Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
“This is just like Pearl Harbor.”
A good friend uses this quote from Robert Heinlein (from Time Enough for Love) as part of her .sig:
"There is no such thing as luck.
There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe."
Which is a nice reformulation of my favorite Louis Pasteur quote:
"Chance favors the prepared mind."
Which is why I grieve for the future of my country when I read things like this:
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment (from the NY Public Library following the 9/11 attacks), she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, 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,” one of the men said.
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”
What book? The Age of American Unreason, just released last week.
Susan Jacoby has a number of other books to her credit, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. She has a history of supporting rationalism, and this is her latest effort to get people to pay attention to the toxic mix of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. From her website:
This impassioned, tough-minded work of contemporary history paints a disturbing portrait of a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the past four decades and now threatens the future of American democracy. Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with America’s heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern knowledge and science. With mordant wit, the author offers an unsparing indictment of the ways in which dumbness has been defined downward throughout American society—on the political right and the left. America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic.
Grieve. Grieve for the future.
Jim Downey
(Cross-posted to Communion of Dreams. Thanks to ML for the initial NYT story.)
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Allen Dulles (CIA Director) had it right...
Allen Dulles, former Director of Central Intelligence (sacked by Kennedy), once commented with contempt: "The American people don't read."
At the university where I earned my Library degree (MLS), I worked in the History Department as a Student Assistant.
True story, we would have students show up in a panic because they could not find where their final exam was being held; When queried about what class they were in, they didn't know. Professor's name? Didn't know. Title of the course they were enrolled in, at least? Nope. Some could at best give a vague description of their prof "um, older dude with a gut, slightly balding, gray hair and glasses", which described nearly 65% of the History faculty.
If these undergrads could not remember even these basic cursory details, what are the chances they'll remember what they need to know for the actual test?
Some of them we had to send to the registrar to get a copy of their current schedule, come back, and by then their examination period was nearly over and they had to go throw themselves on the mercy of their professor to let them re-schedule their exam.
It made me very sad to work there, at times.
Thats just sad
The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”
I think of shit like this whenever some right-wing conservative tool calls me unpatriotic. Of course for some reason I haven't heard so much of that for the last few years, wonder why? Oh thats right, its because they were wrong and I was right, about everything. I was right because I actually took some time to learn a thing or two. Everything thats gone wrong was easily predicted by those who pay attention. I'm sure everyone here knows how I feel. I'm proud that I was part of the single digit percentage of americans who has never supported The Shrub.
But mostly it just makes me sad. How is it that the greatest country thats ever existed can't even educate its own people, about its own history no less? Without major changes, particularly in education, the tag "The American Century" might be a little too fitting as it may have been our last century. Maybe I'm an optimist but I think we can still save ourselves. I think we could re-earn the title of greatest nation, but I'm not sure we have the will for it.
Re: Never Supporting Bush
I was another one.
Something that really bugs me, weirdly enough, is those people who say "Well, I've seen the light! I was wrong about Bush/Iraq/Whatever!"
I always want to get in their faces and say "Bush is famous for never changing his mind about anything — he's the exact same guy today he was 20 years ago. What the hell is wrong with you that you couldn't see that the first day of his presidential campaign what a piece of crap he was? Because nothing about him has changed."
The only difference is that today everybody can see the disastrous results of his counterproductive, thoughtless, unAmerican policies. I always think that anyone who couldn't see some of these things in advance is not somebody I want agreeing with me anyway. One, their opinions aren't worth much, and two, if they're now on my side, it makes me doubt that I'm seeing things clearly.
I've actually written to some former Bush supporters, essentially encouraging them to keep faith with the man they helped elect. If you're going to back an obvious loser, why not at least have the guts to keep faith with your guy and stay on his sinking ship with him and all the rest of his idiot toadies?
The people I DO respect, at least a little bit, are the ones who don't want to talk about it. I'm thinking that some of them at least have the grace to be shamefully embarrassed about what they've done, rather than crowing about their change of heart.
I hear ya
I can't decide if I agree that I don't want there support. I do agree that those who have changed their minds have done so because they did not put enough thought into their original support of him and therefore I cannot trust that they have thought through why they disapprove now. They are too easily swayed to be counted on when they will be needed most. When we get attacked again will they return to their patriotic stupor and support an all out war with Islam? Or will they realize that terrorism is the direct result of such actions? The problem is can we defeat those who would start such a war without the support of those who don't ask enough questions?
Still not as scary
As reading that the editor working with a science writer asked her to confirm that whales were a) alive and b) mammals.
Success is 90% luck, but luck is 80% skill and 20% random variables.
Pretty much every day
On the plus side it makes me happy I never had children.
You're friends with Susan Jacoby?
Jim - that's great! Please tell her I really enjoyed her other book "Freethinkers" and offer her my best wishes. I will definitely check out the new book.
Sorry, no.
Scott, sorry, I didn't mean to say or imply that I know Ms. Jacoby, let alone am friends with her.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Oops....
My bad. Thanks for the clarification Jim.
And let's not forget when
And let's not forget when the character Edna Mode in "The Incredibles" says, "Luck favors the prepared, dahling."
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