The Dumbing-Down of America

Recently, I met someone who believes America is undergoing a rapid decline in religious morals due to mothers working outside the home, families not sitting at the table every night for dinner with French fries instead of mashed potatoes and gravy (?), modern music, dwindling numbers of regular church-goers and, especially, homosexuality. He also said that the 1950s were a “Golden Age” where family life was like Leave it to Beaver. All this knowledge and wisdom from a born-again 20-something whose ignorant misuse of the English language was appalling...
First of all, if you really want to convince me that your opinion has any validity, learn the basic tool necessary to communication: LANGUAGE. No one, not even I, will listen to you if you speak and write like a hillbilly. Secondly, there has never been a “Golden Age” that matches this guy’s fantasies. I believe he has spent too much time watching Nick At Night—perhaps he should watch The Ghosts of Mississippi instead. Thirdly, I grew up in the Fifties and I can tell you it was nothing like Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and Ozzie and Harriet. As a kid I had a difficult time working out the dichotomy these shows created with real life as I knew it. I remember thinking my parents were really strange because they slept in a double bed; None of the TV couples did. And my mom didn’t vacuum wearing pearls either, like June Cleaver. Neither did my dad read the newspaper all the time, nor mow the lawn wearing a tie. And my older brother didn’t play the role of a philosophical, well-adjusted teen like Wally. He was too busy going in and out of Juvenile Hall for sexual misconduct. And my mother? I hardly think Mrs. Anderson carried on a 10-year affair with one of her church deacons while holding the position of church treasurer.
This country hasn’t been harmed by lack of religious morals as much as it has by the overall dumbing down of society. Seems few people can even form a proper sentence anymore. Everywhere one goes one hears “ain’t,” “don’t got,” “he don’t,” etc. At the supermarket a while back, I heard a woman say to her husband, “Them ain’t got no small eggs.” Later, another woman said, “Hey, thems there’re only fifty dollars.” This is inexcusable, especially in a country with so much opportunity for a free education. Few people finish high school with more than an 5th grade equivalency and once they’re out, they quit learning. They shut down their brains, join the Ant Farm and breed more little workers for the system. Does anyone remember Chaplin’s brilliant film, Modern Times?
A few years ago I watched a PBS program about this growing problem. The show included a segment during which an interviewer stood on the campus of UCLA asking random students basic questions while the camera rolled. I couldn’t believe the answers. Here are only a few:

• Who was Benjamin Franklin?
  “Wasn’t he a president?”
• When was the American Civil War?
  “During the Forties?”
• Who invented the light bulb?
  “Benjamin Franklin.”
• Who was president before President Clinton?
  “I don’t know. Kennedy?”

Folks, these were UNIVERSITY students. What we need is not more religion, but to educate ourselves and our children and instill in them a love of learning and a sense of self-respect (not brute ego) so that we will not continue to recreate our unworthy past. Our 28th president, Woodrow Wilson said, “Those that forget history are bound to repeat it.” That’s what I see happening, even on the most subtle levels. My advice? Crack a damned book!

I can assure you that my AP History teacher looked up from his work, and paced his room, shaking. Answering his wife’s question of “What’s wrong?” he replied: “It’s as if a million brain cells cried out and were suddenly extinguished.”