Politically Ignorant Americans: Whose Fault Is It?

Do we really need one more book telling us how ill-educated Americans are? Maybe. This essay, poorly titled "Citizen Stupid" is by the author of Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. Only 20 percent of Americans know how many Senators there are? Only 40 percent can name the three branches of government? (That's an improvement.) Fewer than half of Americans know who dropped the first nuclear weapon in war.

Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent. First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.

Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter—