A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,Ž appearing on the show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?Ž Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?Ž Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,Ž she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the real fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?Ž she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.Ž Learning can be dangerous Such a lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,Ž up a wall. Ms. Jacoby, 62, is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture. She knows that eggheads, nerds, bookworms, and know-italls have been mocked and dismissed throughout American history. But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thingŽ) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinionŽ) have fused in a particularly insidious way.
Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters. She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map. Anti-intellectualism The author of seven other books first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11. That day she went to a bar where she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II: “This is just like Pearl Harbor,Ž one of the men said. The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?Ž “That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,Ž the first man replied. At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.Ž
Ms. Jacoby doesn’t expect to revolutionize the nation’s educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off “American IdolŽ and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism. Students in many other countries consistently outperform American students in science, math and reading on comparative tests. In part, she lays the blame on a failing educational system. “Although people are going to school more and more years, there’s no evidence that they know more,Ž she said.
Ms. Jacoby also blames religious fundamentalism’s antipathy toward science, as she grieves over surveys that show that nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution. For all her scholarly interests, though, Ms. Jacoby said she recognized just how hard it is to tune out the entertainment culture. A few years ago she participated in the annual campaign to turn off the television for a week. “I was stunned at how difficult it was for me,Ž she said. The surprise at her own dependency on electronic and visual media made her realize just how pervasive the culture of distraction is and how susceptible everyone is - even curmudgeons.
