The Myth of the Stupid American

by Elizabeth J. Carter

In a recent poll taken on the AdjunctNation.com website, we asked our visitors to tell us whether they think anti-intellectualism is on the rise. A startling 86 percent said yes. Our poll format does not allow voters to append their yeas, nays, and maybes with written explanations, but, in this case, I would have attempted fifty clap push-ups to know what those poll takers were thinking—or, as I briefly suspected, smoking. Because I must confess that a part of me said to myself: They can’t be right!

Our website visitors are smart and thoughtful people, though. Many of them, moreover, stand squarely each day in the trenches of American higher education, teaching the products of our often strange and idiotic culture—the kids who buy their papers off the Web, sincerely believe that the word “through” is spelled “thru,” and think it’s fine, dude, to clip their toenails in class. (They’re paying tuition, after all!) I must therefore take their conclusions seriously. And if they are right that anti-intellectualism is on the rise, what does it mean for the future?

The face of our country’s intellectual life has always been pocked with ironies. On the one hand, we live in a culture that embraces consumerism, self-promotion, violence, and greed. On the other, our system of higher education is recognized as among the best in the world. According to the Center for the Study of Jobs and Education, American scientists won 55 percent of the Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics, and chemistry between 1951 and 2003. (http://www.jobseducationwis.org/175%20Nobel%20Prizes%202003.doc). And since 1930, not a single decade has passed without one of our nation’s writers winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Heck — we’re even home to the world’s smartest person, Maryiln vos Savant (whose I.Q. of 228 is purportedly the highest ever recorded and makes me wonder if she’s part Vulcan), born in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at Washington University.

In spite of the consistently remarkable intellectual achievements of our citizens, the myth of the Stupid American — that cheeseburger-eating illiterate who wears a baseball cap backwards on a head that’s been figuratively dented from years of reckless television viewing and recreational dope smoking — remains stubbornly ensconced in the worldview of Europeans, Canadians, and other ostensibly cultured peoples.

Why?

If we define intellectualism as a love of ideas and a commitment to lifelong learning, then it seems fair to judge the health of Americans’ intellectual lives at least partially by what they read and watch on television. (Those who whine that Americans never read should consider the results of a 2005 Gallup poll revealing that, at any given time, 50 percent of us are reading a book [http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=16582&pg=1].)

What Are We Reading?

A comparison of the best-selling books and top-rated television shows between the years 1960 and 2006, for example, reveals that Americans’ enjoyment of cookbooks, medical guides, memoirs, and self-help treatises was just as pervasive forty-five years ago as it is today.

According to Hyde Park Books (http://paperbarn.www1.50megs.com/BestSellers/), among the ten best-selling non-fiction books in 1960 were Folk Medicine, by D.C. Jarvis; Better Homes and Garden First Aid for Your Family; and The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook. In 1980, a few of the top-ten sellers were Crisis Investing: Opportunities and Profits in the Coming Great Depression, by Douglas R. Casey; Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, by Norman Cousins; and Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. In 1990, Americans were reading the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book; Financial Self-Defense: How To Win the Fight for Financial Freedom, by Charles J. Givens; and Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, by John Bradshaw. And in 2006, we’re reading The Healthy Kitchen, by Andrew Weil; Lucky Man: a Memoir, by Michael Fox; and Knight: My Story, by Bobby Knight. Am I imagining the pattern here?

What Are We Watching on Television?

Television has certainly become more vulgar and sexually explicit, but I’m not prepared to equate either of these characteristics with anti-intellectualism. (Think of Lenny Bruce, whose rawness and intellectualism co-existed in legendary—and to some, offensive — style.) In 1960, that shoot-em-up show, “Gunsmoke,” was Americans’ favorite, followed by “Wagon Train.” Also among the top-ten programs in 1960 were “Candid Camera,” “Dennis the Menace,” and “The Price is Right” (http://www.entertainmentscene.com/top_tv_shows_60s.html). In the seventies, the top-rated programs became more socially conscious (e.g., “Archie Bunker’s Place,” “Mash” and “Maude”), but the eighties kicked us right back into the Plastic Age with “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest.” Now, we’re watching “American Idol,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” none of which is either certifiably moronic or food for the Smarty Pants Crowd. So, if reading and television habits are a fair yardstick of the country’s intellectual mood, I’d say we’re neither growing nor shrinking.

And if Americans are increasingly anti-intellectual, why are so many more earning college degrees? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 8 percent of Americans in 1960 held a bachelor’s degree. By 1980, the number had risen to 16 percent and, by 2003, to 27 percent. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reports that 84 percent of Americans believe it’s either very or extremely important to have a college degree in order to “get ahead.”

“Getting ahead,” in fact, seems to be at the crux of Americans’ attitudes toward learning and ideas. Rather than serving as ends in themselves, learning and thinking are, it appears, merely a means to making more money, to becoming a fatter fish in the food chain. As writer Kevin Beck so aptly pointed out in a September 2004 article in the LBJ Journal Online
:
“[A]cademic achievement has long been an important step on the path of the American Dream, but because education was seen as a ticket to, rather than a luxury of, elevated social status, its function in America has largely been utilitarian. The acquisition of knowledge has always been much less important than the practical application of that knowledge in the market….”

But is the desire to “get ahead” through higher education really so bad? As expedient as Americans can be about the purpose of intellectual achievement, that expedience is also, I believe, intertwined with some of our most admirable traits, including our pragmatism, sense of humor, and truly extraordinary ability to invent everything from implantable artificial hearts to the electric can opener. Americans are not a mentally sedentary people; we like to tramp unimpeded across the broad landscape of intellectual and cultural possibility, with all its highs, lows, and stinky mud puddles.

Admittedly, the concrete results of this indiscriminate travel can be a little weird. In 1976, for instance, Chuck Barris’s “The Gong Show” debuted on NBC. Also that year, Chicago-bred Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature. (I have been unable to unearth any research documenting that Bellow ever watched “The Gong Show,” but my very American common sense makes me think he did not.)
At the end of the day, Americans seem to me neither more nor less inclined than ever to reject intellectualism. Rather, they seem exactly as always: smart and curious, but not necessarily prepared to respect Ideas. Maybe it’s because, as Daniel K. Moran noted, we just don’t like conceit. We want knowledge, and we want to think, but we want to know how to use our knowledge and thought, too. In short, I don’t believe Americans are going to stop burning up the Nobel track. They may, however, continue to enjoy watching an occasional re-run of “The Gong Show.” American that I am, I know I’ll be with them, laughing.