Human civilization has been shaped by ages of Faith, Enlightenment, Innocence, even Anxiety. It has experienced ages that were Classical, Dark, Middle, Modern, Golden, Gilded.
But they’re all past. Now human civilization seems to be wallowing in an Age of Determined Dumbness.
It’s depressing, and ironic. No other civilization has ever been as educated, informed and technologically advanced as ours. And yet no other civilization has ever embraced ignorance, or the desire not to know, as relentlessly as ours.
Statistics Canada’s big release last week, with its embarrassing caveat, offers a perfect example of the phenomenon. The 2011 National Household Survey — which should be painting an accurate picture of the nation, providing vital information for policy-makers and government programs — isn’t doing that because of its voluntary nature.
According to Statistics Canada, the Canadians who did not contribute information, as well as the areas that remain statistically unreported, leave an undetermined but significant gap in crucial information.
So why was the voluntary survey substituted for the previous mandatory long-form census? Conservative ideology. All rational reasons to the contrary, the Stephen Harper government decided in 2010 that the embrace of ignorance — dressed up as a principled stand against perceived government intrusion into private lives — trumped the gathering of information that would enable it to do a better job of governing.
That’s wilfully dumb, an anti-intellectual choice made not because members of this government are unintelligent, but because they’re blinkered by a philosophy they don’t question.
Still, give them points for anti-intellectual consistency. Their announcement this week that the National Research Council would start laying off pure science to focus on the applied variety — particularly with a stress on industry and commerce — fits right in with the Harper ideology.
The myopia in that doctrinally driven decision is deeply disturbing. Yes, applied science is vital, but so is pure science. Edison invented the light bulb that lit Einstein’s classroom — but Einstein explored a universe of possibilities galaxies away from that classroom. Not everything beneficial is immediately practical.
Failing to see that, or choosing not to, is part of the prevailing thick-headedness in both government and culture generally today.
And it’s not just the dumbness that is so bothersome, it’s the fact that it’s embraced — sometimes indifferently, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes pragmatically. It’s actually embraced.
We probably shouldn’t be surprised. In an age of such extravagantly dumbed-down entertainment and communication, rendering facts inconvenient or irrelevant has become routine.
That’s one way to characterize the current government’s curious position on foreign workers: Bring ’em in and pay ’em less than Canadians, because our friends in big business will like that. Never mind that the move reduces Canadian employment numbers, depresses Canadian wages and stifles Canadian job-training initiatives, effects not normally sought by governments.
Rejecting intelligent information has also been the hallmark of Harper’s knee-jerk antipathy to Justin Trudeau’s recommendation that the roots of terrorism be examined. A terrorist is a terrorist, fumed the PM, who doesn’t want to know any more than that. Just punish. Don’t bother trying to figure out why.
Such indifference to knowledge and fact is symptomatic of the age, even though few purposes have ever been well served by the deliberate choice of what was erroneous or incorrect simply because the truth was inconvenient. But short-term gain is what it’s all about.
So a governing party with an unyielding law-and-order stance pours buckets full of new money into the penal system at a time when crime is decreasing.
That is obviously dumb — and yet the governing party is filled with decision-makers who are not dumb. How could they embrace such an inane move?
We’ve made truth a relative thing these days, something to be shaped or else ignored, and our standard operating procedure is to flout the facts and reject reality if it doesn’t suit our purpose.
There are none so dumb as those who will not see. And none so dangerous.
