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The Monumental Ignorance of Young Americans
The increasing anti-American anarchism, radicalism, and Wokeism of Americans, particularly young Americans, leads me to believe that young people in America are monumentally ignorant. The apparent success of the so-called “1619 Project” is consistent with this hypothesis. But it is difficult to determine how widespread this ignorance might be. It is quite easy to find anecdotal data, like a humorous online video of young people demonstrating their cluelessness, but hard to find quantified data.
Condoleezza Rice had an interesting comment in Peter Robinson’s recent interview, reporting that she drew an analogy about the capture of a notable Muslim terrorist being equivalent to the capture of Erwin Rommel. The kids in her audience had no idea who Rommel might be.
I found an interesting and useful data point. About 2 years ago, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation released the results of a survey of 1,000 American citizens who were given the U.S. Citizenship Test (here). The test has a pool of 100 questions. Prospective citizens are asked 10 of those questions, and pass if they correctly answer 6 or more. So how do American citizens do on the test?
The answer is that only 36% of American citizens surveyed can pass the test. The results, however, are highly stratified by age:
- 74% of Americans 65 years and older passed the test.
- 19% of Americans under age 45 passed the test.
The news release commented: “Surprisingly, the poll found stark gaps in knowledge depending on age.”
Why would that be surprising? The results are certainly consistent with my general impression that radical, anti-American Leftists have been taking over education, at all levels, for decades.
I’d be interested to see other demographic data on the rates of passing the citizenship test, but these are not reported by the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation.
Back in 2016, USA Today reported a prior survey on the same issue, though it only asked 5 questions (which would require 3 correct answers to achieve a “passing” grade of 60%) (here). USA Today gave limited demographic data by party, reporting that 40% of Republicans answered all 5 questions correctly, compared to 35% of Independents and 33% of Democrats. Unfortunately, it did not report rates of passing the test, by party.
If you’re interested in testing your knowledge, you can try a practice test here. I find it to be astonishingly easy, but I admit that I’m quite weird in my interest and knowledge in the areas of American politics and history. I’ve done several practice tests, and have not missed a single answer.
There is not a problem with all young people. My oldest, the 25-year-old Marine, did very well on the test. He is evidently in a small minority in his age group.
Over recent years, I’ve become increasingly skeptical about the wisdom of a broad franchise and birthright citizenship. I do recognize that any alternative system may create other problems.
Sorry for the depressing report, but it’s probably better to face the facts. We are dealing with two entire generations who are monumentally ignorant about American history, government, and politics.
BLM delenda est. Antifa delenda est.
Published in Education
That test is very easy. Very worrying that someone couldn’t answer 20 of those questions
I think you’re right and I believe the reason is education from grade school through high school and college has become more and more about political indoctrination rather than education. My understanding is that most of history education throughout school is more interested in race and sex and the like such that the actual history of our country (when it is not being denigrated) is more or less ignored. The most used history textbook in high school is the Howard Zinn piece of anti-American propaganda in which everybody is treated as a cardboard cutout – most people wearing black hats for all time and a few (the usual suspects) wearing white hats.
I agree in part.
I’ve harped on another issue in the past, and can’t resist doing so again. I regularly read articles and comments about the need to teach “critical thinking,” including many comments here at Ricochet. I’m not against “critical thinking” in principle, but when it comes to complex issues, you need to know facts — often a lot of facts — in order to be able to reach a reasoned conclusion.
I also don’t like the phrase “critical thinking.” I prefer “reasoned argument.” Part of the problem is that “critical thinking” sounds a lot like “critical theory,” which is the source of much of the current Wokeist nonsense.
I got 90% – I didn’t realize how short the US Rep terms were (likely because they serve for forever) and I thought Teddy was president in WWI, which is a byproduct of how I learn history.
Probably not enough raw data, but would be interesting to do a timelapse map of the United States to see the creep of ignorance from a test like this. Where did it start – how did it spread? Are there still pockets of knowledge?
I’ll see if I can dig out the link but a study several years ago found that entering freshmen at Ivy League schools scored higher on knowledge of U.S. history than did graduates of those schools. In other words a college education made them dumber.
There is also a group of younger people who have gone way to the right of most of us. My 33 year old son is one of them and has come to the conclusion that as a young white male he is now persona non grata in his own country.
I think that he’s right about this, but can you elaborate? What do you mean by “way to the right of most of us”?
My impression, from my 25-year-old son and his reports about his friends, is that there is a notable militia-leaning libertarianism, but not much conservatism.
He is starting to accept some of the conspiracy theories put out by people on the far right. Especially anything to do with race. I think being let go during the COVOID madness plays a big part.
Ditto. And I would have done no differently had I taken the test when I graduated high school.
@gumbymark this is from 2007:
https://www.nysun.com/new-york/students-know-less-after-4-college-years/62901/
Looks like they gave up a few years later:
https://www.americancivicliteracy.org/
https://isi.org/
There’s a problem that you should look into in your schools in rural / red state areas – garbage history teachers. Too often, history is used as a dumping ground for coaches. That results in boring, bland history classes while the teacher goes over the game plan. Sports are important, but much, much less important than learning decent history
The 60-question quiz (at the NY Sun link) is pretty good. I aced it, but I wonder how I would have done when I graduated from college (over 30 years ago).
I would expect that older people would be better on tests like these, as we’ve had more time to learn things. This is a pretty good argument for raising the voting age.
Somewhat related: Last night, I was reading a book about the formation of the US navy, the building of ships, etc… and it turns out that the first bill to pass both houses of congress, with respect to the funding of an navy, came about as a result of the disruption of American shipping in North Africa. American ships were often captured and its crews enslaved. It is obviously a bit more complicated than that, but it was interesting to think about. We all know that slavery has never been a uniquely American institution, nor has it ever been a predominately racial institution. But I found it somewhat amusing to think about the fact that white Americans had been enslaved by black Africans… and, we also all know that black slaves in the US were often captured and sold by other blacks in Africa.
It is just fascinating when I hear people talk about how the history of the US is an indictment against the country with respect to race, rather than a celebration of the way freedoms were won for pretty much every marginalized group to ever exist in this country.
Abraham Lincoln said one of the books that most influenced him as a youth was James Riley’s, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce which included this daunting subtitle:
The account, published in 1817, became widely read and includes Riley’s description of the enslavement of he and his surviving companions by Arabs and their eventual rescue after ransom was paid.
And this should be mandatory before voting.
Aaaaannndddd go to the website for the test and find this……
The “North Africans” weren’t black. They were Arab-ish, living in the areas that are now Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.
I say “Arab-ish” because while I think that these areas Muslim and speak Arabic, I think that their ethnic history is much more complex. The region was part of the Roman Empire for centuries, and included Carthage before that.
By that reasoning, one might object to “reasoned argument” because it “sounds a lot like heated argument“.
In my view:
You’re a very bright, highly educated person, with particular expertise in law. But you’ve indulged in a very common bad habit–Family Feud Syndrome: responding to verbal communication by a conditioned response to a physical stimulus, rather than as the rational use of language.
That most people do this doesn’t justify honest, intelligent people doing it, and thereby giving up the possibility of intelligent communication.
Mark, I’m not sure what you mean by the Family Feud Syndrome.
It’s probably fair to criticize me as pedantic. I object to the redefinition of terms, or the adoption of unnecessary terms that may be confusing. Another example that I’ve seen recently — and have considered posting about — is the use of the word “fascist” to refer to Antifa and BLM-style neo-Marxist anarchists. I think that they’re bad folks, but I don’t think that they’re “fascist” by any reasonable definition. Unless “fascist” just means “something evil that I don’t like.”
On the issue of “critical thinking,” I’ve actually heard people discuss the confusion of this term with “critical theory” (on a podcast, I think).
My impression is that the use of “critical thinking” has been a fad recently, though it was apparently used by John Dewey as early as 1910.
I got all 20 correct but a couple of the questions offered a trick.
I agree with you on the words ‘critical thinking’. It looks as if ‘critical theory’ was used to create the confusion. Facts are really the foundation. Many people are very creative thinkers but not all. I would not place myself in that category. I’m better at taking facts, performing analysis and synthesis, to then produce what is needed.
Those numbers based on age are astounding.
20/20 for me. But I had my doubts when I was answering the river question. There’ve been times when I didn’t know Madison was an author of Federalist Papers. (And I’ve still read precious little of the full text.)
And if They fail, They’re kicked out of the Country after Their Citizenship is revoked.
“What Is Critical Thinking?” It’s supposed to be logical thinking, I figure.
And yes–it needs facts to work with.
I say “Bring Back the Trivium!”
Was it Six Frigates by Ian Toll? Excellent book.
No worries. For the Federalist Papers there are @Saint Augustines.
We need you to be the @Saint Augustine of Saint Augustine. On general civic knowledge, just be good enough to keep scoring 100%.
Which is not really all that bad a grade, all things considered. I think you are setting too high a standard for yourself.
I got one that asked what type of Economic systemn the US has.
choices were
A: Communist
B: (Mercantilist (I might be misremembering, but I think that’s what it was)
C: Capitalist
D: None of the above.
The “right” answer is clearly D, but I answered C and was judged correct.
You and I both know the right answer, and we both also know how to take tests!
That’s exactly the point. While you can generalize the idea of asking questions about what you see and hear, critical thinking is domain specific. You have to have knowledge about the subject matter in order to critically think about a topic. Expertise in one field does not transfer over to another. You can’t logically reason that 2+2=4 if you don’t know what 2, +, =, or 4 means.
The solution is a solid generalized knowledge base. Learn at least a little about a lot. And be ready to explain to the inevitable naysayers why “I could just look it up on my phone” is so insanely stupid.
The problem is we are dealing with people who don’t think 2+2=4. They think it is a white supremacist concept.