August 31, 2017
Word: Carl Sagan in 1995 on the future of America
Carl Sagan, 1995 - I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and whats true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
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2 comments:
"...especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
Capitalism functions best as educational and media entities put their energies into dumbing down the population.
Socialism functions best as educational and media entities put their energies into edifying the population.
There are no longer any people of eminence. Think of the people who stood up against the Vietnam war like Dr. Spock and Donna Reed. The feminists, the Earth Day founders, etc., etc. Gone. The lack of opposition to the empire with its permanent wars and uncontrolled pollution is a distinct turning point in US culture. The leadership has always been sociopathic but then there were Thoreau, Emerson to Mark Twain and James Baldwin in opposition. Gone.
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