America is killing itself through its embrace of ignorance and we have evidence all around us.
Just think about how many murders happened because of racism and gun violence. But is that the reason? I think that it’s a final time to realize that such phenomena are directly correlated to America’s culture of ignorance.
Because what can you expect from a country where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel throw a snowball on the Senate floor as an evidence that there is no such thing as climate change, where a sitting congressman said that the Big Bang and evolution are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” or where one in three citizens can’t name the vice president?
It is very clear that critical thinking is not considered a cultural value anymore. And that can be America’s downfall.
When it comes to the topic of racism, is racism really the issue? Isn’t ignorance at its root? And America’s gun-crazed, violent culture seems to be only an aversion to intellect and reason that has allowed the violence to take place and define the culture.
Of course, many will say that educated people can be racists as well. However, this should not get into question the fact that anti-intellectualism is taking a serious toll on America. Yes, some intellectuals are racially biased. But, individuals who are capable of thinking critically do recognize racism as wrong and they are aware of it even if they are not able to remove it entirely from their psyches.
On the other hand, an anti-intellectual society is based on people who are motivated primarily by fear. People who are emotionally immature and thus prone to violence.
Counterintuitively, anti-intellectualism has little or nothing to do with intelligence.
Violence and racism have little to do with a person’s IQ, but everything to do with their rejection of critical thinking.
Americans let their democracy slip away and their culture to be overtaken by gigantic corporations that control both the media and the governmental apparatus thus shaping their people’s lives around consumption and materialism.
And at the core of it all is the abandonment of reason.
That needs to stop.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree? Share your opinion with us in the comment section.
