>
> Jerry Monaco sent a long post about my post. I am not sure what points he
> is making.
> I did not say that the clerk in the grocery store and the home buyers are
> stupid. But you have to ask
> why more than a quarter of the buyers didn't know which number was larger.
> I doubt number dyslexia
> is that common. Jerry's point about the law school students and the WSJ
> only serves to show
> how widespread the lack of what should perhaps be considered common
> knowledge is. Or maybe I should say that
> it shows how willing people are to speak about things they don't know much
> about and how unwilling they are to
> take the time to learn something on their own.
>
> Michael Yates
This is not an attack on Michael.
I never said that Michael Yates accused anybody of being stupid. It was my word and one I used before on this list in reference to myself. http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2006/2006-December/025489.html
But the implication was that there was some lack of intelligence among people who don't know that "The New York Times" is a national newspaper by the time they are over 30. Or perhaps Michael only meant a lack of curiosity. I made no reference to Michael or Doug in my post at all. There is a sense that he is a bit defensive.
Michael wrote: "I am not sure what points he is making." This is my fault.
My first point was that there is a difference between (a) having problems telling "greater than" and "lesser than" of large numbers, and (b) knowing the cultural and/or political significance of the NYT or whether it is more than just a New York newspaper. The former is a matter of a brain-deficit or perhaps "laziness" (what ever that means) of some sort.... and the latter is simply a matter of culture. There is no reason why anyone should know the significance of the New York Times as far as I know. Why should they? Perhaps knowing that The New York Times is important in our political culture and is important to the political elite is a "good" but I am not convinced.
That very same year in Law School, not that long back really, I first found out who Paris Hilton was (is). I had never heard of her though apparently I was the only one in my class that never heard of her. I never heard of this woman Jenna Jamison (??) until Doug said that not knowing who she was showed a cultural deficit. Maybe I am unwilling to learn something(s) on my own. I don't think I am, but if the people in my Law School class took the same attitude to me that Michael Yates takes to them then that conclusion is inevitable.
My second point was that many aspects of what we consider cultural knowledge and cultural ignorance are aspects of ideology or oppression. I had in mind, Sartre's aphorism "Stupidity is a form of oppression." I don't think I am saying anything radical here.
It was no reflection on him though it was an attempt to express a point of view I think it is best to take toward people who may think that the NYT is a communist newspaper or the WSJ is an anti-Israeli newspaper. Or people who don't know the New York Times. I had no idea what Jerry Seinfeld actually looked like until I saw one of his shows on an airplane flight to Brazil after the show had already gone off the air. I had no idea what the show was about until that time. Was my cultural "deficit" greater for not knowing Jerry Seinfeld than the woman behind the counter at a store was for not knowing the significance of the New York Times? I am not sure.
Yes, people should not speak about things they don't know much about. Good point. It would certainly mean less speech from us all. Few of us follow MY's dictum. I know I rarely have in the past. Writing book reviews and movie reviews and ghost writing technical papers meant always writing about things I knew little or nothing about. I think it is one of the definitions of being a low level "intellectual."
My third point was that it is very hard to judge intelligence on simple matters of numeracy or even literacy. I am not advocating innumeracy or illiteracy but in places like Brazil and El Salvador I met very smart illiterates. And they were made much smarter for being part of social-political groups like a Catholic base community and a radical political organization. So I am not sure why Michael should despair at the evidence he presents. What I despair at is the lack of left base communities or radical political parties to act as uplift for people who don't need to know a thing about the New York Times in order to understand the world.
My fourth point is that we intellectuals often put too much value on intellectual "prowess" without looking deeper into how to people act and how they feel, see, and know. This is not devaluing intellectual knowledge only revaluing intelligence along with everything else. So again, without knowing more about the person who doesn't read or can't add and subtract I see no great reason to despair over the specific points that Michael made in his original post. Given the state of our culture overall there might be reason to despair but not from these facts alone. The reasons to despair, if any, (I believe) go to the heart of the way people conceive of. or are blind to, how to act socially in a solidaristic way, etc. Maybe lack of curiosity is part of this problem but surely not innumeracy and cultural "deficits."
By the way Michael what did you tell the woman when she asked you what the NYT was?
I am not sure I would have "got" what the NYT is simply by flipping through it. The cultural value of the New York Times and the fact that it is _the_ national paper is nowhere _in_ the New York Times.
Jerry Monaco