On January 21, 1980, Newsweek magazine published an article by Isaac Asimov entitled "A Cult of Ignorance," which has resonance in the context of today's world. Here it is, with a foreword by Alexander Atkins, of Atkins Bookshelf:
If you have watched any of the recent
impeachment hearings or the President’s recent State of the Union
Address, not to mention general coverage of politics over the past few
years, one must sadly arrive at the inescapable conclusion that we are
living in a post-truth world, where Truth does not matter, where a
belief or opinion — no matter how ill-informed or irrational — has
trumped (pun intended) objective facts. In short, we are living in an
Orwellian world. Indeed, George Orwell’s dystopian novel (written more
than seven decades ago) is a magnifying glass that exposes how language
and disinformation is used as a powerful political tool to conceal the
truth in order to manipulate the masses. Listen to these notable lines
from 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your
eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command… In the end
the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have
to believe it… Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness… And if all others accepted the lie which
the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie
passed into history and became truth.” It’s eerie isn’t it?
But few know that another influential
writer and intellectual would mine this same territory thirty years
later — as the actual year 1984 approached. For many years, Newsweek
magazine contained a feature titled “My Turn” where a notable
individual wrote about any issue that they felt was important. For the
January 21, 1980 issue, world-renown science fiction writer Isaac Asimov
wrote a very thought-provoking essay titled “A Cult of Ignorance” that
is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago. Interestingly, the essay
was never reprinted in any collection of essays — a disservice to what
Asimov saw then and is happening now: the rise of anti-intellectualism.
So what does anti-intellectualism mean? Anti-intellectualism, according
to Richard Hofstadter, professor of American history at Columbia
University, public intellectual, and author of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
(1963), is defined as “resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind
and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition
constantly to minimize the value of that life.” In his essay, Asimov
argues that there is a cult of anti-intellectualism in America that
perpetuates a very flawed concept of democracy: that every person’s
opinion, whether ill-informed or well-informed, is considered equal.
Stated another way, in a democracy, equality of rights does not
necessarily mean equality of knowledge — an opinion formed on the basis
of lies does not have the same significance of an opinion based on
objective facts. And this is something that politics parties misuse to
their advantage: it is in their best interest to disseminate lies, to
perpetuate ignorance — indeed, to create a cult of ignorance —
to manipulate the masses. And here are some of critical questions: can
we ever get back to a world that values Truth? How do we do it? How long
will it take?
Here is Asimov’s essay, “A Cult of Ignorance,” for your consideration and discussion:
It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free
press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask,
ingenuously, “America’s right to know what, please? Science?
Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?”
None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that
the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any
of that tripe.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always
has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread
winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the
false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as
your knowledge.”
Politicians have routinely striven to speak the language of
Shakespeare and Milton as ungrammatically as possible in order to avoid
offending their audiences by appearing to have gone to school. Thus,
Adlai Stevenson, who incautiously allowed intelligence and learning and
wit to peep out of his speeches, found the American people flocking to a
Presidential candidate who invented a version of the English language
that was all his own and that has been the despair of satirists ever
since.
George Wallace, in his speeches, had, as one of his prime targets,
the “pointy-headed-professor,” and with what a roar of approval that
phrase was always greeted by his pointy-head-audience.
Now we have a new slogan on the part of the obscurantists: “Don’t
trust the experts!” Ten years ago, it was “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”
But the shouters of that slogan found that the inevitable alchemy of the
calendar converted them to the untrustworthiness of the over-30, and,
apparently, they determined never to make that mistake again. “Don’t
trust the experts!” is absolutely safe. Nothing, neither the passing of
time nor exposure to information will convert these shouters to experts
in any subject that might conceivably be useful.
We have a new buzzword, too, for anyone who admires competence,
knowledge, learning and skill, and who wishes to spread it around.
People like that are called “elitists.” That’s the funniest buzzword
ever invented because people who are not members of the intellectual
elite don’t know what an “elitist” is, or how to pronounce the word. As
soon as someone shouts “Elitist” it becomes clear that he or she is a
closet elitist who is feeling guilty about having gone to school.
All right, then, forget my ingenuous question. America’s right to
know does not include knowledge of elitist subjects. America’s right to
know involves something we might express vaguely as “what’s going on” in
the courts, in Congress, in the White House, in industrial councils, in
the regulatory agencies, in labor unions — in the seats of the mighty,
generally.
Very good. I’m for that, too. But how are you going to let people know all that?
Grant us a free press, and a corps of independent and fearless
investigative reporters, comes the cry, and we can be sure that the
people will know.
Yes, provided they can read!
To be sure, the average American can sign his name more or less
legibly, and can make out the sports headlines — but how many
non-elitist Americans can, without undue difficulty, read as many as a
thousand consecutive words of small print, some of which may be
trisyllabic?
Moreover, the situation is growing worse. Reading scores in the
schools decline steadily. The highway signs, which used to represent
elementary misreading lessons (“Go Slo,” “Xroad”) are steadily being
replaced by little pictures to make them internationally legible and
incidentally to help those who know how to drive a car but, not being
pointy-headed professors, can’t read.
Again, in television commercials, there are frequent printed
messages. Well, keep your eyes on them and you’ll find out that no
advertiser ever believes that anyone but an occasional elitist can read
that print. To ensure that more than this mandarin minority gets the
message, every word of it is spoken out loud by the announcer.
If that is so, then how have Americans got the right to know? Grant
that there are certain publications that make an honest effort to tell
the public what they should know, but ask yourselves how many actually
read them.
There are 200 million Americans who have inhabited schoolrooms at
some time in their lives and who will admit that they know how to read
(provided you promise not to use their names and shame them before their
neighbors), but most decent periodicals believe they are doing
amazingly well if they have circulations of half a million. It may be
that only 1 per cent — or less — of Americans make a stab at exercising
their right to know. And if they try to do anything on that basis they
are quite likely to be accused of being elitists.
I contend that the slogan “America’s right to know” is a meaningless
one when we have an ignorant population, and that the function of a free
press is virtually zero when hardly anyone can read.
What shall we do about it?
We might begin by asking ourselves whether ignorance is so wonderful
after all, and whether it makes sense to denounce “elitism.”
I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can
learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that
what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for
learning.
We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then,
and only then, will a phrase like “America’s right to know” and, indeed,
any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.
*****
Click here for an article at The Guardian by Sophie McBain entitled "Are we living in a golden age of stupidity? McBain talks about the pernicious influence of AI, and particulrly generative AI, on the education of today's students, and argues that they are becoming more and more dependent on AI to do their homework for them, such as essay assignments.
One frighening statistic: While tests measuring 15-year-old students' ability in reading, math, and sciences showed steady improvement throughout the 20th century and into the 21st -- largely due to better and more widespread education, but also because of other factors, such as decreased poverty and better nutrition -- that progress peaked in 2012, and has been gradually falling since then.
