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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
Critical thinking is not domain specific. It involves asking if something is provably true or not.
For example, if you say, “2 + 2 = 4”, and a critical thinker who doesn’t know what “2”, “+”, “=”, or “4” mean is asked, “Is that true?” he will say, “I don’t know. I lack the domain-specific knowledge.”
That is critical thinking. A critical thinker says “I don’t know” when, and only when, he does not know.
To speak candidly now that the kids are all in bed, there are a lot of Ricocheteers who occasionally yield to the temptation of answering questions without thinking about what the terms in the question mean to the author, or often without even determining what the question is!
That is not critical thinking. If we want a useful working definition of “critical thinking”, we should avoid a lot of Ricocheteers. Occasionally ;-) Only critical thinkers are good candidates for the job.
That reminds me. They had some bad grammar in that test.
One of my Augustine books is very affordable, in case I haven’t mentioned that recently.
It’s the schools. Kids aren’t getting dumber, we’re just not teaching anymore.
Well, no need to kick them out, as long as they can’t vote to wreck things. After all, the world needs ditch-diggers too.
I also got 20 out of 20.
P.S. “Young Americans” happens to be the title of the podcast on Ricochet hosted by the great Jack Butler. Perhaps a disclaimer is in order…
No. Just don’t let them vote. They can educate themselves and vote next time.
Peter Robinson’s interview is a diamond amongst the coal debris that is 2020. My 11-year old son knows who Rommel is because a) I’ve had a hobby interest in WW2 since I was a little kid and I’ve kept all my books and share them, and b) The Desert Fox starring James Mason as Rommel is seriously watchable and provides many teaching moments for a growing American kid.
World Wars 1 and 2 were never taught in public school when I was growing up. But since I had grandfathers who were veterans, since there was this cool Ballentine Books series, since there were (affordable) plastic models of tanks to build, since there were plenty of great movies, and more and more books at libraries, the World at War TV series, etc., I’m not sure I missed out on anything if the schools didn’t teach that kind of history. And now with the internet, there’s even more to learn from.
We’ve known this for some time and most of us know it’s not an accident. The left took over education some time ago and we let them and we let them continue in charge. I don’t understand why we put up with it. At least Republican run states and cities could undo it, but they don’t. I’m told it’s complicated to undo. Everything is complicated. Just do it. Schools should be independent, run by teachers and parents. The educational over structure is dead weight, worse than unnecessary. Do what New Zealand did to go from the bottom of the west’s schools to the top almost overnight. New Zealand let kids go to any school in the country, every school was run by teachers and parents and they competed with each other, firing bad teachers because they lost students. The educational superstructure was eliminated. If we can’t do it now that some teachers don’t want to go back to school, it’s over and not just for education. it was the key to our destruction.
It’s also google. People don’t “need” to know and remember facts anymore when you can just type any question into your phone and get an answer.
All of Tolls books are excellent- he just released the final book in his trilogy about the naval war in the Pacific in WW2(Twilight of the Gods)- hope to start it in a week or two. The prior 2 in the series were excellent.
This is a question on that US Citizenship practice test:
Probably Berbers if we’re speaking of the natives, although I think they had been conquered by the Arabs by then. Either way, they most likely weren’t black as we use the term.
Also: I got 20/20, and I’m 42, so to Tartaros with my generation. :-)
It’s very good. I’m about a quarter of the way through (28% according to my kindle, which probably means more like 40%, since as I recall I finished the last one at about 78% – the rest was index, end notes, etc). Just finishing the battle of Leyte Gulf.
Lack of good history education is not only a rural/red state issue. It begins with a lack of respect for history education. State guidelines vary, but most states require a year of American history, a year of world history, a semester of civics/government and some sprinkling of electives, if any. You cannot teach American history in one year. When I taught in New Jersey, the American history curriculum was two full years, which was better.
I interviewed for plenty of positions where the school was looking for a football coach who could teach history on the side. All teaching positions in all schools include requirements for some sort of “duty,” whether it be advising a club or coaching a sport. In private schools that is generally unpaid; in public schools coaching or advising can really boost your income. With bloated public school budgets, it is better for the bottom line to have your football coach teach a single history class (which is usually how it is) than to have a history teacher with five classes be a head coach on the side.
All of the grousing about schools needing more money often comes down to whether the district will threaten to cut support for a club or sport, rather than cut the tremendous bloat at the administrative and district level. No one I know who has kids in the public schools now ever bothers to read teacher contracts, and responds instantly if their child’s favorite sport or activity is threatened. Parents want their children to be happy; they don’t necessarily want their children to receive a top notch history education.
One problem there is that an incidental test is basically a… I don’t know, scattershot thing? If you make it so that people can vote after passing “a citizenship test” then you end with teaching-for-the-test which is not how you get a truly educated public.
Especially if you make it so that people who fail once, can try again later after “educating themselves.” Do you think they’re going to go read the Federalist Papers? They won’t.
The teachers are monumentally ignorant. According to a survey by Education Week, 81% of teachers support Black Lives Matter. We here know that most people who profess support for Black Lives Matter are completely unaware of what the Black Lives Matter movement actually stands for and seeks. Since teachers are so willfully ignorant as to not investigate what they go on to support, how can we have confidence that they are any more informed about anything else they present in their classrooms? [I consider people who know what Black Lives Matter stands for and seeks yet still support BLM to be evil, so assuming ignorance on the part of the teachers is giving the benefit of doubt to the teachers.]
This is an example of why I think teaching – at least at pre-college levels – should be seen as more of an assembly-line type of job, and not an opportunity for teachers to “express themselves” or “make a difference.” And there simply aren’t enough brilliant people in the world for every child to have a Nobel-prize-winner as their science teacher, etc, no matter how much their parents might think they should. But even if there were, there are other things for brilliant people to be doing that will make a far bigger contribution to society and civilization. Jonas Salk contributed far more to humanity by discovering the polio vaccine, than if he had been teaching high school biology.
OK, I so disclaim. I was not referencing Jack Butler’s podcast. I have not listened to it, so I don’t know whether or not he is monumentally ignorant. Perhaps he could take the citizenship test. (I do expect that he would pass with flying colors.)
Looking at the notes to his most recent podcast, I see an indication of possible naivete and ignorance, as it suggests that J.K. Rowling is some sort of ally to conservatives because she has resisted the trans insanity of the Wokeists. This does not make her an ally, as she still appears to be radical on issues of feminism and homosexuality. A quick google search indicates that she also supports BLM.
So, she’s a reprehensible Wokeist, but not on absolutely every issue.
I may listen to Butler’s podcast. I did like him as Jonah Goldberg’s sidekick, back when I enjoyed the Remnant.
Thx for the reminder. I am trying to order one right now. (Amazon seems to be having problems.)
There is such thing as a limited ally. Kinda like what the Soviet Union was during WWII. I mean, it was pretty much immediately after defeating Germany and signing the peace treaty that we entered a Cold War, was it not? TERFs are very limited allies in pushing back on the current insanity. I see them as much of an ally as Dave Rubin, Jordan Petersen, and Camille Paglia. To accept those as unequivocal allies while dismissing TERFs as incapable of being allies in any respect seems naive, too.
Of course that feeling should be resisted, and is exaggerated. But there’s a kernel of something in there. As a young white male he probably encounters a lot of messages that suggest he is unwelcome. They’re not hard to find even if you aren’t looking for them. He needs to remember that the senders are more noteworthy for being loud (and often well placed) than for being numerous.
They walk up to you and demand you raise your arm in their salute or they will harm you. Sounds pretty fascist to me.
Yes the Barbary pirates were our first foreign war and the idea of the fledgling United States projecting power into the Mediterranean was quite shocking at the time, although entirely necessary and quite successful.
Even loud minorities can be destructive, though, when accorded enough power. How many of the Germans were out and out Nazis when the Nazis first started to gain influence in Germany? Not to go all Godwin on the thread, but it seems we’ve been pretty reticent to push back on the attempt at dehumanizing white people because we think it isn’t that big a deal and it can’t possibly go anywhere. But if it could?
Are we still going with “It couldn’t happen here” as an excuse to not take the radical left seriously in their influence?
I got the same question, had exactly the same thought, and did exactly the same thing.
Oh I’m fine with pushing back. I just think there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The right way is insisting we’re all created equal. The wrong way is to go down a white identity rabbit hole.
Why not give the “right” answer? It is not like they will kick you out… Membership does have its privileges.
Was it for the bragging rights? 20/20?