The dumbing down of America

Author: Americans Are Losing Their Critical Thinking Ability

from Agape Press
by Mary Rettig

An author and editor for the National Post in Canada says Americans are losing the ability to think critically, a problem he relates to the lack of objective reporting in the media.

Michael LeGault is the author of Th!nk: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye (Threshold Editions, 2006). He says his book discusses why the premise behind Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking, a best-selling book by Malcolm Gladwell, does not work.

Gladwell's Blink extols and even advocates "gut reactions" and snap judgments. But LeGault feels this is poor approach for reasoning minds, and he is concerned that increasing numbers of people in America seem to be moving away from thoughtful, critical decision-making, and turning instead to their emotions. {Be interesting to see the correlation to crime statistics as well....since so many are committed in the "hot" moment of passion or "gut reactions"!}

"The result of this has been, ultimately, that more and more people rely on received knowledge," LeGault says. They take their information and conclusions "from news media primarily," he asserts, or in any case, "from other people, rather than doing thinking on their own or asking questions -- hard questions." {Just lazy; inept; stupid?}

The author of Th!nk says this reliance on media for more and more information has caused the facts to be increasingly filtered through various biases. "Behind each one of these as it's presented in the media," he contends, "are other information and other sides to the story that are often not presented, and our general tendency is to believe these wholesale, without question."

Also, LeGault notes, this phenomenon has resulted in what he calls a "greatest hits" mentality, where news media outlets exploit hot-button issues in an effort to increase their ratings and bring in advertising dollars. As a result, he suggests, the public has come to rely on pithy pundits and appeals to passion instead of real, objective information.

Americans are buying into all kinds of media hype, LeGault asserts, because many {Ha! I'd say MOST} have lost the ability to think critically, weighing information
and separating opinion and
propaganda from actual facts.

He says this is why so many people tend to believe unfounded claims such as global warming theories or the idea that the Earth is running out of oil.

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Americans have become stupid. Shocking? Too bad. It's true. They don't think for themselves any longer.....the sheeple (sheep + people) syndrome.

They are too busy numbing themselves with the banalities of the tv sitcom or the movie of the week.

They no longer read. Beginning to think that most don't know how to read anymore.

They swallow hook, line and sinker the "news" offered by "commercial" television, which has been nothing but liberal slanted propaganda for years now.

They swallow all information from our own government without QUESTIONING it.

Prime example: THE PATRIOT ACT. Which is destroying the Constitution of the United States. Or go read some executive orders from recent years. That ought to scare you to death. But you WON'T. That might mean missing the next episode of "American Idol" or "Survivor" or "Joey"--pick your own numbing anesthesia.

You kill the constitution, you have no "guaranteed" freedoms. You have a despotic government. In essence, you have become the modern day USSR.

Maybe YOU don't care that this is happening....fine; just reinforces my belief that Americans have become stupid over the years.

But those of us who do care, do not wish to see our country DESTROYED from within.

Sadly, I believe it is already too late.

sign me.....a retired educator who couldn't beat the liberal public school system
c~b~n

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