Dumbing down - people getting dumber and dumber

[grampa]

The 50s...

 

 

I guess if that's "materialism," I don't see that much wrong with it.

 

m

 

We were being sold the message that everyone in America could have as much as they wanted of anything they wanted because we were Americans and not those godless, anti-materialistic commies. The materialism and overconsumption of today is just the 50's consumption that never knew when to stop or even slow down. We got drunk on the good times. Every generation was going to have more than the last and everybody strove to have more than their neighbor.

The 50's gave us the consumerism and wretchhed excess that plagues us today.

[cookieman15061]

We were being sold the message that everyone in America could have as much as they wanted of anything they wanted because we were Americans and not those godless, anti-materialistic commies. The materialism and overconsumption of today is just the 50's consumption that never knew when to stop or even slow down. We got drunk on the good times. Every generation was going to have more than the last and everybody strove to have more than their neighbor.

The 50's gave us the consumerism and wretchhed excess that plagues us today.

 

And so? You act like you're the first person to think of these things. Thanks for the enlightenment but we know where we were and we know where were at.

 

There's still more opportunity here then anywhere else but please tell us how you never gave into these wretched times and held yourself to a higher standard.

Fill us in on what you've done since the 50's. We all need a roll model. Sheesh.

[Searcy]

We were being sold the message that everyone in America could have as much as they wanted of anything they wanted because we were Americans and not those godless, anti-materialistic commies. The materialism and overconsumption of today is just the 50's consumption that never knew when to stop or even slow down. We got drunk on the good times. Every generation was going to have more than the last and everybody strove to have more than their neighbor.

The 50's gave us the consumerism and wretchhed excess that plagues us today.

 

If the sin of capitolism is greed, the sin of socialism is envy.

 

Personally I can't find anything wrong with materialis but a bunch of things won't make you happy. Unless those things are Gibsons and amps.

[ShredAstaire]

LOL hat fail!!

[Duende]

Politics and religion aside, the film had a simple message at the end - when the new Time travelling president spoke to the crowd of people, who had clearly become 'stupid' over the years, he advised people to read books.

 

I think the film is alluding to what many scientists are finding out about the brain today; I.e that it is actually like a muscle and it is through either our ignorance/laziness or enthusiasm that we can change it.

 

I say to kids, that if a film seems boring with too much talking and not enough action, stay with it for 20 minutes before switching it off, you'll be surprised more times than not, there is a great story with interesting characters and way more than you could expect.

 

With music, especially classical and jazz, you have to do the same with many pieces , i.e train your ear to appreciate what at first may seem harmonically alien and incomprehensible; the rewards are beyond the instant gratification that a piece that 'hits you' straight away can give you. The same with listening to people talking...If your mind starts to wonder, fight it!! and picture the words they are saying on a piece of paper and re read it to yourself to make sure they really go on. If you start letting your mind wonder now, over the years your attention span will be even weaker!

 

Basically fight laziness tooth and nail, the society we live is wonderful, but everything is geared around speed and the mind needs interesting things to nourish it that a fast food fix of something like a reality show, arcade game etc cannot give it.

 

Matt

[TommyK]

OK, m, so how does all this relate to the OP- the dumbing down of the western world? Are we becoming stupider?

In the U.S., yes. Just look at our students' achievement record over the past couple decades compared to other nations.

 

Is the media becoming stupider?

No, not necessarily 'stupid'. More like, less interested in reporting the news than making it up. In my life time, we've gone from, "That's the way it is" to "If it bleeds it leads", to "If it' don't bleed, make it bleed."

 

Have we lost our work ethic?

Mostly, yes. This is what repeated extension of jobless benefits gets us. As I leave for work I drive past a home containing two brothers in the 20/30ish age range. They've never had a job more than 10 months. They've both been out of steady work for 3 years. What jobs they have been 'given', didn't last because they eventually couldn't muster up the ambition to go to work one morning. They say they are holding out for a $21.00/hour job. Every time their out of work benefits come close to running out they begin to sober up, shave and go look for work. But... when, in our benevolence, we extend their out of work pay, they put their razor in storage, then sink back into the couch for another 12 months. The two have collectively urinated away 4, better than $15.00/ hour jobs with benefits. My guess is you know at least a half dozen of these under achievers.

 

Are we softer?

Yes

 

Are we seeing a decline in values or morals or perspective?

Yes.

 

Is the reason for our social/cultural decline due primarily to an increase in population?

No. It's due to laziness and the Evil One puting on the full court press. 'Increased population' is a new excuse to me, but the excuses are numerous. For point of reference during the Great Depression, when 25% of the US population had one of the best excuses in the world to commit thievery, crime was at an all time low.

[EVOL!]

 

Mostly, yes. This is what repeated extension of jobless benefits gets us. As I leave for work I drive past a home containing two brothers in the 20/30ish age range. They've never had a job more than 10 months. They've both been out of steady work for 3 years. What jobs they have been 'given', didn't last because they eventually couldn't muster up the ambition to go to work one morning. They say they are holding out for a $21.00/hour job. Every time their out of work benefits come close to running out they begin to sober up, shave and go look for work. But... when, in our benevolence, we extend their out of work pay, they put their razor in storage, then sink back into the couch for another 12 months. The two have collectively urinated away 4, better than $15.00/ hour jobs with benefits. My guess is you know at least a half dozen of these under achievers.

 

 

Shenanigans! I'd like to know where you live because I know no one like this; including in my home town in the thumb of Michigan. Everyone I know who is out of work is panicking because they have things like mortgages and utility bills to pay. That rainy day savings is only going to sustain you so long. And that health insurance you had with your old job? Good luck getting that with your new job. I know more than a few people working craptastic jobs because they have no other choice. We are part of a race to the bottom with worker's pay and it is only going to get worse. When you have a job at Walmart (the nation's largest employer) and that still qualifies you for food stamps SOMETHING IS WRONG. And we go around demonizing each other because one makes a living wage and the other minimum wage with no benefits.

[rct]

...my home town in the thumb of Michigan.

 

Does that make you a yooper?

 

rct

[TommyK]

I don't know if I can agree with the statement "The 50's was a period of obscene materialism"..

I would say the materialism of today makes the 50's looks like the parking lot of a Amish bar...

There just wasn't as much stuff to buy back then as there is today...

 

Sure, we have a lot of electronical marvels our grandparents did not have but understand this:

 

In the 1940's, most farms did not have tractors, they used horses and mules. Most urban (suburbs hadn't been invented yet) families did not have an automobile, not even one. Dad walked to work or took public transportation. Mom walked down to the corner store for groceries. No TVs, no victorolas, a battery radio, maybe. In the next generation they were building new homes with integrated electrical systems and indoor plumbing. In the kitchen they had more appliances with electric motors than most entire towns had in the generation before. Nearly every family had an automobile and contemplating a second. Automobiles with big 8 cylinder engines, big enough to pull the 3000 - 4000 pound behemoths with a trunk that would hold a week's worth of the family luggage, a full size spare tire, jack, tool box, tackle box and a set of golf clubs. Straight-8 and V-8 motors that got.... :unsure: that got... :huh: well no one really knows how many miles per gallon these land arks got because no one cared.

 

Just look at the opulence, the extravagance, the absolute gaudiness of automobiles made in the 1950's. Chrome on every body panel, inside and out. Body metal you could actually lean up against and not bend, Fins that served no purpose other than to show the neighbors, you had arrived. The steel they made the two '57 Cadillac fins out of could, today, probably be fashioned into a Yaris.

 

Household goods mirrored the same decadence. Think, Kelvinator.

 

No, the following decades don't even hold a candle to the tectonic shift in standard of living that shook the world in the 1950's.

[milod]

I can't speak to other regions of the country but where I lived, the "materialism" wasn't so much a matter of "us" being better than "them" as it was a matter of catching up with almost a full generation of horrid economics and war - and giving rural populations something of the benefits of modern technology such as electricity, telephones and water.

 

Where I live a lotta ranchers still haul drinking water from town, btw. A Gibson-playing friend didn't have electricity on the ranch - too isolated - until the 1970s even though his early 1950s Gibbie is electric. "High speed" internet? You've gotta be kidding.

 

I'll admit I have a tendency to seeing a lotta "politics" not so much as partisan as many of us here, but rather the thousands of years old struggle between rural individuals and individualism and urban collectivism. I think that term "urban collectivism" is true regardless of the theoretical political or economic system involved.

 

The first written "fiction" we know of at this time is the epic of Gilgamesh. Functionally it's a tale of seduction (literally, btw) of the rural by the urban - and then the agony recognized when the rural icon dies. The tale predates Homer by ages, and even the "Old Testament" story of Noah. The collective of voting Athenians saw little wrong with any way to get rid of Socrates - and even Plato and Aristotle weren't always comfortable there, let alone Xenophon.

 

Dumbing down society? I'd suggest in ways the rural-urban dialectic in a broad sense has helped society achieve a great deal around the world, and where it has been missing, a retrograde intellectual and creative environment.

 

Humans are creative as a group when there is a need for creativity. When life is perceived as a matter only of government-supplied bread and circuses there is a lack of creativity to achieve more, replaced by a mentality of being fed more, both literally and in metaphor.

 

I see Matt's point about the lesser-gifted breeding far more than the more gifted in intellectual power, but we're in an era when mankind hasn't figured how to balance the independence, challenges and connection with nature of the small farmer or drover with the collective security and benefits of the urban environment. The rural know their very lives, let alone their possessions, are at risk to the elements daily, yet they persevere until urban factors make it impossible.

 

Instead nowadays worldwide it's a seeking of security and comfort for everyone around. I think the salient quote is something like, "Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" It appears such is the choice - and that's not US politics, but a worldwide cultural trend.

 

So... Yeah, I think in ways we're seeing a dumbing down of society, but part of it is a matter of numbing our minds and ensuring the welfare of the uneducated for the "safety" of the whole rather than breeding in lower intellectual capacity. The masses also have to determine whether bread and circuses are better than challenges and opportunity. Currently it appears bread and circuses are on the ascendant.

 

m

[TommyK]

Does that make you a yooper?

 

rct

 

 

No, that would be the U.P.

 

 

You're right Evol, my statement was too wide sweeping. I just see too many 20 somethings who have given up. Mind you there are many 20 somethings who are running the good race, struggling, but running. There's just too many of the next generation coming up who expect too much to be given to them.

[EVOL!]

You're right Evol, my statement was too wide sweeping. I just see too many 20 somethings who have given up. Mind you there are many 20 somethings who are running the good race, struggling, but running. There's just too many of the next generation coming up who expect too much to be given to them.

 

I won't argue that a lot of parents have dropped the ball with raising their children. A child needs to hear the word "no" on a regular basis.

[milod]

RE: 1950s cars...

 

1955 Chrysler New Yorker with 115,000 miles on its big hemi? About 25 mpg at 75 mph and above.

 

1958 Chrysler 4-door hardtop, 27 mpg at 70 with 4 people and band equipment.

 

1972 Chrysler 383 cid, 325-horse setup, 26 mpg at 90 mph.

 

The steel was made in the US by US workers at good paychecks; cuts in auto sizes played a role in lessening need for steelworkers and set up a renewal of worker-management dialectic at automakers as well as steelmakers, etc. International outsourcing got under way as "more efficient" cars, smaller everythings with better technology, came into the picture. In 1975 German union officials told me they couldn't believe how American unions worked so hard to destroy their companies rather working to expand profit and their own jobs as was done in Germany.

 

In the 1940s almost all rural folks in the US owned vehicles because there was no travel option. It's city folks who used government transportation for the masses and hired taxis/limos for the wealthy.

 

But it was "iffy" because of wartime restrictions. The first few years after the war car designs, engines, etc., were a rehash of 1940-41 designs. Don't forget either that into the 1960s heaters and radios were optional. Now there's enough electronics, air conditioning, etc., on even the smallest car.

 

m

[EVOL!]

Does that make you a yooper?

 

rct

 

Like TommyK said, no. Yooper is the Upper Peninsula. The thumb is mostly the area North of I-69 and East of I-75.

 

Side note - If you drive M-25 up and around the thumb of Michigan you'll be treated to some of the most beautiful scenery the Great Lakes has to offer.

[Searcy]

Shenanigans! I'd like to know where you live because I know no one like this; including in my home town in the thumb of Michigan. Everyone I know who is out of work is panicking because they have things like mortgages and utility bills to pay. That rainy day savings is only going to sustain you so long. And that health insurance you had with your old job? Good luck getting that with your new job. I know more than a few people working craptastic jobs because they have no other choice. We are part of a race to the bottom with worker's pay and it is only going to get worse. When you have a job at Walmart (the nation's largest employer) and that still qualifies you for food stamps SOMETHING IS WRONG. And we go around demonizing each other because one makes a living wage and the other minimum wage with no benefits.

 

I lived in a "projects" of section 8 housing in FtLaud Fl for 4 years when I was young. I have seen many people who will not work so long as someone is willing to pay them not too.

 

If you want to know who destroied Michigan I would start by talking to the UAW.

[zigzag]

 

1972 Chrysler 383 cid, 325-horse setup, 26 mpg at 90 mph.

 

m

 

Was that in the city?

[zigzag]

If you agree that the western world is getting dumber, I think it is an over-simplification to blame it on government, though certainly government is a contributing factor. I believe that over-population plays as much a role as government, but I also blame media and the entertainment industry for our misplaced values/priorites. Media has made it acceptable to be second rate and irresponsible.

 

I heard a good quote the other day, something to the effect: When I get my morning paper, I turn immediately to the sports pages. There you find the achievements of man-kind. On the front page, you find the failures.

 

I also blame the '60s and '70s. At that time, many of the institutions that were held in high esteem were attacked. The office of the presidency, materialism and the almighty dollar, religion, the military, morality, etc. Though I was a part of that radical thinking, and still am to a much lesser degree, I realize that as a collective culture, we should have high aspirations. It does no good to tear down without trying to build up. Back then, anarchy and chaos were the goals.

[rct]

Like TommyK said, no. Yooper is the Upper Peninsula. The thumb is mostly the area North of I-69 and East of I-75.

 

Side note - If you drive M-25 up and around the thumb of Michigan you'll be treated to some of the most beautiful scenery the Great Lakes has to offer.

 

We very much enjoyed your lakes, Superior in particular, and Isle Royale in particular.

Came in on US2 from Montana, that was a nice drive. Took 41 to Marquette, from there to US2 to the big bridge and down 75 and out. Very nice state, them lakes are just beautiful.

 

rct

[grampa]

And so? You act like you're the first person to think of these things. Thanks for the enlightenment but we know where we were and we know where were at.

 

There's still more opportunity here then anywhere else but please tell us how you never gave into these wretched times and held yourself to a higher standard.

Fill us in on what you've done since the 50's. We all need a roll model. Sheesh.

 

You sort of missed my point, that being the mess we're in now wasn't created by the baby boomers who only started becoming adults in the mid 60's, the mess started in the post WW II era when our parents drove the economy.

And if you want opportunity, here isn't the best place. Maybe Indua or China.

[milod]

Ziggy...

 

Actually when I had that hot Chrysler, I did a town-to-town run that included in-town. Roughly 35 miles in 17 minutes including in-town, 2-lane and 4-lane out of town. Probably was down to roughly 20 mpg.

 

Also, I agree in terms that I perceive population as the major issue at this point in time. Add to that an entitlement mentality by just about everyone including the hardest-working and most productive among us.

 

"We" are animals hard-wired to provision of physical comfort which then brings a degree of mental comfort. Our brain software, of course, has increased our standards of what constitutes "physical comfort," but the effect of that brain software on the hard-wired portion remains the same as if we were paleolithic folks.

 

The bottom line of that is that once we achieve in our own brain software that we have that degree of comfort, we tend to stop striving. Education is what gives us the brain software to seek more through various types of "work" and creativity.

 

m

[EVOL!]

 

If you want to know who destroied Michigan I would start by talking to the UAW.

 

 

Right. Poorly designed automobiles, poor business models, bankruptcy, race to the bottom wage wise (building plants in Mexico), and the fact that the employer had to provide health insurance as opposed to the government had NOTHING to with it.

[Searcy]

Right. Poorly designed automobiles, poor business models, bankruptcy, race to the bottom wage wise (building plants in Mexico), and the fact that the employer had to provide health insurance as opposed to the government had NOTHING to with it.

 

Well, take alook at how many of those makers have newer factories doing fine in right to work states and yea... I'd say thoseother issues have little to do with it.

[zigzag]

"We" are animals hard-wired to provision of physical comfort which then brings a degree of mental comfort. Our brain software, of course, has increased our standards of what constitutes "physical comfort," but the effect of that brain software on the hard-wired portion remains the same as if we were paleolithic folks.

 

The bottom line of that is that once we achieve in our own brain software that we have that degree of comfort, we tend to stop striving. Education is what gives us the brain software to seek more through various types of "work" and creativity.

 

m

 

m, I know that you are right, but my brain and my pride wants to tell me that you are wrong. Certainly, many in our culure have come to expect the government to take care of us, that we are, in fact, entitled. Much of that segment are the lazy and stupid, but many genuinely need help. The liberal in me believes that the government should help those who cannot help themselves. There are too many in this country that genuinely need help for the cheritable to take care of them by themselves, and too much greed to expect charity to be the answer.

 

I don't believe that you can necessarily blame government directly for more births out of wedlock, higher murder rates, drug and alcohol abuse, exceedingly high drop-out rates, and on and on... However, I think there is very good reason to believe that government is at least partially responsible, on many levels, for high unemployment. We cannot blame the government alone for the shortcomings of an individual, though it does foster dependence and is complicent in creating a system where fraud can exist. Individuals must be held responsible for their actions and need to aspire to improve.

[dem00n]

In before the lock

[EVOL!]

Well, take alook at how many of those makers have newer factories doing fine in right to work states and yea... I'd say thoseother issues have little to do with it.

 

I disagree. A lot of the new factories are companies like Toyota or post Big Three bankruptcy. And I'll argue that those workers owe their wages and benefits previous union struggles for a living wage. Second, growing up in the eighties in the shadow of Detroit and Flint, I remember how many lemons the Big Three were designing. Ford stood for fixed or repaired daily & found on road dead. Surprised Ford is still around, but have to give them credit for turning things around.