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165 of 175 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The dumbing of the American electorate, June 12, 2008
Many of us probably have suspected for a long time that our soundbit, infotainmented, and MTVed and Gameboyed culture is eroding our critical skills. As individuals, many of us simply may not care too much. After all, a man's entertainment center is his castle. But as citizens of a democracy, we ought to be concerned. As John Stuart Mill said in the 19th century, the democratic premise rests on the presence of an educated citizenry. Ideas and policies can neither be examined nor tested in the marketplace in the absence of an informed and critical public.
Rick Shenkman's Just How Stupid Are We? not only wholeheartedly embraces Mill's observation, but also eliminates any remaining doubt about the growing inadequacy of the American electorate to participate responsibly in democracy. A few of the chilling facts with which the book is crammed:
--half of us can name 4 characters from "The Simpsons," but less than a quarter can name more than one of the guaranteed rights in the First Amendment.
--only 2 out of 5 voters can name all three branches of the federal government.
--only 1 in 5 know that there are 100 federal senators.
--only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map.
--only one-fifth of Americans between ages 18-34 bother to keep up with current events.
How to account for this frightening state of ignorance? And just as importantly, what to do about it?
In answer to the first question, Shenkman suggests that the steady erosion of party and labor bosses, who despite their frequent misuse of power at least tended to keep their followers politically informed, has thrown the average voter to the mercy of shallow network commentary (if that) and corporate manipulation. Moreover, the two main political parties have in their respective ways encouraged the dumbing-down trend. Until recently, conservatives never took populism seriously anyway, and so didn't care how ill-educated citizens were. Progressives, on the other hand, embraced an almost mystical faith in the wisdom of the common man. The upshot, says Shenkman, is that we're now "in the pitiful position [where] neither liberals nor conservatives are prepared to say to The People: stop and pay attention. Liberals cannot because their ideology leaves them unprepared to find fault with The People. Conservatives have not because The People repeatedly put them in power."
Bleak as the present crisis of political literacy is, Shenkman doesn't think that the decline is unstoppable. Some of the ideas for reform he floats include a restoration of electoral college autonomy, a return to state legislatures' selecting federal senators, and successful completion of a civics exam as a prerequisite for voting. These and similar policies, he only partly whimsically says, could be bound up in the passage of a "Too Many Stupid Voters Act."
Shenkman's book is reader-friendly, insightful in places, and provocative throughout. But it may suffer from the same myopia that afflicted John Stuart Mill and others of his ilk: the conviction that all we need to get people involved more responsibly in democracy is education. Americans today have more formal schooling than they ever did. Although we may be a shallow culture, we're probably not stupid. So if more and more of us are turning off from politics and refusing to make ourselves informed about current events, perhaps what's going on is an act of the will rather than a laziness of the mind--apathy born of mistrust or despair rather than sheer illiteracy. If that's the case even in part, more education certainly wouldn't hurt. But it won't solve our current malaise.
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65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, but raises more questions than it answers, July 12, 2008
I should state at the outset that I agree with the author's core thesis. I think he's on to something when he argues that democracy is only as good as the quality and wisdom of "The People" who are by definition the source of legitimacy under democracy. I think he is absolutely correct that we too often focus our discussion of what ails us on the rotten politicians, the misleading media, and other nefarious forces that are out to bamboozle the voters. While these other factors certainly do merit criticism, Shenkman correctly contends that The People lose the right to complain about the state of their political system when they refuse to follow the news and stay informed on the issues.
Nevertheless, beyond agreeing with this essential point, I didn't find this book as compelling as I thought I would. Basically this short book amounts to a sort of jeremiad against our citizens' lack of political knowledge. It reads quite fast, as I got through it in a few hours, but I didn't feel it brought anything new to the table.
My main problem is that, while Shenkman does succeed in providing further evidence that, yes, Americans aren't terribly bright when it comes to politics, history, and foreign affairs, he doesn't seem to engage in a sustained analysis of WHY. He provides some evidence that the problem has become worse over time. Why? I wish he would have undertaken a more thorough analysis of the educational system. He hardly talks about the internet, except in the last chapter, where he briefly states he believes it holds promise to elevate political discourse (which actually flies in the face of some recent analyses). He reserves most of his criticism for television, to which he devotes a full chapter. I largely agree with his analysis of television, but even here, his critique is incomplete. He places most of the blame on the fact that through television politics has become more superficial and devoid of substance; he hardly talks at all about the fact that the entertainment industry spawned by television provides innumerable distractions from politics and social issues.
I thought the most fascinating part of the book was his historical analysis of the main parties' attitudes towards the masses. He points out that the founding fathers, as well as early 20th century conservatives, were profoundly skeptical regarding the ability of the citizens to make informed decisions. It was only after Republicans started winning at the ballot that they become the anti-elitist party of the common folks.
My main problem with his lack of diagnosis is that he doesn't provide a very clear path for where to go from here. Yes, he does offer some prescriptions for how to heal our body politic in the last chapter, but his proposals seem like an afterthought. There are the usual suggestions to revamp civics education in high school and college. But his main idea for how to reconnect the electorate to the Democratic Party? They must reinvigorate labor unions! Yes, that should solve the problem!
Basically, my main disappointment with the book lies with the fact that Shenkman really is on to something, as he hints at a rarely discussed problem at the core of our society. But in failing to vigorously analyze WHY Americans have become so woefully uninformed about and disengaged from politics, he can't really offer any viable solutions for how to fix the problem.
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43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ignorance Is Not Bliss, June 23, 2008
The "Sage of Baltimore", H.L. Menken, an early 20th Century newspaper man and social critic, once observed that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American people. The theme of this book might well be that no politician ever lost an election by underestimating the ignorance of the American voter. In spite of its title this book actually does not argue that the American Voter is stupid. Rather Shenkman contends that the American People are ignorant especially of basic geography and history. Further he argues that they suffer from a terminal attention deficit syndrome. Together these shortcomings routinely prevent the American Public from being able to understand complex thoughts and issues that cannot be reduced to thirty second sound bits. As the book makes clear this is exacerbated by the modern phenomenon of public polling and then treating the results as actual news. As any rational examination demonstrates, most polls are virtually meaningless and even if well conducted the average poll respondent is incapable of understanding or indifferent to what is really being asked. These are harsh judgments, but Shenkman supports them with a good deal antidotal evidence. And he is not alone in his conclusion that the American People may lack the sagacity so often attributed to them by politicians seeking their votes. Any serious reading of the Federalist Papers or indeed the U.S. Constitution will reveal that far from having a faith in the abiding wisdom of the people our founding fathers considered them inflammatory dolts and tried to limit their influence in government. This book suggests that they may have been correct.
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