Now I Understand Why People Believe What They Hear on Fox News….

[babylonsister]

Sigh.

http://sheilakennedy.net/2013/10/now-i-understand-why-people-believe-fox-news/


Now I Understand Why People Believe What They Hear on Fox News….
Sheila Kennedy
October 11, 2013


Ever wonder why people don’t recognize when “news” reports are blatantly, obviously incorrect, improbable or impossible? Or wonder why anyone in his right mind would vote for Michelle Bachmann or Louis Gohmert or Ted Cruz?

My working thesis is that folks who don’t know anything–who are hazy about history, have no clue about how government functions and have only the most tenuous connection to the Constitution–simply have no context within which to judge the reasonableness of assertions that more knowledgable people simply laugh at.

Recently, Bill Maher cited a study showing that fewer than 17% of incoming college freshmen knew what the Emancipation Proclamation was (he described the incoming class as “Basically, golden retrievers with smartphones”). Unfortunately, we have a lot of studies that conclude we don’t know anything. And the hits keep coming.

As if we needed even more evidence of Americans’ abysmal lack of knowledge, here are the results of yet another survey I stumbled across:

1. Only 45% of Americans were able to correctly identify what the initials in GOP stood for: Grand Old Party. Other popular guesses were Government of the People and God’s Own Party. Republicans obviously scored much better than Democrats did on this answer. [source]

2. 55% of Americans believe that Christianity was written into the Constitution and that the founding fathers wanted One Nation Under Jesus. This includes 75% of Republicans and Evangelicals. [source]

3. Although a “relatively” high 40% of people were able to name all three of the United States branches of government — executive, legislative and judicial — a far lower percentage knew the length of a Senator’s term. Just 25% responded that a Senator’s term stretches for six years. Even fewer, 20%, knew how many Senators there were. [source]

4. Americans are known to pick recent heads of state as among the best president in history, which is why Clinton and Reagan regularly rank higher than Lincoln, FDR and Washington. However, Hoover used to routinely top polls of the worst, but today, just 43% of Americans know who he was, according to statistics from the University of Pennsylvania. [source]

5. When asked on what year 9/11 took place, 30% of Americans were unable to answer the question correctly, even as few as five years after the attack. This was according to a Washington Post poll conducted in 2006. . [source]

6. It’s not shocking that 80% of Americans believe that there is life out there somewhere, because it’s hard to look at a vast universe and think we’re completely alone. But 1 in 5 allege that an alien life form has abducted a friend or family member of theirs. Based on population estimates of around 300 million, that means that a terrifying number of people believe they have been probed. [source]

7. When looking at a map of the world, young Americans had a difficult time correctly identifying Iraq (1 in 7) and Afghanistan (17%). This isn’t that surprising, but only a slim majority (51%) knew where New York was. According to Forbes and National Geographic, an alarming 29% couldn’t point to the Pacific Ocean. [source]

8. 25% of Americans were unable to identify the country from which America gained its independence. Although 19% stated that they were unsure, Gallup findings indicated that others offered answers varying from France to China. Older folks scored much better than young people on this question, as a third of those 18-29 were unable to come up with the correct answer. [source]

9. Despite being a constant fixture in school curricula, 30% of Americans didn’t know what the Holocaust was. [source]

10. Even though we are a predominantly Christian country, only half of Americans knew that Judaism came before Christianity, because the words “Old Testament” are apparently very confusing in that regard. [source]

11. A surprisingly high percentage of Americans, 20%, believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth, instead of the opposite, aka the correct answer. This is despite the fact that centuries of science have consistently proved otherwise. [source]

12. In 2011, Newsweek found that 29% of Americans were unable to correctly identify the current Vice President, Joe Biden, when asked to take a simple citizenship test. Although a relatively low 6% didn’t know when Independence Day was, a much, much higher percentage (73%) had no idea why we fought the Cold War. [source]

13. According to most polls, Americans didn’t know that Obamacare was scheduled to go into effect. Kaiser puts the number at 64%, whereas others say as few as 1 in 8. [source]

14. 2006 AP polls showed that a majority of Americans were unable to name more than one of the protections guaranteed in the first Amendment of the Constitution — which include speech, assembly, religion, press and “redress of grievance.” Just 1 in 1000 could name all of these five freedoms. However, 22% were able to come up with the name of every member of the Simpson family. [source] TC mark

And we wonder why we elect buffoons to high office.

Just kill me now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. anti intellectualism

not new

[uponit7771]

62. +1

[gopiscrap]

2. Yeah and the fucking republicans and big business want it that way

[monmouth3]

3. Our education system is more concerned with teaching to the test than teaching

actual history and other subjects. I do blame them..

[kmlisle]

7. I agree but that's not what teachers want

That's the reform movement who does not listen to teachers and who decided not to test social studies so guess what does not get taught, especially in elementary school.

[flamingdem]

9. Teachers aren't to blame for people not knowing about 9/11

That's just an amazing statistic.

[kenichol]

20. Education is becomming a thing of the past

Sadly, this is all part of the corporate takeover of education.

[Nevernose]

57. Kids spend 12% of a year in school.

The educational is therefore responsible for 12% of the stupidity.

[Faygo Kid]

4. Doomed - Climate change and income inequality

Those will destroy the world, along with the ignorance chronicled here.

Glad I'm a Boomer. We had the best ever. Too bad it's all wrecked.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

5. The Pacific Ocean one got to me,

because it's huge. I looked at that figure that only 29% could point to it and thought to myself "Waitaminnit! That's probably lower than what you would get just by having them point to a random spot on a globe!!!"
Sure enough: the Pacific Ocean occupies 32.5% of the surface of the Earth. So that 29% is actually LOWER than if you'd just have them throw darts at a map/globe. (and if it's a map and it's the Mercator Projection, oh man....)

[demwing]

54. Not JUST Huge

but at over 60 million square miles large, it's bigger than ANYTHING else on the planet, including all the land masses combined.

We only have two fucking oceans that border the US, how god damned hard can it be to keep track?

[ronnie624]

59. 71% could point to it (presumably), 29% couldn't. n/t

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. people believe what they hear. it is the basis of the ad business.

say it enough times, and it becomes a reality.

[BobbyBoring]

18. Interesting Pic

I saw where a huge percentage of people applying for jobs as checkers at super marts couldn't identify fruits and vegetables. If they ain't freedom fries, they don't know what it is!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. I'm sure women are wise to false claims,...especially after being let down by shampoo...

The promise:



The reality:



"This shit ain't making me orgasm!!! WTF???"

[RC]

44. They are doing it wrong.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

47. That's why they sell so many varieties. One of them will do it....

Burt's Bees are the ones with the real Addams Family blends. Grapefruit and Sugar Beet? Really?

[TeamPooka]

63. it's about how you use the water nozzle.... nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

64. Some took that too far....

[world wide wally]

8. Yeah...but they are all EXPERTS on the Constitution!

At least the second amendment part.

[flamingdem]

10. ha ha - and they know about tricorner hats

and the teaparty revolts, and that's about it.

[blkmusclmachine]

11. Stupid people watch Faux.

And, it makes them dumber.

[bluemarkers]

13. scary is when smart people watch faux

and they turn into zombies

[hfojvt]

12. wow

only 22% were able to name every member of the Simpson family? That's hard to believe.

Everybody doesn't know it's Joseph, Tina, Jessica and Ashlee? Really?

[beerandjesus]

61. Wait, it's not Michael, Jermaine, Jackie, Marlon, and Tito??

[hfojvt]

66. don't be silly

those are the sons of Old Hickory.

[Warpy]

14. The human race, taken individually, is not smart.

Most people can absorb enough information to go about their daily lives, and that's quite a lot to ask of most of them. They have no room for things like how the government works, where other countries are on the planet, and other trivialities. They think the sun goes around the earth because that's how they perceive it and sensible people just don't bother asking those questions, anyway, because it comes up and goes down every day and that's all people need to know to be able to show up at work on time.

Unfortunately, they're being taught to look down on people who are educated and keep on educating themselves. That's what the problem is. We can handle the uneducated. What we can't handle are uneducated people who are given carte blanche to bully the educated, and that is what is happening. This country has always had an anti intellectual streak, the notion that common sense (which the stupid lack, too) is superior to book learning.

That's why cutting edge scientists are fleeing the US as soon as they get their PhDs. If they want to stay cutting edge, they need to get out of this intellectual backwater.

I weep for this country. When bumpkins take over, the country is finished.

[Populist_Prole]

41. Fantastic post: Should be its own OP

Every word, every sentence is one-hundred percent astute and spot-on.

I've come to notice over time that it just wasn't that some people were too "busy" to care about what mattered: it is all intentional. I've run into people who regard intellectualism with not some sort of "affectionate contempt" ( if there can be such a term ) or even indifference, but outright scorn.

I see it at so many levels:

- Dolts that get annoyed when you make a point with irony, tongue-in-cheek, or dry humor; as if they're irritated they have to do some mental heavy lifting to figure out what you meant.

- If your anecdotes aren't peppered with trite pop culture idioms but instead rely on them being even just a little bit well read, you're labeled a snob or eccentric.

- They'll substitute a faith-based or "the way things should be" mindset and, being satisfied and comfortable with it, react with anger if you help them connect the dots to reality and rob them of their righteous, fire-in-the-belly indignation. That being a team player for what they think is a cool team is actually NOT in their best interest. This happens a lot, and they get madder than hell at you.

Fast forward this many generations to an almost 'Idiocracy' like society and it becomes not annoying, certainly not amusing, but very frightening.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

58. And it's all exactly the way our corporate overlords planned it. All they want you

to know about is the shit they are selling. Any other knowledge just gets in the way.

[DFW]

15. And now you know why Republicans hate giving money for education

The more people know, the more they realize Fox lies.

The more they realize Fox lies, the less likely they are to vote Republican.

[lastlib]

39. ^ ^ THIS ^ ^

"An insightful and informed citizenry is the archenemy of tyranny." T. Jefferson.

This is the heart of the reason that repugs want to yank money out of education. They don't want opposition to the tyranny they want to impose.

[Chaco Dundee]

16. so it is.

Fox news anchors are punchinellies and some of them troglodytes to begin with,but they indoctrinate the masses and get away with it because they spew that tripe they call news the loudest.

[Stuart G]

17. I really tried my best...honestly

I taught in high school for more than 25 years. History. I did my best to teach an honest view of U.S.History.
Also...I taught Geography, but,...it was never required and toward the end of my career, far fewer took this. Maybe one or two classes in the school...
I do recall that at one school I taught, most incoming freshmen were urged to take this class. But things changed at the last high school I was in. We taught Geography within the History class. There was not enough time to do a good job. I tried.. I stopped teaching in the late 90s..Well, I tried my best.

[kenichol]

19. My 2 cents

Isn't the purpose of politics to make life better for all Americans? I'm beginning to doubt this.

[oldhippie]

25. Where did you come up with that?

Noble purpose, of course, and the politicians looking to get elected would probably say that. But really?

[Kingofalldems]

21. Goerge Carlin had it right--->

[zeemike]

22. I know people hate this, but when I was in school...

In the 50s we had subjects like Geography and Civics...and had regular tests on the subject...I used ot love Geography but not Civics so much...and every week we received free a Weekly Reader...a small newspaper about current events and would discuss it in class...and this was in 5th and 6th grade...
I wonder what they learn now in middle school...I can't imagine being exposed to those subjects and not knowing where the Pacific ocean is.

[oldhippie]

29. Oh lordy! The Weekly Reader .......

We also got the weekly reader in grade school and Jr High in the 50's. We usually went over it in History or Geography class. I loved geography. We studied the globe and had projects to do research on the countries in a particular continent. My specialty (in 5th grade) was the Scandinavian countries.

I remember spending years learning US, European, and NY State history. Most of my region was of German heritage, so we spent a lot of time with medieval European history. I am certain that almost everyone in my high school class (class of '66) could answer all those questions correctly.

Things changed.

[zeemike]

45. As I remember it.

We got the Weekly Reader on Wednesday and got the chance to read it while we had our morning milk...which we got every morning before class started, and we discussed it in civics class.
But I too loved Geogriphy...and loved learning about different places in the world...I am not sure I had a favorite...but it opened me up to what a wonder the world really is.

[Thirties Child]

40. Weekly Reader in grade school, The Atlantic in high school

In the 50s.

[SheilaT]

23. With all due respect to teachers out there,

history is often very badly taught. The textbooks, the ones I had in high school and some of the ones my kids had, are not very good. Too often the football coach is assigned to teach history.

And even when a teacher with an actual degree in history is teaching, they sometimes get things wrong. When I was in world history class, I was driven crazy by a teacher who had some fundamental things completely wrong. The one specific I recall, since I knew you were going to ask, was that he said Mary Tudor, later Mary I of England also known as Bloody Mary, fled to France at some point. I immediately spoke up and said, no she didn't. For one thing, if she had, she probably would never have come back and become queen, and Elizabeth would have become queen in 1553 instead.

Yeah, so that's a fairly obscure point of history, at least to us Americans some 450 years later, but the world history teacher should not have gotten that wrong.

And all of those things enumerated in the OP are scary. But, as I said, history is often taught badly, newspapers and TV news programming almost never display a sense of history in their reporting, and of course since the parents themselves learned almost no history, they don't think it's important and don't care if their kids learn anything.

[LiberalFighter]

24. This from a former Republican.

Sheila Kennedy is Professor of Law and Policy in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

More from her bio. Before coming to IUPUI in 1998, I had several careers: I practiced real estate, administrative and business law in Indianapolis, Indiana, served as the city’s Corporation Counsel, and in 1980, was the Republican candidate for Indiana’s then 11th Congressional District seat. I was President of Kennedy Development Services, a real estate development company, from 1987-1992, when I became Executive Director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union (the Indiana affiliate of the ACLU), a position I held until I joined the faculty of SPEA.

Had to change the title due to the fact she hasn't voted in a Republican primary since 2000. Been D ever since.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. "When asked on what year 9/11 took place"

I've run into Morans who claimed it happened under Clinton and he was too weak and scared to do anything about it and, "Thank God for George Bush, you goddamn librul pussy!"

[IrishAyes]

27. No, we'll have to check out together. I can barely stand the level of public ignorance even with

knowledgeable, strong shoulders to lean on.

Can't tell if it was just a setup, of course, but Jimmy Kimmel went around asking people what's the difference between the ACA and ObamaCare. What he showed was selective but still guaranteed to make you laugh and cry on your way to the bathroom to barf.

And these people want to hold themselves above recent immigrants and new citizens who might well be better versed in history than we are?

No wonder you get idiots announcing President Obama has no business in their White House.

If I hadn't heard this week about a 14-yr-old kid who invented something scientists think might cure breast cancer, I'd fold up and die right now and get it over with. At church today a certain reasonably nice but totally clueless man said something about women appreciating men more when we wanted to have families. I didn't breathe a word about the scientists in England (if memory serves) who within the last couple years managed to produce a viable fetus or zygote w/o benefit of any male sperm. It wasn't cloning either. I don't believe in breaking someone's heart needlessly.

[handmade34]

28. Critical Thinking skills

and Civics... both seriously lacking...

Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
~ Francis Bacon (1605)

http://www.criticalthinking.org

[Cryptoad]

33. GOP Platform in TX calls for

the removal of teaching critical thinking!

68% of the TX adults do not have a high school education!

[pnwmom]

30. Of course. If two people much smarter are arguing over your head --

Sen. Ted Cruz vs. Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- then you wouldn't be able to follow the argument, anymore than you could follow the argument of a couple of physicists on dark hole theory.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. That lineup is more like the one Barney Frank described of him vs a dining room table.

[pnwmom]

34. LOL. But don't underestimate Cruz.

He's no blockhead.

[lastlib]

36. no, but he's a supermassive asshole.

[Ikonoklast]

56. He actually can suck the smart out of a room full of people.

Anyone who actually listens to him gets dumber.

[lastlib]

67. and he's sucking more and more all the time......

He might be a wormhole to a higher dimension of stupid.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. I believe that was an overestimation,...he's more of a TV tray.

[lastlib]

35. A few years ago, I saw a survey that showed.....

...more than 80% of Americans could name all of "The Simpsons"--yet fewer than one in seven (14%) could name four of the freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment.


. . . . .


(this is the mindless vapidity we're up against....)

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

38. Damn,

what else can be said?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

42. Then they poll these same people for their expert opinions

and publish it as facts.
Think about that for a moment.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

43. The big deal in 12th grade

in the 60's was a trip to D.C. from New York. Wonder how many classes still do that.

[99Forever]

46. Agreed. Damn scary.

But not surprising in some ways.

I credit the "Raygun Revolution."

[SammyWinstonJack]

48. rec

[GeorgeGist]

49. Thank Reagan for getting the ball rolling ...

to make stupid respectable.

[IrishAyes]

50. The boy scientist prodigy I mentioned - Jack - was just now on 60 minutes.

It's a promising start to a simple, cheap early detection test for pancreatic cancer. I'm terribly impressed. He sounds like a nice kid, too.

[IronLionZion]

51. One political party is constantly trying to cut education funding

while the other one supports education. This is why.

[Thinkingabout]

52. K&R Wonderful read, sad but true

When I think about OOPS Rick Perry saying Texas needs to secede from the Union, guess he missed American history classes about the Civil War and did not understand how Texas and other states returned to the Union but was a great RW point. You can't blame teachers of recent with his education.

Just saw a Facebook comment about HR 3200 and end of life counseling, this was not the final bill but they are still scared of this Obamacare. I gave correct Information back and was de-friended, guess that will teach me they do want the truth. I listen to RW talk shows often, lie after lie but they don't stop.

Thanks for your post, I did find humor in the possibility of TPer's believing.

[IrishAyes]

53. If you can stand another note on the Weekly Reader...

I loved it too. Unfortunately a teacher once assigned us to write a letter to a person of our choice in the current news. Well, that just happened to be the week that the young Fidel Castro was touring America to cheering crowds. So I wrote him a simple letter that briefly threw me into the center of a Big Red Scare. My simple, innocent letter read almost exactly like this:

"Dear Mr. Castro: Our teacher told us to write a letter to someone in the news, and since you're the lead story in Weekly Reader, I chose you. I'm glad your revolution got rid of Batista because he was such a selfish dictator and cared nothing for the people. I hope you do a better job. It shouldn't be too hard because Batista was so bad. Thank you."

The reason I remember the letter so well even now is that so many idiot adults got hold of it and beat me over the head with it. Followed me for years. Well, sometimes things even out. Today I'm still proud of it, and most of the people who lambasted me for such an innocent letter are dead and gone.

Imagine being called a crazy communist when you're just a young kid. Well, at least it helped innoculate me against conservatism. I never suffered that particular malady.

[CanSocDem]

69. The "Weekly Reader"...

...sounded subversive (like a nationally distributed news analysis forced onto impressionable minds) until you mentioned it covering Castro on his tour of the USA. Your awareness of Batista, whether or not it came from 'the weekly reader', also speaks of a political awareness, breathtakingly absent today.

.

[IrishAyes]

71. Well, maybe I did pick up a little political color and sharp elbows somewhere

Because I performed a sort of coup of my own one time. For our school's senior civics project, we put on a complete presidential campaign/election process. This was soooo long ago that females weren't allowed to compete for the top spot! Few of the kids really cared, even though I was incensed and figured out a way to get back. As campaign manager for the 'Democratic' candidate - so fatuous he almost made me scream - I got stuck with all the work while he preened in public. But I also had all the real power and knew his Achilles heel; terrible, crippling stage fright. He threw up backstage after having to announce his acceptance of our party's nomination in public. Teacher didn't think of that. He could preen with the best but his knees turned to jelly onstage.

So all through the course of the campaign, which included one debate just before the election, I worked on that thin wire until he was ready to break. Backstage I nibbled on it, and when he looked ready to throw up again, I offered to make his excuses and give the speech for him. Well, I wrote the damn thing! He nodded in agreement and so I stepped out on stage, explained that our candidate had been struck down with a temporary illness, and as his second I would present our case instead.

School officials were shocked and horrified to see a mere girl step out like that but at the last second there was nothing they could do. They couldn't have dragged our actual candidate on stage with a team of wild horses, especially not after I finished with him. I gave what I considered a rousing speech, pulled out all the stops. Probably stepped on a few teachers' toes while I was at it. But we won the election, if nothing else than because the GOP candidate was as lazy and idiotic as our own. I think that was my self declaration of conscious feminism.

[samplegirl]

55. Sad when you think of

how many people never tune into any news! What little they learn is all talk radio!

[CoffeeCat]

60. You are spot on...and it's also ego stroking/manipulation

I agree with you that talk radio and Fox News caters to the idiot parade. People who can't think for themselves, or who lack critical thinking skills--lap up the talking points without question. These are very impressionable people who are easily manipulated.

I'll also take this a step further. I've been listening to talk radio since Rush Limbaugh first aired his program in the early 1990's. All of talk radio engages in ego manipulation of these idiots.

A few decades ago--these religious extremists, conservative nut jobs, extreme pro-lifers and gun-toting ingrates with confederate flags in their pick-up trucks--use to hide their crazy. These people were in the closet with their extremism, bigotry and religious zealotry. Talk radio has galvanized them and told them that they are very special and wonderful--like precious little snowflakes.

Talk-radio hosts convince these extremists that they are superior to most Americans. Talk radio tells them that they are more patriotic, moral, intelligent, politically savvy and more likely to join Jesus in the afterlife. Right-wing media outlets are positioned as magical pipelines of truth that the "libruls" are just too ignorant and foolish to understand.

It's a perfect set up. Fox/talk radio strokes their fragile egos. So these lemmings lap it up because it makes them feel special and superior. And they accept any theory, talking point and policy stance--because they have been convinced that they are smart if they do.

Tomorrow, if Fox News declared that the nation of Chad should be invaded, all Fox lemmings would be parroting those talking points. They would argue like rabid dogs for war with Chad. They would spew the talking points as if they were brilliant Rhodes Scholars who understood geopolitics and world history better than most--because Fox News and Sean Hannity told them so.

They are brainwashed, former rejects who have been enticed into carrying water for the elites, the corporations and the warmongers. And they're too damn stupid to figure out that the Republicans and the elites who benefit from their votes and support--are using them.

It's very sick to watch.

[LibDemAlways]

65. Even on Jeopardy, where contestants demonstrate

a wide breadth of knowledge, they tend not to do well on questions relating to modern day US government and politics. I substitute teach and know for a fact that the schools in my district do not make current events or even recent history part of the curriculum until 12th grade government class, which is a single semester. I usually try to bring up something in the news as my own modest effort to get the kids thinking about important issues of the day that they otherwise are not exposed to. The other day I mentioned that we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK and few of the 9th graders had any idea what I was talking about. They've studied US history in 5th and 8th grade and both times the school year ended just after the Civil War. That's ridiculous.

[seveneyes]

68. Breakdown by party?

Were the answers to the questions broken down by what party the people that answered identified with? Which party scored better?

[Quantess]

70. Yikes, (no text)