No sane person would argue that people are becoming inherently dumber. Being dumb is, for the most part, a lerned thing. Most people are born naturally curious and willing to learn - as evidenced by the fact that they all master the most complex system created by human thought - the language. They learn to be dull and dumb later in life - when their inquistivenss is punished and stupidity rewarded.
My point was that despite all the brouhaha about innovation, individualism, creativity etc. , modern US society creates an incentive system that, for the most part, rewards dull conformity and outright stupidity, and punishes creativity and independent thinking. However, contrary to some on this list, I do think that "the system" or "employers" is a key factor in that process. The 'system" is an abstarction so one needs a several steps that would connect that abstarction to actual behavior for that argument to be even taken a serious possibility, let alone documented fatct. As to the "employers" - the record here is mixed, some of them would like to have docile labor yet skilled labor, while many other indeed benefit from good communicative and cognitive skills of their employers (from waiters to customer service to engineers) - so I do not believe that employers are th emain driving force behind dumbing down.
Employers want skilled labor, no doubt about that. They master the task of keeping their workers in line and content; and they can also teach basic job routines - so they feel relatevely secure here. What they have not mastered is the cognitive and communicative skills that are increasingly important in a service-orineted economy. So they want skilled labor - and there is a lot of public and private money going in that direction.
I belive that this is a combinatin of other factors that causes dumbing down: (i) the widespread use of automation that makes human skills redundant; (ii) deterioration of the public school system due manily to underfunding and right wing attacks on teachers and (iii) the deeply ingrained anti-intellectualism which recentlyreceived a signficant boost by marketing appealing to the "lowest common denominator." Since these factors are more pronounced in the US than in other countries, dumbing down is more pronounced here than in other developed countries, but of course no country is immune.
And now a few cheers and jeers:
Cheers to Martin: your explanation that older workers were displaced from construction trades to retail hits the nail right in the head (no pun intended :)) - and excellent point indeed.
Cheers to Kelley and Chuck Grimes: You are right that technology is a culprit, because it replaces human skill with automation that requires little human skill to operate. Old Harry Braverman (_Labor and Monopoly Capital: the degradation of work in the twentieth century_) is surely vindicated.
Cheers Joanna Bujes: "Contents free world" is a good metaphor, indeed. Baran & Sweezy summarized it as "the means are rational but the ends are mad." Or, as an old buddy of mine once opined, when at about 3AM stumbling from one watering hole to another and seeing ominous "closed" signs on the doors and then noticing a construction crew doing some road repair work, "they build roads, but there is no place to go to."
Jeers to Mathew Snyder: I see you are ready to drag all those lazy teachers from their classrooms and put them to a test or a people's tribunal. Why don't you follow Chariman Mao and start a Cultural Revolution? Or better yet, join the Republican Party - teacher bashing is ther blood sport.
Jeers to Carrol Cox: You remind me of the old grumps from my old alma mater the Catholic U of Lublin - who explained all that was modern by finding a precedent of it in antiquity. Guess what, I visited them a few years ago, they world around them turned upside down but they are still cocooned in their Podunk, reciting medieval texts and mantras, and shrugging off the modernity that is passing them by. Utterly pathetic.
Jeers to Yoshie Furuhashi: I understand you have some serious quotation search engine, but can you tune it so it sticks to the subject? Or better yet, use your hardware (brain) instead of software to make a point. More seriously, looking at the results that you quoted (Table 2: Reported Sources of Work Pressure, 1986 and 1997) - the pressure from customers not only declined between 1986 and 1997 but also lost its rank order from #2 of 7 to number #4 of 7. The pressures that increased in both percentage shares and rank are management and appraisals, and more interestingly, fellow workers and own discretion. That squarely contradicts the point you are trying to make and supports Doug's point that workers are trying their best to do good work - both individually and collectively (hence the pressure form co-workers).
Jeers to all those lefties who believe that the common folk can do no wrong and all the evil comes from above, and bend backward to deny any evidence that may point to the contrary. This is not a rational point of view but a religious belief - no different from the steaming crap dished out by priests, ministers, rabbis, and mullahs. And one man's religion is another man's belly laugh - bwahahahahaha.
This pretty much summarizes what I have to say on the subject for the moment.
Wojtek