To be perfectly honest, I do not watch the news any more. I do not even go to news sites terribly often, nor do I listen to the radio, nor do I read the newspaper. And, yes, this blackout is pretty much self-imposed – I get frustrated and depressed enough with what little information I do consent to expose myself to that any more would just be gratuitously pointless. This is not to say I am ignorant of current affairs, only that I refuse to keep a constant finger on its pulse, lest I gaze too deeply into one of many abysses.
But even that "education by osmosis" seems to be sufficient to keep me abreast of the relative essentials, otherwise I probably would have never been able to score a perfect on this Pew Research Center News IQ Quiz.
Now, before we go any farther, go and take that quiz yourself, and keep your results handy.
…
All done?
Now click on "How did you do, question by question?" and you will be confronted with this:
For clarification, the far-right column is how many adults got that question correct. Now, take a good long look at that table, and consider some of the implications.
In no particular order, over a quarter of those who took the quiz did not know that the elephant was the effective logo of the Republican Party. No big deal, right? Y’know, except for this being an election year, and that symbology being plastered pretty much anywhere Republican candidates can pay to have it posted.
Almost half of Americans have no idea where Israel is. Again, no big deal, right? It is not like they are a next-door neighbor… they are only one of the most heavily-financially-supported nominal allies we have, and that region of the world is only the site and source of some of the most grievous terrorist attacks in modern history.
Somewhere around four out of ten Americans are apparently oblivious that one of the oldest cultures in the world is currently, literally being burned to the ground at the moment. I am starting to run out of appropriate levels of snark with which to address this glaring ignorance.
And to flip those numbers, nearly six out of ten Americans are clueless as to which political party controls which part of the Legislative Branch of our Federal Government. Yeah. I am all out of sarcasm.
Do you want to know why I persist in saying that the average American is the reason America is in the condition we find her in today? THIS is why I keep saying that. Yes, I know this cute little quiz is nothing more than an online poll and thus subject to all manner of confirmational biases, scripting, and Lord knows what else, but the arguably legitimate polling the quiz was based off of shows markedly similar numbers for the country as a whole… or, at least, for whatever fraction they polled. And, really, when over half the country has no idea who is in control of what part of the government, how can you expect them to provide any meaningful input into that government, aside from voting for whomever promises to give them the most money…
But, hey, at least a scant majority of Americans "know" what the unemployment rate is… even though that number is a blatant lie designed to convince people things are better off than they actually are.
(Special thanks to Old NFO for thoroughly ruining my day.)
I firmly believe Heinlein had the right of it in Starship Troopers.
You know what is worse? You haven’t identified that only people who are curious about their own level of ignorance with the drive and energy to take such a test would in fact take such a test.
The truly uninformed and apathetic are not reflected in the results.
@ AM:
Ok, you just completely freaked me out. Anyone want to move into the middle of the Canadian wilderness with me now?
Duuuude! What the hell does any of this have to do with Justin Bieber or Charlie Sheen?
So it goes.
Civics and rational problems solving (and not just the new cargo cult of worshiping anyone in a labcoat) have always been in short supply, but we have a over culture that is increasingly more hostile to such things.
Our education system really is the prime example of what centralized, governmental, “public”, control yields.
As for mass ignorance in the population, well… I’m a big proponent that people have the right to be wrong, and have the right to make decisions even if they’re bad.
But when people are completely insulated from the consequences of such actions well… there’s no self correction is there?
You get more of behavior that gets rewarded.
I’m going to tack in a different direction. There’s always a segment of society that is willfully ignorant. But I believe the last 30 years has seen the rise of people who don’t feel as though they need to know anything because they have no voice. They see “knowledge” and “Power” as corrupt. It’s not an excuse but the powers that be have tried to create a populace that doesn’t give a damn and it worked.
@ Erin Palette: And the important thing to remember about Heinlein’s proposal (that those who dislike said proposal like to leave out at every available opportunity) was that his only requirement was public service, not military service. All he wanted was for you to have “skin in the game”, so to speak, but not necessarily have to put your skin on the line.
Between that and removing salaries for federal Represntatives, Senators, Vice Presidents, and Presidents, I htink this country’s situation could be markedly improved.
@ AM: Unfortunately, this is true – the poll has its own confirmational bias built into it, which is going to understandably skew the results.
@ bluesun: And that is the bummer, is it not? America was the Last Great Experiment where you could send the malcontents, misfits, and anyone else who wanted something else. There is nowhere else, and that is going to be a problem.
@ kfg: Winning!
@ The Jack: Oh, I have absolutely no problem with people being wrong, and people expressing that wrongness through their voting, or through their law-making, or whatever.
It is, as you say, that lack of consequences that concerns me greatly. “Too big to fail” is a completely meaningless sentence, which, if any meaning at all actually existed, is simply wrong to boot. And that our society went with that idea is indicative of a very, very deep-rooted sickness.
@ SGB: Unfortunately, you are right – there is a non-zero segment of society who honestly believes that “knowledge” and “information” can be bad things (hell, we deal with them all the time when it comes to “gun control”, and thus they avoid it as best they can. History indicates the world did not go well when those people achieved power.
Linoge,
You want your day crushed even more. Look at the demographic breakdown. There’s one thoroughly distressing and disturbing consistency.
Women are clueless.
Not even the young’uns were consistently wrong more often than their counterpart groups. But women were wrong on EVERY SINGLE QUESTION more often than men.
*sigh* I probably do not want to look at the breakdowns across ethnic boundaries either (if they tracked that data).