"We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us"

[Gogf]

Just because something has been survived thus far does not mean it can continue to be so.

Of course, but the point is that the America-is-doomed people have been wrong many times before.

 

[Formaldehyde]

as populism is by definition "trying to appease the masses", I'd say it is the opposite of extremism.

Unless the masses happen to be extremists. Take Nazism, for example. I bet most people in this forum think of it as an extremist position. I certainly do. Yet it was a populist movement in Germany. It's all relative to the observer.

 

[Sharwood]

You're one above me then. I've tried midrange wine from a bottle, and beer from a tap. They tasted exactly the same to me. Everyone I know thinks I'm crazy for that.

In my experience, all alcohol has a very similar taste, and the aftertaste is exactly the same. Not the taste itself though.

 

[Smidlee]

Americans are more educated today than they've ever been... I don't know why people go around saying that suddenly we've devolved into these amorphous blobs of gooey ignorance.

That's because the more educated we become the more like we think we know it all and see others as ignorant. Often knowledge puffs up one's ego.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Or your underlying assumptions are wrong. Store clerks 40 years ago didn't need a cash register to tell them what the proper change should be. Nor did they elect fundamentalist idiots like Reagan, Quayle, and GWB into office.

Here's a simple question. How many people do you know who read for pleasure?

 

[Dachs]

Here's a simple question. How many of you know people who read for pleasure?

I don't think that this is a good measure of how educated somebody is.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I certainly would. I would contend that most well-educated people have fairly extensive libraries and they frequently read for pleasure.

http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/01/how-much-do-we-read.html

58% of the adult U.S. population never read a book after leaving school
80% of U.S. familes did not buy or read a book last year
(Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop)

Women read more literature than men do, but the survey indicates literary reading by both genders is declining. Only slightly more than one-third of adult males now read literature. Reading among women is also declining significantly, but at a slower rate.

Literary reading declined among whites, African Americans and Hispanics. Among ethnic and racial groups surveyed, literary reading decreased most strongly among Hispanic Americans, dropping by 10 percentage points.

By age, the three youngest groups saw the steepest drops, but literary reading declined among all age groups. The rate of decline for the youngest adults, those aged 18 to 24, was 55 percent greater than that of the total adult population.

And the problem is not isolated to the US either:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/nov/28/schools.uk1

Only 33% of children in England and Scotland read for pleasure, compared with the international average of 40%. There is a strong link between this and their achievement in Pirls tests.

The children's secretary, Ed Balls, said: "This study shows that our highest achieving children are reading less, with children's busy days leaving less time for books at home. As parents we have to get the balance right and as a society we have to send the right messages about the value of reading to our children."

 

[Smidlee]

Books can have just as much garbage in them as any TV program.

 

[Gooblah]

Books can have just as much garbage in them as any TV program.

And...your point?

 

[aelf]

And...your point?

Only the Bible contains truth and one can get all the knowledge one needs by just reading the Bible.

 

[Gooblah]

Only the Bible contains truth and one can get all the knowledge one needs by just reading the Bible.

I would say certain parts of the Bible are examples of his TV-garbage-books thing, but that's a discussion for another thread.

 

[Sharwood]

And...your point?

Probably that just because one reads doesn't make one intelligent or educated. My grandmother reads crap. My current squeeze, on the other hand, never reads for pleasure, yet is among the top of her class at law school.

And just because someone watches a lot of tv doesn't make them an idiot either. I routinely watch films and documentaries for example, and only one or two series.

 

[gangleri2001]

Books can have just as much garbage in them as any TV program.

You just said the word.