The State of American Culture

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A very interesting article published by the New York Times highlights the current state of American culture. The article, “Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?¹” bemoans the idea that Americans no longer feel it is necessary to know information on cultural issues. Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason” says in the article that two things are happening: anti-intellectualism (”too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (”no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) and that these two things have fused into Americans thinking that scientific, civil, and cultural knowledge do not matter.

The article ends with a brilliant story of why Ms. Jacoby decided to write her book. Click on the link above to read the article.

Happy learning!

¹Cohen, Patricia. “Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?”, The New York Times, February 14, 2008

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