"We're Losing the Ability to Think"

The following are a couple of excerpts from today's op-ed by Leonard Pitts Jr., a columnist from the Miami Herald. It's the perfect follow up to my last post, which continues on the theme of Americans' stupidity and their flat-out reluctance to think:

"[...] And then tell me you don't feel the nation's collective IQ dropping like stocks.

I am not talking about ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of information; we're all ignorant in one way or another. Nor am I talking about people prone to punctuation or spelling errors; we all make mistakes.

No, I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from, or otherwise use information even when one has it. And stupidity is often characterized by smug indifference.

For as much as we obsess over black vs. white and red vs. blue, I suspect the defining division of this technology-driven era will be between those who have and can exploit information and those who do not and cannot. Between intelligence and its opposite. One wonders how long we can continue to equate stupidity with ''keeping it real,'' being a regular Joe or Jane, and hope to continue leading the world.

In recent years, we have seen intelligence demonized as the sole province of the ''elite,'' a term that once described accomplishment, but is now used to condemn anyone who looks like he might have accidentally cracked a book or had a thought."

The column can be found in its entirety here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/618348.html