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Have Americans always been this stupid?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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No Stupid Questions
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As much as I love these quotes, I think it's important to qualify them:
Everyone is born stupid, but people can be educated. If we want an educated populace, we must put in the work to create functional systems of education, and celebrate intelligence as a society. It'll be hard work, and there are plenty of people out there who would prefer to see the masses remain stupid.
"The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes" An article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
Not to be a jerk, but I'd argue everyone is born ignorant due to an inherent lack of knowledge. Ignorance can be rectified through education. I would also argue that everyone is born with varying levels of intelligence and ability; so not everyone is stupid but there are those who are, unfortunately. Stupid and ignorant mean very different things, even though they get colloquially misused often.
You're not being a jerk, you're being pedantic.
Ignorant is absolutely the better word, and I should have used it.
I think, however, that people are far more capable of gaining intelligence than we give them credit for. I don't believe that IQ is assigned at birth, and it's been shown that the entire idea of IQ testing is extremely flawed.
There are people born with learning disabilities, of course, but that's a whole other conversation.
The quote of Asimov is on point. As a non-American, I remember rewatching "Friends" after Trump came into office and suddenly noticed this subliminal anti-intellectualism even in this rather progressive left leaning TV show: Ross is often ridiculed as boring or arrogant when he talks about science or just trying to be factual, whereas the stupidity of Joey and the superstition and denial of reality of phoebe are glorified as funny and quirky and often shown as equal or even superior to Ross' intellectualism.