I sort of hate to start levelling charges of national ignorance and sinking intellection as we're in the midst of Wallace Stevens where national ignorance and sinking intellection seem to be the emotions-of-the-day, so I'll let Susan Jacoby do it in her piece in The Washington Post which appeared yesterday, Sunday, 17 February. Have a look at it. As I've been reading Stevens, I've felt strangely evidentiary in this argument that America is losing its collective intelligence. You have to wonder: the NEA report was one thing, this article is another, the level of political conversation on the television still another . . . books O books . . . that whole lament about the demise of print culture. Is this more of the same sort of doom-saying prophecy that is as old as the written records or does this mark a new trend in a downward slide. Note: I did hear Toby Keith say several years ago that his foreign policy was real simple: "You hit me, I hit you back harder." And there were many hysterical cheers. It obviously stuck with me because I still remember it. I don't know why exactly except maybe it had something to do with a coarseness of thought that suddenly catches fire and becomes trendy so that . . . well, that's enough. Have a look at the piece and see what you think.
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February 18, 2008
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Very good article but I thing the countries ignorance is a calculated effort by some people to do just that...
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