Betty Winston Bayé: Ignorance Is Bliss.. And In The U.S. All Too Common.
Ignorance is bliss.. and in the U.S. all too common
Written by Betty Winston Bayé
Like many devout fans of the long-running TV game show “Jeopardy,” some days I do pretty well playing at home and some days I don't. “Jeopardy's” twist, of course, is its premise that even its smart contestants don't get every question right. An expert in Broadway show tunes, for example, may answer incorrectly if the question has to do with hip hop or rock. A lot of what we know, of course, is a result of what we're exposed to in our respective environments — and later on is the result of acquired tastes.
But Americans' varied life and educational experiences notwithstanding, it's terrible news that 38 percent of the 1,000 Americans who took Newsweek's U.S. Citizenship Test not only failed, but failed miserably.
How miserably? Well, 70 percent didn't know what document is “the supreme law of the land” and 29 percent couldn't name the current vice president. And though Americans recently endured a particularly nasty and very expensive mid-term election cycle, 59 percent of the citizenship test-takers couldn't name the current speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; 61 percent didn't know how many years constitute a full Senate term, and a whopping 67 percent didn't know what kind of economic system the U.S. has. Hint: It's not socialism.
So, when it is said that “the people have spoken,” it's fair to wonder not only what the people are saying but what body of knowledge forms the basis for what they're saying.
It's not that Americans are dumber than they've ever been. Newsweek senior writer Andrew Romano took pains to write, for example, that, “Civic ignorance is nothing new.” Moreover, it is true that the U.S. political system is a bit more complicated than those of many European countries.
But such caveats notwithstanding, the negative implications of the Newsweek test results are enormous. “For more than two centuries,” Romano wrote, “Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed, and they've changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward.”
Written by Betty Winston Bayé
Like many devout fans of the long-running TV game show “Jeopardy,” some days I do pretty well playing at home and some days I don't. “Jeopardy's” twist, of course, is its premise that even its smart contestants don't get every question right. An expert in Broadway show tunes, for example, may answer incorrectly if the question has to do with hip hop or rock. A lot of what we know, of course, is a result of what we're exposed to in our respective environments — and later on is the result of acquired tastes.
But Americans' varied life and educational experiences notwithstanding, it's terrible news that 38 percent of the 1,000 Americans who took Newsweek's U.S. Citizenship Test not only failed, but failed miserably.
How miserably? Well, 70 percent didn't know what document is “the supreme law of the land” and 29 percent couldn't name the current vice president. And though Americans recently endured a particularly nasty and very expensive mid-term election cycle, 59 percent of the citizenship test-takers couldn't name the current speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; 61 percent didn't know how many years constitute a full Senate term, and a whopping 67 percent didn't know what kind of economic system the U.S. has. Hint: It's not socialism.
So, when it is said that “the people have spoken,” it's fair to wonder not only what the people are saying but what body of knowledge forms the basis for what they're saying.
It's not that Americans are dumber than they've ever been. Newsweek senior writer Andrew Romano took pains to write, for example, that, “Civic ignorance is nothing new.” Moreover, it is true that the U.S. political system is a bit more complicated than those of many European countries.
But such caveats notwithstanding, the negative implications of the Newsweek test results are enormous. “For more than two centuries,” Romano wrote, “Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed, and they've changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward.”
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posted by KYJurisDoctor at 12:08 PM
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