Nerds and North American Anti-Intellectualism

[tealin]

I just heard a really fascinating discussion on the radio about Americans' mistrust of book-smarts, how this is apparent in the culture as a whole and affecting academic performance vs. the rest of the world. It was gratifying to hear confirmation of some of my own observations about the matter and doubly exciting to hear further conclusions and comparisons to other cultures from an actual anthropologist. Luckily the show is available as a podcast, so I don't have to rely on my shoddy memory! Right-click and download! I highly recommend listening to it; it's not too long (only the first segment of the show) and is really, really fascinating.

Unfortunately it adds another issue to the ever-growing list of Things Which Massive Injections of Cash Will Not Fix But Can Only Be Solved by a Massive Societal Overhaul, so it's unlikely ever to change.

Comments

the dumbing down of north american culture

[(Anonymous)]

This radio show was a long time coming. From my vantage point (Canadian/Albertan) consumers of mass culture are continually sliding down a slippery slope towards group think and mediocre logic. All generations, except maybe seniors, align their thinking to the rebelliousness of pop culture idols. It isn't even a case of what is considered "cool," it's much deeper than that. This group think bleeds over into the consumerist bent evident in any city. Where I live it's -43 C and, because everybody continually buys, there are many homes with garages that are so full of stuff they can't even park their vehicles inside during such frigid weather.
So, when a categorically stereotyped subset of the populace have a different ethos - that is, standing out by being knowledgeable about certain fields of interest not popular with the wider group we see this backlash against intellectualism or "nerdism." Sounds kind of scary doesn't it?