Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta, GA has written a book entitled The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jepordizes our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30).
I would repeat that unnecessarily long title for you, but since I'm so stupid (because of technology induced ADD of course), I can't remeber it. I have a few problems with the basic premise of this book, but I also agree with some of the finer points Bauerlein makes.
Some of the main reasons for alarm that this books points out are the incredible statistics of actual stupidity that come out of America's high schools and universities. Kids believe that the most defended border in the world is the one dividing America and Mexico. Graduates do not have high enough literacy levels. Employers spend $1.3 billion teaching people how to write. And somehow, all of the blame falls upon this "dumbest generation". Apparently, I am the downfall of civilization.
Seriously though, these are awful statistics. I am ashamed that my generation has not been more academically succesful. However, I don't believe we are the ones who are at fault. I believe Mark Bauerline is part of the problem himself.
Here is a man writing about this awful future where Americans are fat, lazy slobs who do nothing but sit in fron of the computer and drool. We can't read. We can't write. Well, at least some of us can't read or write. The pied piper is blaming the rats for following him to their deaths! I blame this Professor of English and the entire generation preceeding us. In the 60's and 70's they were massively irresponsible and fried their brains on drugs. After recovering and coming of age in the Reagan era, they spent the mid to late 80's and the enitre 1990's raising us and discovering their identities as parents. Now they realize we don't know as much as they did when they were our age. And whose fault is it? It's theirs. The Baby Boomers pioneered strip clubs, hardcore pornography, casual divorce, ultra-violent outlets of entertainment for their children, and recreational drug use. Now they are blaming us for learning from their bad example. Their awful management of America's moral and political landscape has raped the nation's education system, leaving us dumb and illiterate. Instead of handing us a book, they handed us the remote control and the computer to shut us up. So where did we learn? The boob tube and the world wide web.
And instead of teaching us about our own geography, about one of the most beautiful and expansive nations on the planet, they decided that it was more important for us to focus on our feelings and fingerpainting. How dare Mark Bauerlein blame us for how we turned out? According to the Emory University website, he spent over two years as the Director for the Office of Research and Analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts. This is the same National Endowment for the Arts gave a highly coveted award to a picture of a crucifix immersed in human urine. And this man bemoans our stupidity? He wants us to learn who wrote the oratorio "Messiah" but will call this "Piss Christ" a work of art worthy of a $15,000 award?! That is how much the two "artists" who created the photograph received from the National Endowment of the Arts.
I guess that if I ever have trouble paying for my useless education, I'll just take a picture a picture of myself sticking the Bible into a used bedpan and send it to Mr. Bauerlein. The $15,000 still wouldn't be enough to cover just one year of tutelage under learned beings such as the author of this crummy book.
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