> I want to emphasize that none of this should be construed as
> a Woj-style rant about ignorant Americans; in fact, I think
> that spending less cognitive effort on political minutia has
One does not contradict the other. Reliance on simple heuristic does not mean that people are not stupid. Otherwise educated and intelligent people often rely on simple heuristic in some every day life situation, albeit I am not sure if the reverse is true i.e. if otherwise stupid people can go beyond simple heuristic. It is often the case if one simple heuristic model turns out to be obviously false, intelligent people may be forced to think more rationally whereas the stupid folk will simply drop one simple heuristic for another.
Another thing, there is nothing exceptional about America in any respect - including stupidity. Stupidity is universal and can be found in abundance in any country on the face of the Earth. I would go as far as saying that in absolute terms, the US is relatively low on stupidity vis a vis other countries, but when we control for per capita GDP that will probably change quite substantially.
There are many reasons for stupidity - some of it is genetic (i.e. some people are born with lower learning ability or mental or affective disorders that inhibits their learning or reasoning), but I suspect that most of it learned, mainly from the parents. I think that the inherently hierarchical arrangement of the family (the "Because I say so!" thing) is probably one of the major contributors to world stupidity.
Wojtek