Guest Post by Chris Hedges
We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.
Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.
The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.
The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.
In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King” and perhaps as educational. “Culture,” she wrote, “is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment.”
“There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect,” Arendt wrote, “but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.”
The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.
As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers—our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues—who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.
The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.
Approx. 1/4 of the population has an IQ of below 85. They will never be literate. That is 80 million people.
I have long said they cannot add (much) value in a modern economy.
It will be a, if not the, great challenge of coming years.
The top 10% will thrive. The rest not so much.
Claw your way to that level, and prepare your kids to do the same. It will be a brutal era.
“Approx. 1/4 of the population has an IQ of below 85. They will never be literate. That is 80 million people.”
Is this really true? Damn.
In an all white population, it would not be true. It would only be 15% below 85. However, given the number of, well, you know, non-whites I think the 25% is perhaps even a bit low. One large minority group has an average IQ of only 85, and another very large group an IQ of around 90. Those two groups – probably 120 million people, would have as many as say 40 + million people with a sub 85 IQ . If the other 200 million people have 15% below 85, that is a total of 75 million right there. 80 million with IQs below 85 would be a good guess.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx
Admin – great illustration. Yep, that is the issue.
Wow! VERY graphic (no pun intended).
The Jefferson County Florida (my home) Public School System has become a Black system (Whites need not apply) and is a total failure academically and financially. The students average less than 30 on Standardized Tests and the Jefferson County School System is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (they could not find money to repair the A/C system so they put window units in the Administrative Office nor can they afford to hire the academic expert and financial expert the Fla Board mandated they hire). Shirley Washington (Jefferson County School Board member) testified that they are office staff heavy and JC teachers are better paid than most counties (only two turnovers this year) but the Media Center must receive additional funds somehow. The Florida DOE School Board has rejected their Turnaround Plan for academics and their Financial Recovery Plan. Most county students use the Opportunity Scholarships to attend schools in other counties but they cannot force the 700 Blacks still attending K-12 public schools in Jefferson County to go elsewhere nor does the Fla Board have the legal power to do what is needed (to shut down the system). Even if the reform minded Republican candidate, Maryanne Arbulu, is elected, I am sure the NAACP and ACLU will continue to stop every attempt to reform the system or fire anyone. Fla DOE will be holding more meetings soon and if they can show malfeasance, Gov Scott can take control. I believe that if we sent the remaining 700 Black Jefferson County students to Leon County, it will cause some of their schools will fail!
I generally admire Hedges and his work. This is an interesting and thought-provoking piece. As usual, however, he can’t resist a dig at the “Christian right.” My beliefs probably place me in Mr. hedges’ pigeonhole. I’ve become deplorable twice this week.
It is true and then some. It is deplorable.
I believe it was the talk show host Steve Allen that wrote a book The Dumbing Down of America many years ago. In it he documented the fall from the basic teaching to the crap they call it now. The cost of education everywhere has risen multiple 100s of times across the nation, yet we see articles like this truth. Stop and look around you at the people and what they are doing. What are the people under 30 doing? Look at the school systems and what they are calling education, not just locally but in college. The financial crisis that is coming will be devastating to 90% of the populace. If you do not read and know how to react to adversity you will be in that 90%. Sad but true, America is full of dumb people!
“to be self – critical,”
The ‘Touch Stone’ – Critical Thinking. Skillful judgment as to truth or merit.
The article by Chris Hedges very briefly touched upon this (quoted above) “critically” missing element in today’s population. To be a critical thinker requires an all around balanced educational background, based in a solid foundation of truthful facts, across multiple disciplines.
Those responsible for learning and then carrying forward this vital information to new generations have failed miserably. This failure is many generations old. The teaching profession has failed to teach the future teachers. There has been no progress in education to elevate and improve upon past knowledge, then to package and distribute this knowledge to a future generation of innovative educators.
The very root of the problem stems from the method of instruction, content and an ongoing “self-critical” view of the process, always with the intent of improvement. This has not occurred. Instead more money is thrown at the problem, expecting the hoped for improvement. To repair this basic breakdown of the educational system, will require a complete and utterly total rebuild of the system itself. Is there the will and time? I don’t think so. At least not in the foreseeable future.
Well even the illiterate can see Hillary falling down. Of course, if they are not shown the video then they can’t see it and then of course it didn’t happen.
So we are still doomed no matter what happens in November. Right ?.
Big Injun Chief in the Clouds ,that 5% will probably be hiding behind gated communities with armed guards or in bunkers.
“Stupidity—The top of the list for Satanic Sins. The Cardinal Sin of Satanism. It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Satanists must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid.” -Anton LaVey
Never argue with a stupid person.
They drag you down to their level.
Then beat you with experience.
Stupid is as stupid does.
No cure for stupid.
Fucking racist thread! No wonder Howard left.
Thanks for sharing a very excellent post, Admin! Enlightening, but sad.
“Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse” sounds like something the late, great George Carlin would have said.
Thirty years ago as an Army senior non-commissioned officer, I was processing a new enlistment. Filling out paperwork on the new troop I asked him what his middle name was. “Stephen” he replied. With so many variations of Stephen, I asked him to spell it. His reply….”I don’t know how to spell it. I never use it.”
Fast forward to the 21st Century. I’m now working as a sub-contractor in the National Guard Bureau’s Recruit Sustainment Program. I’m issuing military clothing to five new Army Guard recruits. Issuing their ACUs (Army Combat Uniform or “fatigues” as many know them) I am now having them put on their combat boots. Asking them if they know how to wear a boot, they all reply to the affirmative. One of the recruits is a 2nd year engineering student. Only moments after telling me he knew how to wear a boot, I observe this 22 year old engineering student trying to lace his boot….from the TOP eyelet of the boot to the bottom eyelet ! Ass backwards.
This country is in deep, deep dung. And it didn’t just start. The destruction has been ongoing for decades.
Thumper? Can we get your import on the Bambi thread?
This argument sounds an awful lot like Neil Postman, who wrote “Amusing Ourselves to Death” during the Reagan years. I can imagine Rupert Murdoch reading this, and laughing sardonically to himself.