Another depressing poll
Ah, those young people:
Are you between the ages of 18-34? Can you name one ”” just one ”” of your home state’s senators?
Congrats! You did better than more than three-fourths of people your age. That’s right ”” 77 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds in the new survey could not name even one US senator in their home state.
I wrote “young people,” but I was being a little bit sarcastic. Eighteen is young. Is thirty-four? No. Somewhere in-between those two ages a person ceases to have any excuse at all for such profound ignorance (not that there’s really all that much excuse at 18 either).
Most of these same people favor Hillary Clinton for president, as well. That is no surprise either. At least they know her name.
More unsurprising results of the poll:
Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said government is “helpful,” compared with just 18 percent who called it “harmful.”
I’d like to see a breakdown of the answers by political party, but the poll doesn’t provide it.
Another of a myriad of examples of the results of several generations of progressive education’s deliberate hollowing out and dumbing down of curriculums, abandonment of standards in favor of political correctness and group think, and the mis-education and heavy propagandizing of students.
The goal?
The creation of an ever increasing pool of ill-informed citizens, deliberately deprived of the necessary knowledge base and analytical tools necessary to enable them to judge and act with intelligence, competence, and agency as free citizens of our Republic and, therefore, a citizenry that can be more easily dominated, fooled, and led.
Wolla Dalbo:
Yes, it is intentional.
For the left, a feature rather than a bug.
It is the duty of parents to make sure their children understand basic principles. We are paying the price a society must pay when the family comes in a distant second to the powerful influence of the state. Family is everything, government is a distant third, in between are the connections we make with others as we conduct our daily affairs.
34 is just a few years past Obamacare’s revised age of majority. While 18 is a babe in arms. Barely evolved from a clump of cells. Still confounded by its post-womb world.
I agree with Wolla Dalbo. But, another way of looking at it, is that a serious weakness of democracy is that ordinary people don’t have the capability or motivation to be informed and logical enough to guide government very well in this violent, technologically advanced world.
But, they damn well know how to do endless Selfies and press the, ya know, coolest apps and hashtag their tweeties on insta-facey and stuff.
Einstein was(Duuhhhh!!)so right and we’re now in the total midst of his prediction about technology and “a generation of idiots”.
Are we not blessed at this Huge, Horrendously Dangerous, Historical Moment??
My maternal grandmother probably didn’t get any higher than the 5th or 6th grade, yet, she could rattle off from memory the Declaration of Independence, the States and their capitals, and other fundamental information that today’s supposedly “educated” “graduates” seem somehow to have missed.
I wonder how many of those asked were from my state, California. No excuse for not knowing those names since the personnel has been the same for the lifetimes of the queried.
Wouldn’t all of us agree that notwithstanding its faults, our government (i.e., the American federal, state and local governments taken as a whole) does more good than harm for us?
Letting eighteen-year-olds vote is nuts.
Don’t disturb the poor little darlings’ fen shui, harsh their mellow, or upset their karma! These are the exact grandchildren of the revolutionary boomers, and fall in those steps exactly so. Who needs knowledge, history, mathematics, civil or cultural knowledge… man.
On the other side of things, they have probably realized that politicians aren’t listening to voters. At least a decade, politicians haven’t even been pretending to do so. And they can’t be blamed for that. Why participate when no one is even listening to the voters?
They have been allowed to pass through schools that don’t teach, in families so small they got all the attention but none of the difficulties of growing up, and were promised jobs where all they had to do was show up and then take home a paycheck. Now they are addicted to gadgets they can’t hope to understand or fix, and have sunk to the bottom tiers because of it. Corporations are avoiding them as long as it can. Last I heard, 35 was the cutoff. They don’t want to hire the young madonnas. They complain about everything they were told was wrong that the company does, show up late, and slovenly, even directly sabotage their companies plans, and think they deserve their job and don’t need to earn it.
Doom:
You write: “in families so small they got all the attention but none of the difficulties of growing up.”
Small families eliminate some difficulties involving sharing of resources (including parental attention) with siblings, and sibling conflict in general. But “none of the difficulties”? Hardly! Small families have their own difficulties, among them: loneliness, being the focus of all the negative attention from parents who are abusive or troubled.
Bad parents can have small families, too.
Neo: “Most of these same people favor Hillary Clinton for president, as well. That is no surprise either. At least they know her name.”
At least they know her name – well, that might be the very reason why they favor her – name recognition. it seems to work every time.
It might be the reason we will end up with another round of Clinton vs. Bush. Both are names that many folks have heard before; and both parties might think that simple name recognition will work in their favor.
And, yea, it does spell trouble for our republic if that is the only thing that helps most folks decide how to vote.
On a more hopeful note, see Walter Russell Mead’s “RIP, ‘Emerging Democratic Majority,” an article reviewing John Judis’ re-think of his prediction for a permanent Democratic majority. Among other things, “young voters went from backing Democrats by 65% in 2008 to 54% in 2014. I know, still too many, but give them a chance to become property owners and tax payers!
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/02/02/rip-emerging-democratic-majority/
Judith – I keep saying things to that effect, based on my anecdotal experience, but few people take me seriously. My generation (I am 24) has more immaturity than true stupidity to it. True stupidity and/or genuine ill will cannot be counted with, but the immaturity MATURES over time, with a diet of more complete information (and the internet does a great job, even just browsing out of curiosity to “know the enemy” faces young people with a lot of arguments they have not considered before and they would normally not encounter, it plants the seeds of new ideas), and with just regular life experiences, when politics stops being abstract and “elsewhere” and starts affecting the daily life and major decisions. For those who are immature, misinformed, superficially educated, but at the same time reasonably bright, honest, with some lingering good will and genuine interest, there is hope. The conversions are plenty. FROM liberalism, not TO it.
I’ve commented skeptically on these type of polls in the past. Given the wording of the questions and the vague data on answers, this poll doesn’t provide significant information on the knowledge base of the 18-34 demographic.
First, Hillary Clinton has better name recognition than any presidential prospect of either party. Based on this alone, any head to head matchup including her name will be skewed in her favor. Romney has high name recognition too, but it inextricably intertwined with losing. In this extremely early stage of the 2016 campaign (to the extent there even is a “campaign” as yet) this perception would markedly handicap Romney against any opponent. Any other Republican (even Jeb) is handicapped by lower name recognition, but of course, this will be overcome in time
The generic Democrat v. Republican question is probably a better barometer of millennial’s Presidential preference. It still significantly favors the Democrats, but by a much closer (and more balanced) margin.
The question about identifying a home state U.S. Senator is problematic for several reasons. As per usual in these polls, it doesn’t provide details as to incorrect answers. I’d bet a significant portion of that 77% named their congressman by mistake. Another significant portion may have named a senator who just left office. We just underwent an election resulting in large number of new senators; this new crop was sworn in only one month ago. Yet, presumably, a Coloradan who said “Mark Udall”, an Iowan stating “Tom Harkin” and so forth would be in the 77%. Technically incorrect, but highly distinguishable from the “I don’t knows”
To be clear, I fully acknowledge all citizens should be able to identify (and distinguish between) their congressman and senator at present. However, this poll implies (and readers are likely inferring) a far more ignorant sample than is likely the case.
**As an aside, I think identifying officeholders is of far less importance than developing a knowledge of major political issues, a rough outline of both party’s policy positions and, most importantly, a working understanding of how the political, legislative and administrative processes work. Perhaps knowledge or ignorance of the former is indicative of the same with the latter; perhaps not. Many people are poor with names; many others are very good with names. (I happen to be of the latter; for example: if quizzed I could name four or five famous quantum physicists, instantly. Could I provide even a basic definition of quantum physics? Not without a fair amount of thought).
The question about government is especially inane. Its vagueness undermines drawing any significant inference to the answers provided? Define “government”. If we include all forms of government, at all levels, I’m not sure how I would answer. “In general” Yikes. Of course it can be helpful or harmful depending widely on circumstance. If the inference to be drawn is, taken as a whole, does the benefit to “government” outweigh the detriment, my answer would be “of course!”. I think most Americans would answer the same. Despite the palpable, abusive and disconcerting encroachments on liberty over the last few years, we still live in a very free society; much preferable to anarchy or even a Nozickian “Minarchist” state. This is no way implies contentment with the current role of government in our society or that major reform isn’t necessary or is improbable or undesirable.
Lastly, I want to reiterate my skepticism that there has been a significant decline in civic literacy in America today. I agree that the left exploits popular ignorance of our political process and legislative process; the certainly do so, and with increasing success, it appears. However, can someone point me to similar polling done 40 years ago or 60 years ago? I strongly suspect the results would be similar, but I am open to being convinced otherwise
Ackler:
See this, particularly pages 4-6.
Thank you, Neo. This is what I had in mind; a much more comprehensive and scholarly survey. From a cursory initial review, the authors seem to note a decline in civic literacy over time, but with multiple qualifiers. That’s fair.
I tried to get some young people to watch “Cast a Giant Shadow” and “Doctor Zhivago” recently. They just couldn’t keep their eyes from straying back to their phones. CGI movies, video games and smart phones have ruined their attention span and their crappy education left them in a historical vacuum. They were pretty well informed on current events but unanchored from any historical context.
Why would they care about the GOP that gave us what, Bush, Dole, Bush II, Bush II, McCain, Romney and now maybe Bush III?
Dr. Zhivago is rather long
Anna Says:
February 3rd, 2015 at 11:33 pm
And of course that’s true of every generation at that age. Every generation has its share of heroes and parasites; geniuses and idiots.
Anna, it’s great to see you here. Sometimes I fear that the blogs I read are mostly frequented by old codgers like me.
Have you ever read “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe? I’m a Boomer, but after reading that, you won’t catch me slagging on Millennials. You kids have got your work cut out for you.