“But we are living in a skeptical, and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day.”
James Joyce
More and more Americans are becoming college educated, and more and more are becoming morons as a result. Antivaccine, flat earth, 9/11, chemtrail, moon landing and other conspiracies. One growing group even claims there is no such thing as space.
I believe the Internet is a good thing in many ways and a bad thing in others. Yes, we can get information in seconds and information from a wide variety of sources. We are exposed to differing viewpoints to make us think. The bad is that many do not think rationally, hence conspiracy theories. The internet gives them a veneer of respectability or authority when they deserve none. On the internet, Einsteins and Bocephusus both have voices with equal volume. Americans are so used to being told what to think by the major media that they have little resistance to bullshit.
The politicization of the schools and colleges has corrupted knowledge. They have told a generation that there isn’t objective truth.