Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

The film The Invention of Lying ultimately argues that lies are necessary and even perhaps good, that they enrich our lives in meaningful ways, that they bring us happiness and peace. Bruce Muzik in his TEDx Talk "The BIG Secret Nobody Wants to Tell" argues the opposite. He posits that we are all liars but challenges us to own up to our lies, to expose ourselves for who we really are to the world, and that only through this process of pure honesty can we find peace and happiness and a sense of "aliveness."

Consider your own opinions about the truth and about lies. What role does each play in your life, in our world? Are lies necessary to our existence? Can we ever be truly "authentic" as liars? What would our world look like without lies? Would you want to live in that world?

As you consider these questions, conduct an experiment to test your beliefs on this issue. Try to go one full day (24 hours) without telling a single lie or practicing deceit in any way. Or, if you prefer, keep track of the falsehoods you tell, however big or small, and analyze your motives. Why do you lie?

Use the results of your experiment to support your answers to the question above.

Anti-Intellectualism: The Death of America?

Future Leaders of the World

It's no secret that Americans are getting dumber by the decade. Not only is the intelligence of the average American waning, Americans celebrate their own stupidity. As a nation whose average college-educated citizens can only read at a fifth grade level, we are continually finding new ways to dumb down just about everything. In fact, even as standardized tests are intentionally made easier so Americans can appear smarter to each other and the rest of the world, average test scores are still declining. Some argue that right-wing conservatives have a calculated agenda against education, commonly referred to as anti-intellectualism. The theory goes that the rich and powerful, because of their desire to remain rich and powerful, have a vested interest in keeping the rest of the country ignorant and powerless.

Consider Paul Krugman's argument in last Thursday's New York Times, for example. He argues that there is a war on education. One facebooker responded to Krugman this way:

          There's a vested interest in keeping America dumb. It strengthens the class divide, which I assume
          the majority of those on the more economically gluttonous would prefer. It makes the majority of
          average Americans more easily persuaded to vote against their own best interests. And if I recall
          correctly, a large percentage of the armed services comes from poor, disadvantaged and otherwise
          under-serviced segments of society. Couching even part of this invitation to willful ignorance - even
          active disdain of smart or educated people - in *religion* concerns the bejeezus out of me.

You might disagree with Krugman's argument. But what if he and millions of other Americans who believe there is an anti-intellectualism conspiracy afoot are right? 

More and more often teachers labeled as "hard" or "tough graders" are being censured by apathetic and falsely entitled students who think they should "get" (as opposed to earning)  A's or at least passing grades simply for showing up to class and turning "something" in for homework assignments. Students are more likely to view college as a place you "buy" a degree than as a place where learning takes place as their critical and creative thinking skills are honed for the purpose of inventing new ideas and creating new knowledge. When many students claim that the most superficial analyses are just "reading too much into it," whatever "it" may be at the time, how will we ever raise a nation of thinkers?

While education is, for the most part, intrinsically linked to social class and individual economic success, our political leaders are slashing education budgets and student financial aid. Meanwhile, the cost of a college education has risen almost 500% over the last 30 years while the national rate of inflation for other goods and services has only been 115% since that time (Inflation Data). Thirty years ago, the average American citizen could expect to earn a degree s/he could afford without incurring mounting debt and that degree all but guaranteed that individual a job that earned a salary that would support a middle class existence. Now, tuition soars higher every year, more and more students must take out loans as financial aid is cut, and that degree gives its owner no guarantee of a job at all much less one that would sustain a middle class lifestyle.

Who's fault is all this?

If our nation is going to derail its current trajectory toward the world Mike Judge depicts in his scathing satire Idiocracy, everyone of us must commit ourselves to our own, individual educations, whether that is in a college or books we check out from the local library or free online lectures from TED, MIT Open Courseware, Academic Earth, and others where the world's most intelligent minds share their knowledge for free. A renewed passion for intellectualism might be the only thing that will save our country from this bleak fate.

What is your attitude about education and the future of our country? If the Joe Bauers (aka Not Sure) of this world remained steeped in apathy and ignorance, what will become of us? What will become of your children, of their children and their children's children?