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The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) By Mark Bauerlein ( Tarcher )
Release Date: 2008-05-15
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Product Description
This shocking, lively exposure of the intellectual vacuity of today’s under thirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a nation of know-nothings.
Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?
For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.
That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.
Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.
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 A generation of declining intelligence...and people who don't want to admit it!
Excellent research - gives a grim-but-true picture about the decline of academic intelligence in Generation Y. :-(
Lots of valuable statistics which can be lengthy and difficult reading at times, but I still give this a five star review because I don't know how the author could have prevented it. Without all the information, you wouldn't understand the problem, and the author would be heavily criticized (probably by the same reviewers who gave him low marks already) for not backing up his statements with research.
I really felt the purpose of the book was to point out to readers that there is a MAJOR problem with the current condition of this generation...not to say that the sole cause of the problem is the introduction of modern technology (as some reviewers seemed to glean from this book). Certainly the internet, cell phones, and iPods are not the only contributing factors to the problem, but these things are the PRIMARY FOCUS of kids today...they all want to spend their time online or playing with gadgets!
The fact is, to improve reading skills, you have to read. To improve math skills, you have to practice doing math. And while teens should not be "force-fed" culture, I think they should all be exposed to it at least a little! Why is it so wrong to want our students to be well-rounded? This author points out study after study that shows the decline of test scores, skill levels, and expectations from GenX to GenY. And survey after survey, showing that kids spend a majority of their time entertaining themselves with digital technology. There is definitely a problem here! And whether or not you agree with his statements about how kids need to pick up a book now and then, there is definitely a correlation between dropping test scores and dropping interest in reading and the fine arts among the youngest generation. THE DIGITAL AGE IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM...THE CAUSE IS THAT KIDS ARE OBSESSED WITH IT AND NOTHING ELSE! The one thing you should take away from this book is that America has a serious problem if we are one day going to hand over the reins of our to GenY!
Its scary how many kids think being able to surf the internet & text message is a more valuable "skill" than being able to read, write, and perform mathematical functions. If they cannot accomplish this, there is no way our country will survive through their lifetimes. We'll probably become the United States of China or Japan by the time GenY expires if we don't take action now to mold our kids into responsible, intelligent, hard-working adults.
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 All it took was one sentence for me to close this book
Although this book was interesting reading, when I read the suggestion by the author that kids would be more educated if they listened to Rush Limbaugh, the author's credibility went straight out the window and I closed the book. What a crock! Like the world needs any more Ditto-heads.
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 Do all Millennials go to heaven? ( asr-cascadian )
I strongly agree with the outlines of Mark Bauerlein's thesis in "The Dumbest Generation," but I found his presentation of it somewhat numbing over the first half or so of the book due to a heavy emphasis on reporting survey results. It's key to proving his argument really does apply to an entire generation and is not -- like the opposite theory of a uniquely gifted and hard-working cohort he shoots down in the Introduction -- a generalization from a few exceptional examples. Nonetheless, it didn't make for very compelling reading. Appalling, yes, and deeply discouraging. I was ready to give this book three stars at best.
My opinion began to come around in the fifth chapter, "The Betrayal of the Mentors," and by the final chapter the author really hit his stride and was drawing out the vital implications of the picture he painted in the earlier chapters. It would be easy, taking the last chapter or two alone, to see Bauerlein as an over-reacting alarmist -- precisely the hyperventilating "old fogy" he says we intellectual oldsters have to be prepared to be called. But this is where all the survey research we waded through before comes in most useful: it proves his alarm is well-founded and justifiable.
That said, it's important to recognize that "The Dumbest Generation" isn't a stereotypical huffy rant about "those kids today with their Playstations and their Internets." It's an important piece of sociological insight that looks not only at this most generational of generations, caught up in their fascination with themselves, their own concerns and experiences, but also at their elders, particularly in academia, who have empowered and enabled them. This is "the betrayal of the mentors," the romanticization by teachers and professors of youth self-absorption (disguised as "relevance") and the voice of callow ignorance. By the final chapter, where the author analyzes the effect of all this on American political culture and the future of the Republic, he was building to a crescendo. Citing John Erskine's declaration of "the moral obligation to be intelligent" (echoed in Hyman Rickover's more caustic pronouncement that "you don't go to heaven if you die dumb"), Bauerlein worries about the future of society and polity alike when the "marketplace of ideas" no longer draws in any customers. While the author takes on political targets both left and right, I particularly liked his comparison of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of the 1960s with their modern descendants. Noting the current generation's skill at "the dissection of race, gender, class, and sexuality," he nevertheless points out that this "could not be more conventional," since "one class assignment after another asks it of students from middle school forward. [...] In fact, the social attitudes and political leanings the new SDS-ers espouse don't differ from those of their 50-year-old humanities professors at all" (p. 230). I was reminded of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's observation 65 years ago that "Neither are the progressivists, in present-day America, revolutionaries or enemies of the order. Being 'radical' or 'progressive' they merely want to continue with greater speed and determination along the established, wrong trail."
I also agreed strongly with Bauerlein's argument that young activists, conservative and liberal alike, lack a solid grounding in the intellectual foundations of political theory and history. "They will argue vociferously ... but their points tend to be situational, that is, assertions about what is happening and what should be happening. They don't invoke what Machiavelli said about the exercise of power, or cite the Federalist Papers on factionalism, or approve what Du Bois wrote about the color line. Their attention goes to the here and now" (pp. 230-1). It made me think of Gene Healy's essential The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power -- after all, who needs history when we can elect a National Messiah every 4 years who will restart the clock for us?
In his last few pages, Bauerlein asks the impossible, urging America to end its devotion to, and romanticization of, youth. "The moral poles need to reverse, with the young no longer setting the pace for right conduct and cool thinking." I think that steamship had already sailed by Tocqueville's time. We'll just have to pray The Dumbest Generation somehow comes to its senses about the time it hits decrepitude at age 30 or so.
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Overstated
This book's title makes a ludicrous sweeping generalization, which is contrary to numerous scientific studies of the flynn effect. It warrants a bad review to balance the self-selected sample of other reviewers. I take personal offense at the title of this book.
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Infuriatingly Mean-Spirited and Obviously Incorrect ( ex_libris_krb )
I read this book last summer and I thought about it from time to time during the election season. I found the book extremely infuriating. I read with post-it notes next to me and my copy has little slips of paper with comments and questions sticking out of it. Why? Becuase it is filled with completely unsubstantiated assertions about the stupidity of today's young people due to the Internet and related technologies. Bauerlein attempts to use the tools of social scientists and he fails miserably. He's an English professor and should stick to literary analysis. He cites statistics about the ignorance of young people and then tries to connect this ignorance to things like Facebook and cell phones. As one reviewer pointed out, all kids find ways to procrastinate and connect with their friends. I did the same thing in the '60's. We hung out at the beach, watched huge quantities of schlock TV, listened to loud music, went to the drive-in, and talked on the phone. I was also a voracious reader and became a librarian. Most people grow up and move on. Since the nomination of Sarah Palin as vice president it is patently obvious that the Millennials are in no way the dumbest generation. We have John McCain to thank for pointing that out to us. He nominated Palin because she is pretty and feisty; they are both "Mavericks." Does anyone in the United States think she was actually qualified to be president? The Conservative intelligentsia could not stomache her selection. The New York Times op ed pages seethed with disgust. Old fogeys can delude themselves that they are smarter than today's upcoming generation, but Millennials saw through the appalling hypocrisy of the Republican presidental ticket and helped put Barack Obama in the White House. Even reliably red Indiana went Democrat, which was widely attributed to the fact that 68% of voters between 18 and 29 voted for Obama. Go Hoosiers! Every Republican intellectual in the United States secretly heaved a sigh of relief on election night. Thank you, youth vote! So, I'm waiting for this book to be remaindered because it is already obsolete. Do not buy it. Do not bother to read it. It's a downer but don't worry. You can feel confident that young people will try to fix the colossal mess left to all of us by that bumbling Boomer leaving the White House on January 20. For a glimpse of the future, take a look at a blog that began as a response to Bauerlein's book; it's called "Generation Underrated:" [...]. Janna's related Facebook group is "We're Not as Dumb as We Look." I wholeheartedly agree with her.
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