Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce

Mr. Pierce is a freelance writer and I am most familiar with his work from Esquire magazine. His writing is witty, acerbic, and very insightful on subjects ranging from sports to current affairs. It is the latter that is the subject of this book.

Pierce describes the contemporary United States as something of an intellectual wasteland. He begins by painting a vivid picture of the inherent absurdity of the so-called Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. Men ride dinosaurs fixed with English saddles. A couple of triceratops are lined up (baby ones to conserve space) on Noah’s Ark. Elephants are rescued from the Hindu religion and its god Ganesh.

Pierce described “Idiot America” (undefined, but probably best understood as the mass of the public, the aggregate of US opinion) acting as follows: “It decides, en masse, with a million keystrokes and clicks of the remote control, that because there are two sides to every question, they both must be right, or at least not wrong. In this “new media age” (the 24-hour news cycle), “everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is,” (p. 8). He uses controversy over teaching “intelligent design” in public schools and the “debate” over the same. Pierce lambasts press coverage regarding the undermining of the teaching of evolution through pseudo-scientific propaganda.

In a country pulsing with technological innovation, how do such misguided ideas gain popular support, or even an audience? Pierce asserts three premises that guide the commoditization of ideas which allows them to flourish in contemporary American society: 1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units. 2) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it. 3) Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough. His unique talent, in this text, is in chronicling the decline of the informed and educated citizenry sought by James Madison. Pierce’s recollections of Madison’s idealism feels like a sad lament, one with which most thoughtful Americans might closely identify.

One of the saddest comments recorded in Pierce’s text is from a minister in Pennsylvania, Pastor Ray Mummert: “We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture.” This is a comment that is difficult to stomach, yet one can easily identify this sentiment as pervasive in our popular culture. Intelligence has almost become some kind of stigma in public life. Recall the election of 2000: Bush vs. Gore. Gore, the soft-spoken intellectual was consistently skewered by both the media and by his jovial, from-the-gut common-man opponent. This is not to say that either candidate’s party or platforms were superior to the other’s, or to criticize or condemn anyone who supported either candidate. The point is that logic, facts, or ideas were marginalized in favor of emotional, gut-level appeal.

Pierce also gives a short biography of a crackpot (he calls a “crank,” in fact “The Prince of the Cranks”) named Ignatius Donnelly. Donnelly lived from 1831 to 1901 and in this stretch of time completed a large collection of popular works on topics ranging from Atlantis to politics to Shakespeare as well as a plethora of pseudoscientific and pseudohistoric ideas. He was also intimately involved in politics in Minnesota and the US. Pierce’s point is to contrast the way in which fringe ideas and movements developed in the 19^th century versus their pervasiveness in contemporary life. Donnelly, although popular and not without a following, was largely relegated to the fringes of public discourse where he belonged. However, these days we are inundated from every corner by pseudoscience and pseudohistory, ranging from Dr. Oz to Ancient Aliens.

In another amusing segment of the book, Pierce discusses so-called reality television. He recalled a mid-2000s Writer’s Guild strike that led to the temporary stoppage of reality television shows such as survivor. According to Pierce, there was no one available to “write” reality. Reality itself has become a more twisted concept than ever. I am struck by the way in which individuals carefully craft a multi-media narrative about their lives through the use of social media, particularly Facebook. Thus, now more than ever, we truly are authors writing the story of our lives; only now, it is more literal than figurative.

Idiot America is a solid, well-thought argument about the “dumbing-down” of popular culture in America. The major problem that I found with the book is that it is mostly descriptive of cultural maladies and rarely offers anything in the way of prescription. Also, by the time the reader has finished the majority of the text, Pierce has reviewed copious supporting examples. I think some of the space the author used to present examples of his cultural critique could have been better used to examine the origins of our reactionary, apathetic, and ultra-conservative culture.

Likewise, the conclusion of the book would have been more effective, to me, if the author had presented some of the ways in which Americans have gotten it “right.” For example, the same country that produced the absurdist Creation Museum is also the only nation to have landed a human being on the moon. The same people that fight and squabble over whether homosexuals should be allowed to contractually enter into a monogamous union was able to struggle, strategize, and protest until women and African-American citizens had equal rights and protections under law. While current affairs might tend to make one despair, it is a better use of the intellect to inspire true social change. With that said, I still would certainly recommend Pierce’s book to anyone seeking to attain a better understanding of where our culture is at present as well as how our government’s various functions have become quite dysfunctional in many respects.

Happy learning!