Book Review: Just How Stupid Are We? by Rick Shenkman

So!  Let's start this blog off with a book review.  I'm really proud of the fact that I read this book because it was the first book I read in a long time that wasn't required for class.  I'd like to think it's the first in a long line of books i'll begin to read.

I found this book to be particularly enlightening given the current election season we are in right now.  The title isn't just a clever ruse to obtain higher book sales--Shenkman actually cuts recklessly into the decaying body of American politics as it lies.  The results are obvious and shocking at the same time.

For example, Shenkman refers to a poll taken on the eve of "Shock and Awe", the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The poll, reported by Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), showed that "a majority of Americans falsely believed that 'Iraq played an important role in 9/11'".  Further polls taken throughout the year revealed that 57% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was helping Al Qaeda when we were attacked (PIPA), and 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was actively involved in the 9/11 attacks (Washington Post).  These results are staggering.

Shenkman outlines five characteristics of stupidity proceeds to investigate the American public pertaining to these definitions:
1. "Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge"
2.  "Negligence: the disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events."
3.  "Wooden-headedness...:the inclination to believe what we want to believe, regardless of the facts."
4.  "Shortsightedness: the support of public policy that are mutually exclusive, or contrary to the country's long-term interests."
5.  "Bone-headedness...: the susceptibility to meaningless phrases, sterotypes, irrational biases, simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears"

For your enjoyment, I will now illustrate these definitions with examples from our own history.
1.  See the stats about perception of Saddam Hussein's connection with 9/11.
2.  Despite the increased access we all have to news sources via radio, television, internet, and smartphones, how many of us actually get news from national news sources?  The only national newspaper to have an increase in subscriptions in 2010 was the WSJ with .5% increase.  The New York Times saw a decrease of 8.5%.
3.  How many people believe that Iraq needed to be invaded because of weapons of mass destruction?  Despite this fact being disproved awhile ago, people still cling to this belief.  If they relinquish that, they will grasp at another equally-ignorant straw to defend the Iraqi war.
4.  The concept of increasing federal spending, using funds from Social Security to pay for increased budgets, and the likes are all examples of how the American public continually values their existence over the existence of future generations.
5.  One phrase: "the War on Terrorism".

We, as members of the American public have an important decision to make.  Will we take the effort to educate ourselves on international and national matters?  Will we take the time to read reliable news sources and publications?  Will we lower our pride and cynicism to allow for corrections in our thinking and perception?  Will we start seeing things with a long-term perspective?  Will we defend ourselves against the idiocy of meaningless generalizations, platitudes, and rhetoric?

I hope so!  Oh, and read the book!

The beginning

Well, I started this blog last night and as I was getting up this morning I realized there were already 29 pageviews.  For those 29 people (or bots) that stumbled onto my empty page, I apologize!  I will begin to make this a worthwhile blog!

Because this is the intro, I feel like giving you a brief introduction to me and to why I want to start this blog.  Right now i'm in the middle of my junior year at Brigham Young University in Provo.  I'm studying Economics and Politics and I find both fascinating in their own regard.  From a young age, I've grown up listening to NPR with my dad or trying to convince him to change the channel from CSPAN, but it finally grew on me.  Understanding the world around us and how people interact with each other is something that we can never completely understand, but it's something that we should always endeavor to understand.  As we do so, we become more influential in the world and can change it for good or bad.  So that's what I'm all about.  Whether it's business, history, politics, or economics, I want to learn about it to increase my understanding of the way people interact with each other.  My end goal is to be able to become a "game-changer" myself.  Hopefully as you read this blog, something in you will lead you to start changing the world in your own way as well.  That's all I can hope for.

So, what can you expect in this blog? Politics.  Especially with an election year around the corner, I will have posts dedicated to the political issues of the day.  Economics.  This time around, due to the 2008 financial crisis, economics have more and more of a place in the political discussion.  I will endeavor to understand some of the issues behind the talking points and the buzzwords so we can participate in conversations about these topics. Books.  One of my big goals is to provide book reviews every now and then on (you guessed it) books pertaining to Politics and Economics!  This should be a blast!

So far, that's about it.  I hope this doesn't turn into my soapbox and I hope I can encourage lively discussion from my blog, but this is my first attempt, so bear with me!  As it progresses, maybe i'll add more about Philosophy or Music, but we shall see.  Anyway, stay tuned each week for new updates and welcome to my blog!