surprised that the number isn't higher. I guess the East Coast elites skew the numbers downward a bit. My thoughts on this particular matter just give me a feeling of general malaise and I really don't even want to talk about it. It's all part of a bigger issue.

I'm sure it goes back much further but, having been there for it, I know that much of the "stupid chic" movement gained steam during the Reagan administration. To this point it has culminated in a few grotesque exaggerations in the form of Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michele Bachmann (who will ironically be on the incoming U.S. House Intelligence Committee). The basis for stupid chic is that anything coming from the left-wing media or collegiate intelligentsia is counter to the health of this country and contrary to the wishes of God Almighty regardless of whether it makes sense or not. These people, quite literally, just say crap like victims of Tourette's and their viewing, reading, and listening public take it all as a call to arms.

I gritted my teeth for eight years as the Ivy League educated president of our country mispronounced the word nuclear. Kind of a small point but it shows a general lack of the kind of curiosity that defines intelligence. When it was pointed out to me after years of eating it that "sherbert" was actually sherbet with only one "r", I changed the way I pronounced it because I realized I had been wrong. I'm not sure what kind of brain can hear something said to it repeatedly and regurgitate it back pronounced differently but it's not one I want running my country. But it's arguments such as the one I've just made that brand me as an "elitist". The argument is basically that people like me use our East Coast-style book learning to push an agenda that's, at its core, un-American.

America in the world view of the right-wing is a place of rugged individualism where books are a kind of evil used by the left to propagate a godless and socialist society anathema to the world view of the founding fathers. For some reason, along the way, it became widely believed among the right that learning too much was an old European thing that we shook off when we declared our independence. I'm not certain what it is we're doing as a country that makes us different than the "Old Europe" vilified by Donald Rumsfeld. America certainly resembles any good old European aristocracy in my estimation.

I'd like to say that I'm jaded enough to believe that the American political and business aristocracy is just successfully keeping the populace undereducated and, thus, more pliable. You know, thump a drum and invade Iraq, that sort of thing. However, I honestly don't think it's intentional. I think the political right's attacks on the left have to center on the questioning of the source of their beliefs in order to make their own arguments. You have to argue against science and against education and facts. When large portions of society have to believe that truth is fiction in order to follow a political message, this is what you get. The old school belief that you don't question the priest and the Church hierarchy because they're a conduit for God's message to his flock has been extended to include the modern-day messengers; their message must be accepted on faith because they're the ones representing the full will and intent of the Creator, the one who wants America to be a shining beacon on a hill for all the world to see, a capitalist lighthouse guiding the rest of the world to safe harbor.

Now, here's where I fly my little conservative flag. Much of the distrust of the "Eastern Elite" comes from the outlandish changes they've brought to our system of public education. From the '60s onward, what is being taught in public schools has changed dramatically. Just as the religious right wing thinks education should include creationist rhetoric and Jesus talk (excluding the anti-wealth bit), the left has visions of an educational system in which kids are taught the value of believing that everybody is the same and pushing an agenda also backed, ironically, by the Chambers of Commerce where Latino students are taught classes in Spanish. After all, it doesn't matter if they can speak English when they're mowing our lawns, washing our dishes, picking our fruit, and watching our children. The result of the tug of war over education is a bunch of kids who know absolutely nothing. They question why they should know it anyway. They can't read well or write well, they have little cognitive ability, know little about government or economics, but still come out believing that, as Americans, they have some sort of divine right to take part in society and be successful.

To suggest programs where students learn trades or skills appropriate for their intellectual level is stripping them of the right to realize their full potential as Americans though, in the current system of public education, most students graduate ill-informed and qualified for little.

The result, in the past five years, 25% of people trying to join the U.S. military could not pass the entrance exam. The exam is designed to test basic math, science, and reading skills. This isn't a high school test. To qualify for military service, you must have graduated high school or passed the GED. This isn't like "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" where contestants are several years removed from having to answer questions like those on this test; these are almost all recent high school graduates. I took a practice test and scored 83% because I'm horrible at algebra. Actually I scored 50% on that portion of the test that included algebra and geometry but aced the basic math section. This after not having been in school for longer than these current high school grads have been alive. I was amused to see that one of the vocabulary words was Yiddish but basically the test was pretty damned easy. I would encourage readers to take the test just for fun if the time is there.

I'm very happy for the repeal of DADT. I guess you'd call me a homophile if I might coin the word. I've known gay people all my life and don't think of them any differently than I do straights. Maybe I've even more trusting of gays because I know so many horrible straight people.

As glad as I am for the repeal though, the news of the military testing scores should have been the major news story of the week. It's part of the reason America has lost so many high tech jobs, why our populace is involved to such a small degree in the political process, and, if not corrected, will continue to be the single most critical dilemma facing us in the future.