a woman with a petition went among the
crowds attending a state fair asking
people to sign her petition demanding
the banning of dihydrogen monoxide she
said it was in our lakes and streams and
now it was in our sweat and urine and
tears
she collected hundreds of signatures to
ban dihydrogen monoxide a fancy chemical
name for water
a couple of comedians were behind this
ploy but there is nothing funny about
its implications
it is one of the grim and dangerous
signs of our times
this little episode revealed how
conditioned we have become responding
like pavlov's dog when we hear a certain
sound in this case the sound of some
politically correct crusade
people are all born ignorant but they
are not born stupid
much of the stupidity we see today is
induced by our educational system from
the elementary schools to the
universities
in a high-tech age that has seen the
creation of artificial intelligence by
computers we are also seeing the
creation of artificial stupidity by
people who call themselves educators
educational institutions created to pass
on to the next generation the knowledge
experience and culture of the
generations that went before them have
instead been turned into indoctrination
centers to promote whatever notions
fashions or ideologies happen to be in
vogue among today's intelligentsia
many conservatives have protested
against the specifics of the things with
which students are being indoctrinated
but that is not where the most lasting
harm is done
many if not most of the leading
conservatives of our times were on the
left in their youth these have included
milton friedman ronald reagan and the
whole neoconservative movement
the experiences of life can help people
outgrow whatever they were indoctrinated
with
what may persist however is the lazy
habit of hearing one side of an issue
and being galvanized into action without
hearing the other side
and more fundamentally not having
developed any mental skills that would
enable you to systematically test one
set of beliefs against another
it was once the proud declaration of
many educators that we are here to teach
you how to think not what to think
but far too many of our teachers and
professors today are teaching their
students what to think about everything
from global warming to the new trinity
of race class and gender
even if all the conclusions with which
they indoctrinate their students were
100 percent correct that would still not
be equipping students with the mental
skills to weigh opposing views for
themselves
in order to be prepared for new and
unforeseeable issues that will arise
over their lifetimes after they leave
the schools and colleges
many of today's educators not only
supply students with conclusions they
promote the idea that students should
spring into action because of these
pre-packaged conclusions
in other words vent their feelings and
go galloping off on crusades without
either a knowledge of what is said by
those on the other side or the
intellectual discipline to know how to
analyze opposing arguments
when we see children in elementary
schools out carrying signs and
demonstrations we are seeing the kind of
mindless group think that causes adults
to sign petitions they don't understand
or worse yet follow leaders they don't
understand whether to the white house
the kremlin or jonestown
a philosopher once said that the most
important knowledge is knowledge of
one's own ignorance
that is the knowledge that too many of
our schools and colleges are failing to
teach our young people
it takes a certain amount of knowledge
just to understand the extent of one's
own ignorance
but our educators have given assignments
to children not yet a decade old to
write letters to members of congress or
to presidents spouting off on issues
ranging from nuclear weapons to medical
care
will rogers once said that it was not
ignorance that was so bad but
all the things we know that ain't so
but our classroom indoctrinators are
getting students to think that they know
after hearing only one side of an issue
it is artificial stupidity
[Music]