Rodrigo Neely - October 30th, 2008 in Commentary 0 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

I picked the title of this post with the intention of being deliberately ambiguous.

“Who is to blame?” – For what?

For all of the major problems in the United States, well the American public.

Thats right. The public, and that means you and I as well.

We live in an amazing society where each of us is given legal rights to participate in government through the democratic process. This can be done at lots of levels, the most basic of which is perhaps voting.

Voting does not do much on its own, but it is the least a person can do to get what they want out of society.

Far more important and powerful than voting is to influence as many votes as you can.

I have occasionally heard my fellow secularists tell me that they are not interested in politics, and I think to my self, “what a disaster. I can’t even count on the few people who agree with me to make their voices heard.”

Beyond the issues that relate to secularism and separation of Church and State, of clear importance to many of us are issues that relate to science and education policy. I am a Jeffersonian in the sense that I believe democracy requires an informed electorate.

What a cause for cynicism and pain.

I don’t blame either of the candidates in the recent presidential election for stooping to what may seem like simplistic attacks or appeals to the cult of personality. It is necessary to communicate and mobilize the majority of Americans. Why? Because, generally speaking, we are morons.

18 % of Americans believe the Sun goes around the earth.

More than 40% of Americans in a recent study did not read a single book in the course of a year.

More disturbing statistics like this can be found at a great article by Susan Jacoby here.

All in all this is generally linked to my broader outlook, my ethics, my goals in life.

I believe that in a democracy people have to be smart. Whats more is I genuinely believe that people have the potential to be very smart with some good habits and critical thinking skills.

There is little doubt that I will be called naive for thinking this, but I would argue that science is on my side.

The evidence is fairly indicative that intellectual power resides in the brain, it is equally indicative that unless you are brain damaged most brains are pretty much the same.

This implies to me that intelligence can be trained and honed, and is not simply a stroke of luck for a few elites.

I also believe that cultivating intelligence should be the primary political goal of humanity, precisely to improve the workings of democracy.

Until we begin to make strides in these ways we are all at fault for the current woes and sorrows of the United States. Either for being too ignorant and unwilling to improve, or by doing nothing about the ignorance which is so prevalent in our society.

• Comments
• RSS
• Digg!
• Stumble
• Tweet