"You say you want a revolution..."

How do you rebuild a society? When someone begins to speak like this, often one expects radical statements of anarchy and open revolt. When a revolution is called for, it is often to hearken back to an idealized era of the past, or a Utopian future.

There are many ills in America which are commented on by many (i.e., see any previous post), but that which bothers me the most is the emphasis (or lack thereof) on knowledge. Over the previous six years, there has been debate on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and various other reforms within the educational system; there has been debate about what the definition of "theory" is-- for an excellent commentary on this, please read up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster; and, if nothing else, an overall disinterest in where human civilization is moving as a whole.

I will begin with enumeration of the last point. The "direction of civilization" is not one I speak of with grandiose applications about the placement of of good and evil, or how, why, and what wars are forged, but our direction as a human community in advancement. Western society, for approximately five to six centuries has been one of expansive knowledge. Of course, there are stops and stumbles and regressions, but since the Renaissance, our collective body of data has been growing on an exponential scale, the most dramatic of which has been seen since the dawn of the 20th century. In America, in particular, there had been a steady interest with the growth of our technological and intellectual prowess until a particular waning in the latter part of the century. How long has it been since a man like Einstein was a hero, let alone a household word?

Indeed, there had been a prolific and successful relationship between science and society for a long time, which sadly seemed to have seen its peak during my parents generation (those educated in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s). I'm uncertain of the exact point of departure, but it seems to me that science stopped being regularly interesting to the public in the late 70s/early 80s. I can't even begin to extrapolate what precipitated this shift. Of course, the placement of science in American culture is just my own special point of interest. That which worries me is a seeming anti-intellectualism strung through our culture. There are far too many people alive today who not only advertise, but are proud of the fact that they are ignorant of specific areas.

The "classic" juxtaposition of this context is the high school story of geeks vs. jocks. I am more than willing to accept that there will always be those people for which academia comes much more easily, but to be proud of not knowing? I can simple not fathom why someone would not not want to know. There was a time in our history when the most refined of people were the intellectuals, and these were the archetypes to which people aspired.

Today, as always, there are heroes-- there will always be heroes. In the ancient past, all knew of the heroes such as Achilles or Hercules, or even the biblical ones such as David or heroic saints (George and his dragon come to mind), yet these men while strong and powerful often relied on their wit, their creativity, and ocean of knowledge for their adventures. Indeed, as Western society progressed into the Industrial Era, the heroes changed, and eventually from quasi-mythological people into real-life men and women from histories or even current news. In the early part of the twentieth century, scientists and explorers would be on the covers of magazines. Lo, in the era of abstractionism in the 1920s, art, music, literature, and physics moved from classical, well-known areas to experimental and often weird levels of discourse as seen by (respectively) Picasso, Gershwin, Joyce, and Dirac's work in their fields. This was the popular discourse of an era, this was on the tips of people's tongues as they discussed the future of us all. Then move onto the next generation of boomers. I would like to be able to see some data comparing how many five year-olds in 1961 wanted to be astronauts as compared to today.

Now the heroes are sports players and musicians, which is nothing new at all, but this, as it seems, is all that the heroes have become. There are professional athletes recruited right out of high school, or shepherded through college in "fluff" majors who later go on to moronic futures both on and off (especially off) the field. On the other end, there are vapid singers who project no other image than how much money they have, or what their sex appeal is. Where is the future in this?

I probably sound like like a crotchety old man, but it simply appears that the population of people who wish to strive for the betterment of society is ever shrinking. There will never be a shortage of high schoolers who want to be doctors, but knowing some that I have taught, I would never want to be their patient. And yet the standards just drop and drop. By definition, a grade of a "C" is average, "B" is above average, and "A" is excellent. The parents and students and teachers who I have met lately, who insist that "B+" is now the average grade are saddening. Oh, there are so many directions to go from here, but I wonder if I even should. In future posts, I will address the issues which I have not fully elaborated upon here, and outright forgot.

Any ideas of how to run this around? It is a bygone fact by now that this century belongs to Asia, but how can America compete, will our empire decline like the Spanish, into chaos and poverty, or like the British, in a lesser, but strong land?

Sorry for the disjointed rant. This will be refined in the future.