Not long before he passed away almost 20 years ago, my younger brother Chuck and I were talking about how so many of our friends knew little or nothing about anything except for what they could see with their eyes or put in their mouths. He called it 'the Stupidization of America'.
From science to civics, from history to grammar, from common sense to basic life skills... Chuck's view that Americans were mostly unable to comprehend or understand facts and reality still holds true today and, IMHO is far worse than we're willing to admit.
In a society that has all the information in the world literally available at our fingertips, we're becoming increasingly uneducated, uninformed, ignorant, willfully ignorant, clueless and stupid.
UNEDUCATED (adjective) - Lacking an education; poorly educated. "Larry had never heard of a wolverine."
UNINFORMED (adjective) - Not having or showing awareness or understanding of the facts. "Larry couldn't figure out why the wolverine kept trying to bite him."
IGNORANT (adjective) - Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated. "Larry didn't know wolverines made bad pets."
WILLFUL IGNORANCE (noun) - A decision in bad faith to avoid becoming informed about something so as to avoid having to make undesirable decisions that such information might prompt. "Larry didn't care if wolverines made bad pets."
CLUELESS (adjective) - Having no knowledge, understanding or ability. "Larry assured himself that raising a wolverine would be easy."
STUPID (adjective) - Having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense. "Larry decided to bring his wolverine to the birthday party."
For this essay, let's agree that none of these terms are inherently derogatory or abusive, but are simple descriptions of human cognitive conditions. They apply to many people, mostly a result of the current national apathy and hostility towards a comprehensive primary and secondary public educational system, K through 12.
"If you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century." - Barack Hussein Obama
Charter schools have no overall discernable advantage towards education, nor do they produce better-educated students than public schools. Check out the following report:
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-are-charter-schools-and-do-they-deliver/
Private schools are the antithesis of public education. They bar students whose parents can't afford the cost to access the (supposedly) highest-end educators and facilities. That's Capitalism, baby!
Faith-based schools are the American version of Middle East madrassas. Students are marinated in a religious au jus which affects their worldview for the rest of their lives, but HEY... they'll be in Heaven eventually, so why worry about it, right?
Most of my public school teachers were committed to generating young adults with questioning minds, strong critical-thinking skills and an understanding of our collective social history, structures and moral guardrails. At present, we're losing qualified public school educators at a rapid pace, as they're choosing to give up on a cherished career path. It's the same with healthcare workers.
Maybe they're just burned out. Maybe it's because educators have grown tired of being treated so poorly by ignorant parents and clueless school boards. Maybe they're not thrilled about having to be both educators AND armed guards tasked with repelling school shooters while earning a measly salary as unappreciated and derided 'woke' educators.
Maybe... just maybe... they see themselves as skilled and certified public servants who are treated like domestic servants that babysit students for ignorant parents who couldn't pass a U.S. Citizenship test if their lives depended on it.
As an aside, why is it that immigrants seeking to gain US Citizenship are required to verbally answer 10 random questions from a 100-question test, but US high-school students aren't required to pass that same test to earn a diploma? Just for giggles, have a look at the US Citizenship Test questions and answers:
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/100q.pdf
Regardless of how educators feel about their role as glorified babysitters/armed guards, the impact of the public's apathy and conservative antipathy towards public education has real-world results. I can't blame educators for the situation we find ourselves in.
It's a generational decay that's been on the radar for decades, and it's becoming a national tragedy. We're now surrounded by an alarming number of citizens who, to put it bluntly, are just plain ignorant. At the same time, public school districts across the country are, at the direction of willfully ignorant school boards and local politicians, forcing teachers to use textbooks and study plans that are whitewashed of 'uncomfortable' historical facts and context, and instead are injected with simplistic, revisionist pablum.
Also too... they're banning books. (Sigh... facepalm).
They don't know the difference between the National deficit and National debt.
They don't really know or care much about voting.
They know nothing about other countries, geopolitics, or the global environmental crisis.
They don't know why the Civil War, World War 1 or World War 2 were fought. They don't know who Medgar Evers, Norma McCorvey or Clarence Darrow were. They can't explain the difference between capitalism, socialism and communism. They can't explain the difference between democracy, autocracy, theocracy and fascism.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
The nuclear-grade levels of fear, suspicion, hate and mindless violence we're seeing all over the country are directly tied to the overwhelming ignorance of our citizens. The societal guardrails are being removed, and now many citizens will believe almost anything because, well... they know almost nothing.
I can understand why some folks are uneducated or uninformed, especially if they've never had access to a well-rounded primary and secondary education. On the other hand, ignorance is unacceptable, and willful ignorance is a plague that needs to be ended pronto because it leads to cluelessness and stupidity. And the danger of having a nation of clueless and stupid people is that they're too stupid to know how stupid they are, so they'll try to keep wolverines as pets.
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch
As leaders and citizens continue to devalue education, everything else becomes expendable, including the value of a meaningful existence. When that happens, the wolverines will have an easy time of taking over and keeping stupid humans as pets.
There's only one thing that can prevent this:
NO-COST COMPREHENSIVE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL, INCLUDING COMMUNITY COLLEGE.
We dismiss the value of public education at our own peril, and that scares the shit out of me, but I'll likely be dead and long gone before the wolverine overlords usurp human authority.
At least I hope so. I really, really hope so.
All images, Gracias de Google Images; all definitions, Gracias de Google Dictionary; all videos, Gracias de YouTube. All hail the Wolverine Overlords!!
