Are Americans Too Stupid For Democracy?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/are-americans-too-stupid-democracy



***SNIP


That's the theory, but “rational” is a key word in that formulation. What happens when lots of citizens don't have a solid grasp of what's going on in the real world?

Consider some examples that are especially relevant to our current political scene.

People Don't Recognize Their Lack of Competence, Can't Judge the Competence of Politicians

Psychologists David Dunning of Cornell and Justin Kruger of NYU conducted a series of experiments showing that incompetent people vastly overrate their own abilities. "For people at the bottom who are really doing badly — those in the bottom 10th or 15th percentile — they think their work falls in the 60th or 55th percentile, so, above average," Dunning told the website Life's Little Mysteries.

***SNIP

Politicians Think Their Constituents Are Much Further to the Right Than Polls Suggest

It's not just citizens who are out of touch, according to research by David Broockman of the University of California and Christopher Skovron of the University of Michigan. They asked 2,000 state legislators – Republicans and Democrats – to estimate what percentage of their constituents favored same-sex marriage, efforts to combat global warming and universal healthcare. The two scholars found a huge gap between how conservative politicians thought their constituents were and what the polls actually showed. The divide was especially pronounced among Republicans, who overestimated their constituents' rightward tilt by an average of 20 percentage points.

[sendero]

1. Yes...

... I keep thinking that if things get bad enough more people will start paying attention. But there is no evidence of that happening yet.

Looks like by the time that happens our civil liberties will have been so curtailed as to make any effective protest impossible. Oh well.

[HiPointDem]

2. "stupid" is not the right word. americans aren't any stupider than any other people.

[Fumesucker]

5. Ignorant and amazingly propagandized is how I would put it

[bowens43]

3. Yes, you can never lose by betting on the stupidity of americans

[MrSlayer]

4. I think it's more about conditioning than intelligence.

Because I know more than a few otherwise smart people that subscribe to right wing ideologies. I can usually argue them into admitting that they're against certain things simply because they don't approve of them personally but it's impossible to break through that mentality. A lot of this stuff isn't a matter of intelligence so much as it is a matter of empathy and compassion. If you don't care much for other people you aren't interested in contributing to their welfare.

Being indifferent to the plight of others doesn't mean you're stupid. It just means you're heartless.

[cali]

6. more American exceptionalism

the simple equation that leads people to say that Americans and the U.S. is the best ever or the worst ever.

It's so much more complex than that simple minded shit.

[Quantess]

7. Americans aren't any stupider or any smarter than anyone else in the world.

We do have a deeply flawed government and a democracy that is not truly a democracy. We also have a lot of deluded and confused people, just like most other places in the world.

I used to love alternet, but lately they have featured a lot of weak articles (like this one).

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. it is pure self-deception and self-delusion to deny that Americans are by far the most ignorant of

all peoples of any Western democracy and even far, far more ignorant than most people of most third world countries when it comes to basic knowledge of politics, history, geography and current events. This obvious to everyone in the whole world.

On the other hand Americans are among the friendliest and spontaneously most open minded and definitely the most helpful and polite of all the peoples of the world - admittedly in a kind of nutty American kind of way. I recall once asking a Saudi student who had lived both in France and in America. He pointed out that the French were far more politically and geographically aware - in fact compared to Americans there was obviously no comparison. But on the other hand the French had far more built built in cultural obstacles preventing a real meeting of the minds. On the other hand even if an American had it in their head that they did not like Muslims, or Arabs - you talk to them for just a few minutes and they will completely forget that you are a Muslim or an Arab and they will be inviting you over to their house and sincerely wanting to become a friend.

So, I suppose the basic goodness of Americans is exceptional. But in terms of being able to make major rational democratic decisions as a whole that is not at this time possible. It can only become possible if the culture fundamentally changes.

[xchrom]

9. +1

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. "Widespread ignorance of objective reality poses a genuine threat to democracy."

It isn't so much stupid as it is ignorant, and the trend remains skewed to a willful\fearful ignorance. More and more people have come to understand that the systems don't work, yet are too afraid or unknowledgeable of alternatives to accept the idea of trying them.

Bill Maher recently said something I think relevant, "Americans are not against socialism, they just can't define it".

[djean111]

11. I don't think we really have a Democracy any more.

How can it be a Democracy when big money is running things and the voters are ignored except for right around election time?
How can it be a Democracy when we are told, peevishly, that campaign promises are of course just pandering hot air balloons?
I don't think Americans are smarter or more stupid than anyone else - they just live in the country with the most available riches to easily steal and politicians to purchase.

And the polls only count at election time - once elected, politicians don't give a flying fuck about the polls, polls are just something the media pleasures itself with. Same for petitions.
And most people only know what the media tells them about climate change and everything else.