A Lack Of History

One illustration of the dumbing down of America is that way too many people know far too little of history.  Forget the obvious cases – Tea Baggers and children, for example.  I’m talking about regular adults, grown-ass men and women who are willfully ignorant of almost everything other than their own momentary existence.

I’ve been witness to this lack of historical knowledge for some time.  Let me explain.

For over 30 years, I’ve conducted group training seminars for certain employees in the automotive industry.  In those seminars, I always use an amusing little thing called The Brain Test as an interlude – a break between training segments.  It’s a list of 20-or-so questions that seem simple and straightforward, but aren’t.  Example:

Seven months have 31 days.  April, June, September and November have 30.  How many have 28?

Most people will answer one.  The correct answer, of course, is all of them.

The final question is always about the U.S. President.  The current wording of the question is:

What was the name of the President of the United States in 1965?

(Clue – over 30 years, I’ve had to change the year from 1940 to 1955 to 1965.)

Invariably, this question brings howls of protest:  “Ancient history!”  “That’s before I was born!  How am I supposed to know that?”

They feel no responsibility to know anything which may have occurred prior to their own arrival on this earth.  They literally know so little history they can’t even take a bad guess about a past President.  The attitude is, Whatever happened before me doesn’t affect me today, so I don’t care.  And the equally depressing, selfish corollary is, Whatever may happen after I’m dead won’t affect me either, so I don’t care.     

  

If the question is read as to be asking who held the office in 1965, it was Lyndon Johnson.  In 1955 it was Dwight Eisenhower, and in 1940 it was Franklin Roosevelt.  But the question doesn’t really ask who the President was.  It asks what was the name of the President in 1965?

And the correct answer is, Barack Obama, same as his name is today.  (The President’s name is Barack Obama, and that was his name in 1965 as well.)   The other correct answers during my 30 years of seminars have been, in order, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Ha!  Trick question.  You may groan now.