Lowest Common Denominator

This may come off as pompous, though I assure you that is not the intent. However, I am starting to become a tad concerned about the intelligence level, or apparent lack thereof, in our society. Now, perhaps I simply do not associate with enough people, or pay attention to enough popular culture, but it seems that everything is set to appeal to the lowest common denominator of society. And the number of people in that category appears to be increasing. You could argue this goes hand and hand with the steadily increasing gap between rich and poor. Education is expensive, and education equals intelligence. Right? Bah. Poppycock. Maybe 100 years ago when if you were from a poor family you were working at the age of eight. These days it's simply that even our education is set to cater to the lowest common denominator. Money may get you a tutor to actually teach you, but other than that your income isn't the issue.

I have been concerned about this since I was a child. Now, I am no genius. I'm not a prodigy. I am however, at least when it comes to testing, smart. This certainly has nothing to do with my education or my family's income bracket. Neither have been anything close to impressive. Far from it. Neither of my parents possess post secondary diplomas/degrees; though they were very supportive and intelligent. I never had a tutor purchased for my enrichment or even the Discovery channel. In elementary school I was top of the graduating class. This was far from impressive considering I was correcting the English of my grade eight teacher while testing at a grade twelve English level. If I was correcting my teacher's English it obviously wasn't his help that made my grades high. I, and a few of my schoolmates, were actually all but ignored through the grades because we were smart. We had teachers doctoring grades so we didn't get perfect grades because you can't be perfect. Yes. The same teacher I was correcting actually refused to give a 100% on projects, etc, because it isn't possible and in high school you will never get above 90%, so he decided we shouldn't get used to it. A couple of us even compared tests where we got one question wrong. Different questions marked as wrong, but all questions answered the same. Had the wrong colours on your science fair project panel? Minus 5 marks. We were not encouraged or enriched. We were left to teach ourselves because the 12 year old students with the reading level of an eight year old needed extra attention. Though, considering they still managed to be passed repeatedly until it was the high school's problem that they were trying to teach teenagers with the intelligence of children, that extra attention was all but meaningless. Holding children back would hurt their self-esteem. Apparently no one in this touchy-feely, hippie-ish society has taken into consideration that the inability to hold a conversation as an adult may be a little detrimental to one's self-esteem. Maybe that would explain the seemingly large number of unwed, young mothers my age.

Now the issue of self-esteem comes into play in a big way in my issue with popular culture's need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Yes, this may stem a little from that fact that I personally am not amused by Seinfeld or Survivor, but you have to look at the people who are and what about it is amusing. We are in a world of movies based on stupidity being considered funny and television shows of demeaning competition being all the rage. What sort of person laughs at someone else's stupidity and humiliation? Bullies. What breeds bullies? Low self-esteem. This is what causes people to watch soap operas and talk shows. The need to see people whose lives are worse off than our own. More people watch the auditions for reality shows to see people make asses of themselves than enjoy the rest of the competitions. How much do we hate ourselves that we need to laugh of another's pain and ignorance? We have Survivor running season after season and being the talk of the water cooler and intelligent shows such as Boston Legal being cancelled because the viewership isn't the hip and illiterate under 25 age bracket. What is it about intelligence that it seems to not appear until you're nearing your thirties?

The simple answer is, of course, life experience. Perhaps those of us who are intelligent at a young age have had more life experience. Thinking of the smart kids in high school, I would have to disagree with that. Perhaps it's that we had a life, period. This may be a little more accurate. We didn't sit watching television all free hours of the day. We weren't exposed to pop-culture demeaning women after years of us trying to be respected and equals. We didn't watch popular icons speaking in what could only be called a variation of something that resembles English of the slums. When did it become acceptable to leave out words in a sentence and letters in words when you write? Ever heard of a period? Someone please find me the Rapper-English Dictionary so I can translate what that song just said please. I find it easier to understand Rammstein (German metal/alternative band for those of you who don't know them. You may recognize them from the beginning of the movie XXX. You know how music videos used to be more than almost nude women humping some fat, sweaty man? Watch a Rammstein video and see how the idea of music and video telling a story actually still exists in the world.)

And is a lack of intelligence what makes people spend money on things just because of pretty, flashy advertisement told us to? It certainly has to be a lack of intelligence that makes Koodo believe those obnoxious advertising campaigns were a good idea. What is worse, the under 25s buy into that. It's cool. Everyone else is doing it so I have to as well. The popular girl in school is wearing a mini-skirt and push-up bra so I should too. Sound familiar? We are a society of sheep and dodos. We have television ads trying to sell us things by telling us the item is all the rage in Europe. Uh... so what? Oh wait. We must do what everyone else is doing.

We are blessed to be in a world of ever changing technology. We now have video game controllers that allow you to use your fingers to grab things in the game. You control a virtual hula-hoop by actually moving. We have HD movies. Step away from buying Something About Mary in HD and watch Planet Earth instead. Gorgeous. We have college students sending text messages to rally in front of the White House and assembling so quickly the secret service has no idea what is going on. Intelligent use of this technology. Using videogames to try and help combat the obesity they originally caused. Using text-speak to speak out against war and oppression. So, why is it, that even though we see this and have the ability to use our knowledge of the technology our parents only dreamed of, we decide instead to giggle at a gay joke and text "wat u doin 2mrw" instead of standing up and using our intelligence to speak out and change the world. We sit and are quiet and conforming. We would rather sit and watch Tom Cruise fight against war than stand up and fight against it ourselves. We don't even think of it. We're brainwashed and stupid. And we allowed it. We allowed MTV to tell us how to be. We allowed rap music to teach our twelve year olds to think there is no reason to use proper English. We allowed popular culture to encourage discrimination and intolerance. We turned our brains off to fit in.

The world is set to appeal to the lowest common denominator, so in an attempt to fit in we became that. Intelligence has gone from something desirable to a social liability.

Am I the only one scared for our future?