#521: A Theory Of Dumb
Articles on bear attacks, liver transplants, and our waning intelligence as a species
If there’s one topic that people love to write about, it’s the topic of how our young people are dumb and how teachers are to blame. I’ve written about this phenomenon before. In short, if you want clicks, write a piece about how kids can’t read Bleak House or divide fractions.
Last week, the University of California at San Diego released a report that concluded that its incoming students are getting worse at Math. Since then, I’ve been inundated with think pieces that aim to explain, without much evidence, the reasons for this trend. The articles sound mostly the same — as if the authors are reading each others’ work and parroting it back, like human ChatGPTs.
It’s the phones, of course. Or the pandemic. Or the length of the lockdowns. Or the Common Core State Standards. Or the end of Common Core State Standards, in 2015. Or grade inflation. Or tracking. Or detracking. Or liberals. Or that we’re not spending enough money on education. Or that money doesn’t matter in education. Or that we’re focusing too much on students with IEPs, or on mental health, and not enough on the basics, like facts, or phonics, or patriotic history, or the Bible.
Anyway, it was a flurry of articles this week, and I’m not sure that all my reading led to a greater understanding. But my persistence did result in finding one piece that distinguished itself from the others. Written by Lane Brown and published in Intelligencer, “A Theory of Dumb,” took on a different perspective that made sense. “The winners” of our modern era, Mr. Brown writes, “are the people who can boil complicated phenomena down to the smallest units.” This compression of communication also means the compression of thought.
If you can’t stand to read another article about the decline of the American mind, I have two other articles for your consideration. They are about:
I hope at least one of the articles resonates with you. Leave a comment if you want to share your thoughts. As always, thank you for your readership and your support of Article Club. If you appreciate the newsletter, I’d be honored if you shared it with a friend or colleague. Have a great weekend ahead!
1️⃣ A Theory Of Dumb
The reason we’re dumber now, suggests Lane Brown, is not our phones or the Internet. It’s that we’re bombarded with a deluge of dreadful drivel at all times, and our brains are atrophying as a result. And it’s nearly impossible to escape.
The human brain reached something like its modern form at least 10,000 years ago, by the end of the Upper Paleolithic period, when people lived in tribes of between 20 and 50 and rarely ran into anyone else. We were programmed by evolution to process the faces, feelings, and gossip of small groups. Even as recently as the 1990s, most people interacted with only their relatives, co-workers, and friends each day, plus maybe their local news anchor on TV. Now, though, those same Paleolithic brains are being bombarded with the thoughts of hundreds of strangers every hour. Modern communication in all its forms has put us in contact with more minds than we were built to handle, and our own seem to be wilting under the load.
Not so long ago, the dolts among us were free to think their thoughts quietly to themselves with no easy way to share them. At worst, a person would usually just embarrass himself in front of his own family or bowling team. Bad ideas had a harder time scaling and reproducing, so lots of stupidity stayed local, and everyone else could happily overestimate the average person’s intelligence because they saw less of it. But then we connected everyone on the planet and gave them each the equivalent of their own printing press, radio station, and TV network. Now, even those with nothing useful to say can tell the whole world exactly, or more often vaguely, what they think.
The problem isn’t any one device or platform or influencer, and you can’t escape it just by quitting Instagram or unsubscribing from all your paid newsletters. The unavoidable reality is that a massive decentralized swarm of people is now talking, arguing, and opining all at once, everywhere, all the time. And if you want to say anything, or simply understand what’s going on, you have to pass through them. The medium is still the message, but the medium, today, is the mob.
By Lane Brown • Intelligencer • 17 min • Gift Link
2️⃣ When The Bears Come Back
For Wendy Cowan, the woods were her happy place. She loved hiking in the Virginia forests. The best times were with Ripley, her mother’s German Shepherd, whom she called her soulmate. One day Ripley bounded off the path and came racing back alongside a 350-pound black bear. They were playing, Ms. Cowan said. But then, in a dash, the bear was on her, attacking her, mauling her.
Despite her 56 puncture wounds — bites to her back and face and shoulder and thigh and neck — Ms. Cowan did not blame the bear. “If she wanted to kill me, she would have killed me,” she said. “You think you’re dying, and you’re noticing how beautiful this animal looks to you. Isn’t that something?”
By Anya Groner and Blair Hobbs • Southlands • 16 min • Gift Link
3️⃣ A Liver On Ice
I love it when I find a new publication and read about a topic I’ve never explored before. This week, I found Asimov Press, thanks to Albert Chu’s Links (highly recommended). In his latest issue, Mr. Chu featured this outstanding article on the process and history of liver transplants. You’ll travel by helicopter as medical professionals race against the clock to transfer a healthy liver from its braindead donor to its ill-but-hopeful recipient. You’ll pick up important factoids, like how a good liver should feel “like a stingray: smooth, supple, and soft.” Certainly don’t read the piece if you’re squeamish, but if you can handle blood and disembowelment, you’re in for a scintillating ride. I couldn’t stop marveling at the wonders (and brutalities) of modern surgery.
By Donna Vatnick • Asimov Press • 34 min • Gift Link
✅ This Week’s Poll
I’m intrigued to find out! (Do you know my answer?)
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Great to read a more interesting take on supposed decline of intellegent thought that does not take the obvious path and blame our phones or the Internet.
I like the noting of a spate of articles all prancing around the same issue or theory (and there are so many of these) and picking the best one, or the most interesting. I guess there have been a few AC's like this.