anti-intellectualism

Today I learned that somebody wrote a book all about how a growing number of Americans are ignorant and completely fine with that, like Bart Simpson ("Underachiever and proud of it!"). Apparently people don't feel compelled to figure out things like where Iraq or Darfur are because it doesn't actually matter to them, but people during WWII went out and bought maps when the President asked them to so that everybody could be all square on exactly where all those picky little Pacific Islands were.

I blame advertising. See, if you have to tune out every other bit of information that comes to you, you start sorting things people used to find important, and there you are: it doesn't matter at all to me exactly where Darfur is. For all I have to do with solving the problems over there, it could be on the moon. And I don't have to worry about it because George Clooney will take care of it, so I can go back to getting better and someday getting an actual well-paying full-time job. Then maybe I'll figure out where Darfur is.

(Actually, I think it's in Sudan. And oh, look, I'm right.) (It's this kind of thing that makes it hard for people with blogs about learning things to jump on the anti-intellectualism bandwagon.)

Also, if you see the smog over the city compressed into a thin, brown line on the horizon in the morning, you shouldn't go into town. Even if it sounds fun, it's not.