The Dumbing Down Of America

[Tao_Equus]

You are not required to be an intellectual to be a good obedient worker and a voracious consumer. Stop thinking!!

Tao

[path_of_one]

Too true, Tao. In fact... being an intellectual typically makes one a very disobedient worker and a poor excuse for a consumer.

[gp1628]

A great quote from an 1882 article on Social Darwinism...

Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.

[greymare]

in my mind that seems to be slightly controversial.

[StarshipEnterprise]

I can see why you would think that quote to be controversial, since it refers to "inferior members of society". This may be a bit harsh, but it merely makes an observation on the human population the same way it does to any other population of organisms. The observation itself is benign and completely valid. What you do with it could be controversial.

The thought has often occurred to me that modern society could lead to "devolution". Almost any genes, beneficial or not, can survive and be passed on to the next generation. I expect we may see a large increase in genetic diseases in the future, unless we can genetically engineer ourselves to have better genes--which could be controversial in itself.

[greymare]

even the "inferior members of society" can contribute something to society.........people with downs syndrome have an extra chromosone than the rest of us... does that make us the deficient ones?

[Tao_Equus]

Attempting to influence "Social Darwinism" or Eugenics is not practised?
Do you put your prize winning herd of dairy cattle in a verdant field of lush nutritious grass or a dry barren field of thorns and toxic herbs? I'm off for lunch.....will it be McDonalds ?