The dumbing down of Britann?

We hear a great deal about the dumbing down af American schools and the widespread ignorance of the basic facts of American history.  Now Les Robinson has sent me an article from the Christian Science Monitor (8/12/04) titled "The dumbing down of Britain?", and the arguments are just like those in the US. TV has replaced reading. When I went to Oxford universities were very selective, whereas now the government talks of sending 50% of children to university, which inevitably brings with it a lowering of standards. The large number of poorly educated immigrants adds to the problem. The trouble is not new. In high school athletes were heroes, while bright studious youths were dismissed as "swots" (geeks, a word whose origin I cannot find). I think they were secretly envied, since they were more likely to succeed in life.  Good speech is ridiculed, and certainly the cult of good speech has suffered in many countries because of the egalitarian impulse, which has debased culture to mean whatever a society does, regardless of standards.

A serious aspect of this dumbing down is its impact on politics. The US was founded as a republic, but it has become a Jacksonian democracy.  Hence the rabble-rousing speeches which characterize the present presidential campaign. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez has shown the system produces results there too. We assume the world is moving toward healthy democracies. Will demagoguery lead to the creation of mobocracies?  Is this one aspect of globalization?

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