The Dumbing Down of America

When the soldiers returned from World War II, society had to accommodate them. Housing schemes were popping up, turning farm land or waste land into communities and schools needed to be built every where these schemes were situated.

Fortunately for society, there was a 'cold war' meaning that battles were fought in education and development, not with blood and death. Having the smartest children meant the development of baby formulas, vitamins, innoculations, to insure a healthy brain active population.

With the fear that the 'other side' would beat 'us' being far more educated and capable, the focus was on learning. There was no time for political correctness; kids were streamed. Bright class, Dunce class, although not the official designations, were very much in evidence.

Those in Bright and Second Bright would be taken on all sorts of trips to museums and other facilities so that their education would be enhanced. The average and Duncer classes concentrated on literacy. Every child, even the duncest kid in dunce class did not get out of that primary school until he could read, write, do basic math. And if that meant he had to repeat grades, that is what it meant, so being fourteen and leaving Primary school was not unknown.

To stream the children further there were special programs where a child would skip eight grade, as well 'approved' schools for disciplinary problems. With no more than thirty pupils in a class, any outburst, any disruption was quickly dealt with, so that people could send their children to school without fear of violence, bullying, abuse, and so rely on the teacher that where it came to discipline, the teacher had the trust of the parents.

This focus on education was based on the fear that 'They' would produce a higher standard of intellect that we would. These children grew up capable of thought. They could form their own opinions, they could work the logic, and so were as difficult to control as herding cats.

By the 60s, there was a population of revolutionaries, and the Vietnam War gave a focus for the anger and frustration many of these children were experiencing, because the world they imagined beyond the classroom did not exist. By the 70s it was clear that the world had produced a far too intelligent population which was very difficult to control.

The new protocol was to dumb down the next generation markedly, so that the idea of protest would be quashed. This was not as difficult as one might believe, it just took clever marketing. Get the babies back on the breast, discourage the use of powdered feedings, and increase the pressure on the population so that 'stress' became the new slogan.

Cease to build new schools, snatch the best teachers into private industry, so that the educational standards would drop. Don't leave back a child, promote him, despite the fact he couldn't read or write, and be hesitant to move him to a special school. This would insure his ability to undermine the education of every other child in that class.

Encourage sexuality in children, so that their minds are taken from the 'boring' subjects into sex and drugs. Those who resist this would be alienated, and if their parents didn't have the money to move them to a better school, they would fall by the wayside.

Allow bullyism, remove the ability of the teachers to discipline the children, so that sending your child to a school was almost a non insurable risk.

By the '90s the intellect of the world's population began to plummet. With the break up of the Soviet Union there was absolutely no need for the West to produce geniuses, as there was no challenge. Japan and China were ignored, as was India, so that the East and West were producing graduates who were on the level of freshmen twenty years before.

Protests in the West were very limited and easy to divert. Any useful lie would work and any diversion catch attention. Although in the early seventies the 'Black English' argument was shot down in America, it reemerged as Ebonics so that one could easily disqualify those who could not speak standard English from the better positions.

Computers, which threatened the dumbing down were themselves dumbed down. Operating systems forced people to march in lockstep, limiting their thought processes; for they enter no commands, they clicked, and if the program doesn't do precisely what they want, they must buy another program, because they haven't the capacity to rewrite the code, to even appreciate that there is a code to be rewritten to enable this activity.

By the 2000s, the level of debate and discussion became so simplified older heads find it puerile. The so called music is synthetic and anything but soothing. Although information available, most people are not interested because they have been dumbed down to be disinterested.