Society is becoming increasingly stupid

BarcelonaThere are two books by American authors who diagnosed with unusual acuity the intellectual panorama of the American population: Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1st edition, 1963) and Alan Bloom, The closing of the american mind (1st ed., 1987; in Spanish: The closing of the modern mind, 1st ed., 1989).

It is very interesting to note that both books are old, but they warned the country's reading public that society was becoming increasingly stupid, less informed, more indifferent to politics, more resistant to knowledge, culture, and literature in particular. In fact, the second of these books spoke specifically about university life, the one that Donald Trump can't stand, and against which it has issued measures, partly annulled by the courts, that seem unusual.

Unusual, in fact, they are anything but. For decades now, a contempt has been brewing in that country—and, by extension, has taken shape in all so-called highly "civilized" societies—not exactly for the culture of the elites—which, after all, harms no one and is consumed by the elites themselves—but for any manifestation of intelligence that might convert Americans.

It all came from even further back; because Hofstadter quoted, in his book, this passage from John Dewey: "Once we begin to think, no one knows what may emerge from this activity, except that many things, goals, and institutions will probably end up being affected. Every thinker endangers some portion of an apparently stable world, and no one can predict it."

He also cited the case of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a businessman, who, when told that it was a shame that a man of his ability had no education, replied: "If I had acquired a very high education, I would not have had time to learn anything else."

For many decades, then, in many places, "the other thing" has enjoyed great prestige, and no one possesses a patent culture, at least a zealous intelligence.