>
>I've heard this complaint from people as varied as a Frankfurt
>Marxist professor of sociology at a NJ community college, a centrist
>professor biology at a small college in southwestern Virginia, and a
>high school teacher from a small town in Ohio. Why would all these
>people be motivated to see a decline?
they were saying it about your generation and the generation before that. I was always of the mind that my profs were right -- about my classmates, not me of course. Dumb and dumber. :) But what was interesting was to dig back into the annals of sociology, where I happened to be doing research on the sociology of sociology, to read the hand wringing over how stupe the students were in the 50s. In the 60s. In the 70s. In the 80s.And then I read a book, considering it for use in a soc class, when I read a chapter on the history of decline narratives among teachers since the Greeks. Hilarious.
If we were getting dumber since the Greeks, we ought to be wiggling around in the mud not just dumber than dirt but almost dirt.
as for Miles, I might have him wrong (being younger 'n' all, I am probably dumber than my elders, natch), but I always thought that is what he *has* been saying -- precisely what the article is saying. Which I don't find alarming.
Also, what about that study where all the people who think they are so smart are suffering from some kind of disorder or are, at least, not depressed. Which is to say, most people have a pretty high opinion of their own brilliance -- higher than is warranted. It is depressed people who don't and have a better sense of reality and their own level of intelligence. :)
"You know how it is, come for the animal porn, stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)