Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

“Ms. Jacoby doesn’t expect to revolutionize the nation’s educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off ‘American Idol’ and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United States seems particularly vulnerable to such a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism… Avoiding the liberal or conservative label in this particular argument, she prefers to call herself a ‘cultural conservationist.’”