FOR THE BROTHAS: CULTURE AND INTELLECTUALISM: A DUMBED-DOWN CULTURE DOESN'T KNOW IT’S DUMBED DOWN!

A DUMBED-DOWN CULTURE DOESN'T KNOW IT’S DUMBED DOWN!

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Some people have an issue with intelligence, they despise it, distrust it, fear and envy it, love and hate it; alas it is a scary and self-debilitating bonfire of the vanities. Perhaps it is their upbringing, they were taught that simple is better; perhaps it is their fear of the unknown, perhaps they are just lazy, but for the first time in human history I see a trend where people who are intimidated by intelligence are actually vocal about it! Now there is definitely something unsettlingly medieval about anyone being openly critical about the fact that anything is too intellectually lofty. The classy thing to do would be to say nothing and let the big boys discuss their big things, but not anymore it seems. This trend coincides with the widening gap in education not only among certain socioeconomic groups in America but also on an international level if one begins to compare the level of education between Americans and other countries; Americans are falling behind in education because our culture promotes mediocrity as a universal marketing tool.

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Our culture has got so used to everything being dumbed-down for them that it gets down right combative when it encounters media that is produced for consumption by the higher end of the intellectual food chain. Our media, largely driven by the retail interests of corporate America has cultivated a low-end of the intellectual food chain society consisting of generations of consumers who are invested in the perpetuation of a uniformly mediocre culture. No wonder the SAT scores of American students are consistently plummeting. The common American is being programmed to operate within a 5^th grade to 8^th grade comprehension level, if that which of course leaves no demand for a higher level of competency. As the cliché goes, we Americans have, “Created A Monster”!

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One of the residual and almost caracurturesque effects of dumbing-down our culture is that eventually people who lack the technical and intellectual expertise to comprehend and manipulate data forget that their comprehension level is dumbed-down. I have seen people who have no degree or proven competency in a technical area openly challenge professionals and intellectuals in their celebrated field of expertise. In my assessment this denotes a critical breakdown of the way our culture perceives that value and reliability of education and knowledge. That is not to say that merely having a degree or certification makes one infallible, nobody is correct all the time. I however will always bet my last penny on the man with an education when the bet is about something intellectual. More than ever do I see the saying come more to life that, “The blind are leading the blind”.

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Many modern men challenge the dumbed-down theory of capitalism much preferring to exist in the esoteric realm of the academic, intellectual ivory tower but with a healthy dose of street-level realness! They enjoy the loftiness achieved when the language they speak is elevated to an high, artistic form and not relegated to a 4^th grade level “This is how to put the puzzle pieces together children” instruction manual. It just suits them as a refined and well-educated gentleman to have the ability to set themselves aside as extraordinary men who think on a level where most people want to be but pretend not to care about. So unlike popular belief, the self-professed intellectual man is not the odd man out, he is at the front of the line, he is the provocateur, the innovator, the intellectual entrepreneur, he mover and shaker, the Avant Garde, he is, “The Bomb”! But you will never hear anyone who is a member of the mediocrity club admit this; they are muted by virtue of their own lack of insight because a dumbed-down culture doesn't know it’s dumbed-down.