Uneducated.

The Uneducated, or maybe more accurately, Undereducated masses, have become screamingly obvious to me since the dawn of the Internet. Yesterday I somehow managed to find five minutes to read the latest on the Barak Obama phenomenon. It's been fascinating how the press plays him, how "the people" perceive him, and how the two go so hand-in-hand. So my usual visit to Talking Points Memo reveals some insightful reporting on recent events by people & bloggers who comment with well-thought out, well-stated remarks. Then a drill down on CNN or ABCnews.com takes me to a string of comments by "the masses" -- the antithesis of well-thought out or well-stated. The comments made English look like a foreign language, with the words strung together haphazardly and barely making any sense. I see this with increasing frequency: people who know their way around the Internet and may have something valuable to say, but are only passably literate and post comments that are more often remarkable for their mistakes than their meaning.

This literate/non-literate division (is it better or worse in the past 40 years? Or is it just more obvious because now we "read" each other's thoughts online?) has always been an uncomfortable spot for me. There's the part that gets frustrated, annoyed, and yes, somewhat condescending. Didn't these people listen in school for crissakes?! And then there's the part that feels pity, believing "we're all equal no matter what" - and that part berates the other part of me. But increasingly I get angry, angry at a system that seems to keep the masses ignorant, because somehow that works better with the Capitalist, Corporate, Military Industrial Complex that America is to such a degrading fault. For if the potential soldiers and mothers of potential soldiers could comprehend a global, multicultural existence and even half its complexities, how could they ever allow themselves to fight in an unnecessary war? Or if they really understood the basic intricacies of the planet's limited resources along with how goods are manufactured & marketed, would they ever allow us all to get to the ecological precipice on which we now stand? (Hell, I know I'm culpably part of that latter category, despite my ability to analyze information!)

I'm usually not of the mind that our inferior education system is the result of a dark conspiratorial intent. But likewise I always get stuck in this place of feeling that people are capable of more. If I can easily envision a better educational system, why can it not be so? I couldn't possibly be the only one who thinks we should lift the bar higher & that most are capable of rising to a new level. But generally that frustrated question sets off a mental paralysis. I don't know where to go from there. Maybe this year with my daughter entering this questionable education system, new neural pathways will form and I'll be able to take a next step, however small. Or maybe my perception will shift and I won't think it so inferior. Either way, I plan to be eyes-open and I hope I will be in good company.