He Loves The Uneducated

One funny moment from the most recent presidential election was when, in response to a poll of voters that showed Donald Trump was the favorite of the least educated among them, Trump declared in a campaign, "I love the uneducated.". Yes, who wouldn't if running for office, because most Americans seem to fall in that category. They not only know very little, they seem almost pleased to be that way. Their world is an insulated one, usually centered around their cell phones and TV shows. What's outside of that seems to matter little to them.

A problem with an uneducated voter is that he or she is unlikely to ever be educated about reality. You can't change their minds on an issue because they have the uneducated smugness that they already have found truth in their position. A politicians merely re enforces that voters ignorance and he will win the vote every time. Trump is a master of it, but all politicians love uneducated voters. Hillary Clinton, for example, won over quite a few with her "War on Women" narrative that told the uneducated that women are virtual slaves to males. And Obama, for example, pushed the uneducated narrative that police were hunting black citizens. Voters who are uneducated about an issue need to be told their lack of education is a blessing. Hence, Trump's "I love the uneducated" remark.

I suspect the uneducated voter is also the uneducated citizen, in general.  The man or woman who pays no income taxes but swears he or she is overtaxed, the doomsday global warming advocate who hasn't the slightest idea about climate beyond what Leonardo Di Caprio says about it, the uneducated who declares that birth control is murder and on and on. We have such views today because the society rewards the fringe, even the uneducated fringe, by tolerating the ignorance rather than trying to change it with facts.

This is not just a phenomenon in the United States. The uneducated are loved just about everywhere. Western Europe, in particular, is a basket case of misinformation and misconception because of it. I suspect the triviality of culture today contributes ot the uneducated boom. Why know things, for instance, when one can live in a bubble on a cell phone? Society does not reward knowledge anymore as it used to. Our lives are so lived in insignificance that knowledge becomes secondary to amusement. Few read the classics anymore. Actually, few even red newspapers anymore. Better, they feel to get information form a social media post.

Maybe schools today should push aside all the technological educational aids and instead issue those old textbooks. Then it should require reading of them and discussion of content, followed by written analysis. Maybe calculators should be banned in schools for all but higher order math, in which they are supplements, not primary sources to solutions. Maybe schools should require proper usage of the language, the old "I deducted 5 points from your test score because you made an error in usage" standard.

Sigh....or maybe I am also one of the uneducated for even suggesting such a possibility today.