I get the daily e-mail from Daily Writing Tips, so I can keep up with what’s going on in the world of writing (the technical world of grammar and word use, that is, not the world of authors and such). And today’s article, entitled “Putting on Airs” or Expressing One’s Thoughts? really struck a nerve with me. Someone besides me believes that there really is a dumbing down of the American culture.
The writer points to the 1999 case of David Howard, a Washington D.C. bureaucrat, who used the word “niggardly” in one of his comments to his staff. He used the word properly (and the word has absolutely nothing at all to do with race and is not even a word that can be used racially), but one of his less intelligent staff members took it as a racial slur and sparked enough controversy to bring about Howard’s resignation. If you don’t know what it means, look it up.
So, some poor, albeit intelligent, guy used a GRE-level word, and he had to end his career because of the misplaced sensitivity of some moronic envelope-stuffer. Consequently, idiocy won over stupidity. As gamers would say, “idiocy FTW” (For the Win).
My question is, what do we have left if we keep degrading our minds and, thus, our means of communication as Americans? One of my favorite writers, Jim Harrison, put it best in his novella “Republican Wives” when he said that WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) were a race without a culture. If we lose our intelligence, and we have no cultural net to catch us, where will we land? Will we truly wind up like the country depicted in “Idiocracy?” What can we contribute to humanity then?
Truthfully, if you think about our great contributions over the past 20 or so years as Americans, what have they been? Tools that make life more convenient, so we can do more with less effort. Spell-checker keeps us from sounding like complete morons about 80% of the time, so we don’t really strive to expand our vocabulary. Why learn how to calculate even simple numbers when you have a calculator? But really, what have we accomplished? Cancer is still here. AIDS has not been cured. We’re not an Utopian society where everyone helps everyone else and no one suffers. And, frankly, we are less intelligent.
… Okay, if you don’t believe me, take the most popular people, the ones we Americans idolize the most and listen to them talk. Are they able to use (or do they even attempt to use) multi-syllabic words? Can they string more than a few words together and make any sense at all? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I watched the Paris Hilton interview on Larry King Live. It wasn’t because I find her even remotely attractive. I watched it because I wanted to see how well this American icon communicated. Not surprisingly, she didn’t disappoint me. At age 26, she still was unable to communicate any more effectively than a pre-teen. The famous example of her shallowness and stupidity was when Larry King asked her what she didn’t like about herself, presumably meant to be a very deep, self-analytical question. Her response was that she didn’t like how her voice rises when she’s nervous.
I have to give her proper respect though. The small words she is able to use were enunciated well. That’s a lot more than I can say about some of these dumb jock athletes we admire so much.
And, to exacerbate the situation, we think that if we multi-task enough, we’ll appear more intelligent or more important. Ever seen anyone reading a book and driving at the same time? Those morons think they’re being intelligent by combining reading and driving. Look at the number of traffic accidents caused by people who think it’s a sign of intelligence (or importance) to answer e-mails, hold conference calls, and surf the Web while driving. The biathlon (shooting and cross-country skiing) makes more sense to me, and that’s saying a lot. As Jerry Seinfeld says, that makes about as much sense as a competition where you “swim a lap and strangle a guy.”
So, are big words the answer to it all? Of course not. Using a big word just to use a big word doesn’t signify your brain power. To quote Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn when he first meets everyone’s least favorite character, Jar-Jar Binks, in “Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace:”
QGJ: Are you brainless?
JJB: I speck!
QGJ: The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.
Now, I will freely admit that I enjoy and indulge in some aspects of American culture. I laugh at stupid jokes, I watch mindless television shows, and I zone out on occasion. But I also don’t permanently keep my brain turned off, like a lot of people I encounter on a daily basis. All you need to do is walk through a grocery store for a few minutes before you’ll find someone who has the brain activity (and facial expression) of a zombie from “Shaun of the Dead.” Too many people are half-awake all the time. They’ve turned on “auto-pilot” and broken the switch to turn it off.
The ancient Gnostics believed that people were symbolically asleep. If only they could see us now. We’ve gone from symbolic to literal in a big way. If only there was a giant alarm clock. Alas.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This site sucks….
Well, thank you for proving my point. Not a single multi-syllabic word was used in your comment. Though I must commend you for being able to string more than a couple of words together at once. I’m sure that beats your normal use of grunts and hand gestures. But why did you use “…” at the end of your comments and your “name,” as if you were going to continue your line of thought? Or is that how you think? A thought pops into that pea-sized brain of yours, and before you can write it all down, it fizzles into nothingness.
Here’s the truth: You are a classic Internet troll. You lurk on the web, vicariously reading through other people’s opinions, and then when you actually have an opinion of your own, you’re so unsure of yourself that you won’t provide your real name or your real e-mail address. I doubt that’s really even your opinion. I’m guessing that you’re just trying to stir the shit. You’re just one of the millions of people adding proof to John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19), which states:
(Normal person) + (Anonymity) + (An Audience) = (Total Fuckwad)
Listen, “You suck…,” leave the thinking to people who are capable of it. The sun in Austin has clearly baked your brain and your cajones away (meaning, I know your IP address and that you’re a Time Warner Road Runner customer in Austin, TX). If you want to grow some and have an adult conversation, feel free to include your real identity the next time you leave a comment, rather than hiding behind the security of your anonymity. Otherwise, I’ll block your IP, and you’ll have to go try to make other people feel as small as you are.
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