People Are Dumb: Deal With It!
The old farts who came out in force to dive back into Woodstock last week have also been decrying the “dumbing-down” of our culture in general.
Bill Maher, Roger Ebert, and others are deploring the rank stupidity and infantilism among the general public — Maher addressing diminished or nonexistent political awareness levels and Ebert pointing to increasing popularity of idiot-level CG paintbox/dada movies and the kneejerk avoidance among the under-25s of films with even a smidgen of adult texture or provocation. No doubt this is a change — when I was a teenager I wanted to see not only the explosion-filled disaster films but also the provocative stuff like “A Clockwork Orange.” But the naysayers are never going to put the genie back in the bottle — endlessly singing “What’s the matter with kids today?” is quick transit to madness. Better off to celebrate the fact that all of us have a lot more immediacy in our cultural choices. If that means we’re all members of small tribes who rarely communicate with each other (remember: even number-one TV shows these days only draw about 5 percent of the country’s eyeballs), then at least the Internet makes it possible to commiserate with members of our own cohort. (I’m leaving aside the political implications of all the ignorance floating around out there: to watch these health-care “town-hall meetings” is to feel the near-complete failure of American parenting and the American system of education.)
