Here's an interesting article entitled America the Ignorant, by David A. Graham that I snapped up from newsweek.com. Graham is referring to the latest Pew Poll that asked some trivia and facts based questions and received some interesting results. Graham's article sounds extremely cynical, which is never a good look, but the way he's going about it is almost not serious at all, just plain realistic. Whenever I read articles form publications like Newsweek or Times magazine, they always go through the same routine of serious information gathering mixed with some intuitive and sometimes persuasive arguments. But Graham's just talking about how dumb people are, based of course on the poll. Check out how he starts off his article:
"Chances are that by now you've heard about the Aug. 19, 2010, Pew poll that found that nearly one fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you're a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you're wrong."
How long do you have to keep making intelligent, logical and well thought out arguments backed with facts and figures, free of bias and presented in a manner that is easy for people to understand and suggests an open invitation to discussion about the issue being written about, before you just say "Fuck that shit those guys are retards." I don't know how this guy sneaks by Newsweek, but I'm glad they're finally loosening up their tuxedos. It feel so good to get past the social conditioning and just tell it like it is, the way everyone else wishes they could do it.
If you read a little further into the article, Graham doesn't even bother with the the nauseating practice of stating belief in the theory of evolution following a semi-apologetic admittance that it is just a theory but still is the explanation with most hard evidence, and implies how ludicrous it is for Americans not to believe in it, saying: "the results must have had Darwin spinning in his grave, since only 39 percent of Americans believed in the theory." He didn't even bother to bring up arguments like burden of proof, he just straight up thinks you're dumb.
This guy writes for Newsweek, which will probably be among the last ten magazines to actually be printed in the next five years. One can only hope that this guy saying "fuck it" will spread to other writers out there who are on the verge of a cynical mind collapse. Cynicism is out, not giving a fuck is in. There's no way to keep it up when a majority of people have such strong sentiments that can only be riled up and organized by "influential people."
Here's some more raw things he said throughout the article:
It seems obvious that it's not a good idea to put too much stock in witchcraft. But it turns out that 21 percent of Americans believe there are real sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks out there. And that's just one of the several paranormal beliefs common among Americans, according to Gallup: 41 percent believe in ESP, 32 percent in ghosts, and a quarter in astrology. In fairness, the numbers in this poll are a little old—they date back to 2005. But then again, if people haven't changed their mind since the Enlightenment, it's not clear another half decade would make much difference.
Didn't we clear this one up in the 16th century? Copernicus be damned, 20 percent of Americans were still sure in 1999 that the sun revolved around the Earth. Gallup, the pollster that conducted the study, gamely tried to dress it up by celebrating the fact that "four out of five Americans know Earth revolves around the sun," but we're not buying.
He is, however, young and probably an asshole with terrible fucking taste in music, but still, cheers for writing theawl.com at Newsweek.
