# Dumbing down > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Dumbing_down > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Dumbing_down.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down > Source revision: 1349550005 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{short description|Deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content}} '''Dumbing down''' is the deliberate [oversimplification](/source/oversimplification) of [intellectual](/source/Intellectualism) content in [education](/source/education), [literature](/source/literature), [cinema](/source/film), [news](/source/news), [video games](/source/video_games), and [culture](/source/culture). Originating in 1933, the term "dumbing down" was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, meaning: "[to] revise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence".{{cite journal|last1=Algeo|first1=John|first2=Adele|last2=Algeo|year=1988 |title=Among the New Words |journal=American Speech |volume=63 |issue=4|pages=235–236|doi=10.1215/00031283-78-3-331 |s2cid=201771186}} Dumbing-down varies according to subject matter, and usually involves the diminishment of [critical thought](/source/critical_thought) by undermining [standard language](/source/standard_language) and [learning standards](/source/learning_standards), thus trivializing academic standards, culture, and meaningful information, as in the case of [popular culture](/source/popular_culture). ==Education== In the late 20th century, the proportion of young people attending university in the UK increased sharply, including many who previously would not have been considered to possess the appropriate scholastic aptitude. In 2003, the UK Minister for Universities, [Margaret Hodge](/source/Margaret_Hodge), criticised [Mickey Mouse degrees](/source/Mickey_Mouse_degrees) as a negative consequence of universities dumbing down their courses to meet "the needs of the market": these degrees are conferred for studies in a field of endeavour "where the content is perhaps not as [intellectually] rigorous as one would expect, and where the degree, itself, may not have huge relevance in the labour market": thus, a university degree of slight intellectual substance, which the student earned by "simply stacking up numbers on Mickey Mouse courses, is not acceptable".{{cite web |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/2655127.stm |title='Irresponsible' Hodge under fire |website=BBC News: World Edition |date=14 January 2003 |access-date=24 June 2006}}{{cite web |first=Donald |last=MacLeod |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/14/highereducation.accesstouniversity |title=50% higher education target doomed, says thinktank |website=The Guardian |date=14 July 2005 |access-date=24 June 2006}} In ''[Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling](/source/Dumbing_Us_Down%3A_The_Hidden_Curriculum_of_Compulsory_Schooling)'' (1991, 2002), [John Taylor Gatto](/source/John_Taylor_Gatto) presented speeches and essays, including "The Psychopathic School", his acceptance speech for the 1990 New York City Teacher of the Year award, and "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher", his acceptance speech upon being named as the New York State Teacher of the Year for 1991.{{cite web |last=Blumenfeld |first=Samuel L. |date=May 1993 |title=''The Blumenfeld Education Letter'' - May 1993: ''Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling'' By John Taylor Gatto |website=The Odysseus Group |publisher=[John Taylor Gatto](/source/John_Taylor_Gatto) |url=http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/bookstore/dumbdnblum1.htm |access-date=23 February 2009 |archive-date=11 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090711165314/http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/bookstore/dumbdnblum1.htm |url-status=dead}} Gatto writes that while he was hired to teach English and literature, he came to believe he was employed as part of a [social engineering](/source/social_engineering_(political_science)) project. The "seven lessons" at the foundation of schooling were never explicitly stated, Gatto writes, but included teaching students that their self-worth depended on outside evaluation, that they were constantly ranked and supervised, and that they had no opportunities for privacy or solitude. Gatto speculated: {{Quotation|Was it possible, I had been hired, not to enlarge children's power, but to diminish it? That seemed crazy, on the face of it, but slowly, I began to realize that the bells and confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national [curriculum](/source/curriculum) of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think, and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.}} In examining the seven lessons of teaching, Gatto concluded that "all of these lessons are prime training for permanent [underclass](/source/underclass)es, people deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius". That "school is a twelve-year jail sentence, where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school, and win awards doing it. I should know." In [special education](/source/special_education) simplification of educational materials is called [modification](/source/Special_education).{{cite report |title=e-Assessment Glossary (Extended) |author1=Busuttil-Reynaud, Gavin |author2=John Winkley |name-list-style=amp |publisher=[Joint Information Systems Committee](/source/Joint_Information_Systems_Committee) and [Ofqual](/source/Ofqual)'s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority |url=http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/eAssess-Glossary-Extended-v1-01.pdf |location=UK |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916015305/http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/eAssess-Glossary-Extended-v1-01.pdf |archive-date=16 September 2012 }} ==Mass communications media== {{see also|Media culture|Sensationalism}} In France, [Michel Houellebecq](/source/Michel_Houellebecq) has written (not excluding himself) of "the shocking dumbing-down of French culture and intellect as was recently pointed out, [2008] sternly but fairly, by ''[Time](/source/Time_(magazine))'' magazine".{{cite book |first1=Bernard-Henri |last1=Lévy |author1-link=Bernard-Henri Lévy |first2=Michel |last2=Houellebecq |author2-link=Michel Houellebecq |translator1-first=Miriam |translator1-last=Frendo |translator2-first=Frank |translator2-last=Wynne |title=[Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World](/source/Public_Enemies%3A_Dueling_Writers_Take_on_Each_Other_and_the_World) |date=2011 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |pages=3–4 |oclc=326529237 |isbn=978-0-8129-8078-3}} ==In popular culture== The science fiction film ''[Idiocracy](/source/Idiocracy)'' (2006) portrays the U.S. as a greatly dumbed-down society 500 years in the future, in which [low culture](/source/low_culture) and [philistinism](/source/philistinism) were unintentionally achieved by eroding language and education coupled with [dysgenics](/source/dysgenics), where people of lower [intelligence](/source/IQ) reproduced faster than the people of higher intelligence. Similar concepts appeared in earlier works, notably the [science fiction](/source/science_fiction) short story "[The Marching Morons](/source/The_Marching_Morons)" (1951) by [Cyril M. Kornbluth](/source/Cyril_M._Kornbluth), which also features a modern-day protagonist in a future dominated by low-intelligence persons. Moreover, the novel ''[Brave New World](/source/Brave_New_World)'' (1931) by [Aldous Huxley](/source/Aldous_Huxley) discussed the ways a [utopia](/source/utopia)n society was deliberately dumbed down in order to maintain [political stability](/source/political_stability) and [social order](/source/social_order) by eliminating complex concepts unnecessary for society to function (e.g., the Savage tries reading Shakespeare to the masses and is not understood). More malevolent uses of dumbing down to preserve the social order are also portrayed in ''[The Matrix](/source/The_Matrix)'', ''[Nineteen Eighty-Four](/source/Nineteen_Eighty-Four)'' and many dystopian movies. The social critic [Paul Fussell](/source/Paul_Fussell) touched on these themes ("prole drift") in his non-fiction book ''Class: A Guide Through the American Status System'' (1983){{cite book |last=Fussell |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Fussell |date=1983 |title=Class: A Guide Through the American Status System |edition=1st |location=New York |publisher=Summit Books |oclc=9685644 |isbn=978-0-671-44991-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/classguidethroug00fuss}} and focused on them specifically in ''BAD: or, The Dumbing of America'' (1991). == See also == {{div col}} * {{annotated link|Anti-intellectualism}} * {{annotated link|Censorship}} * {{annotated link|Dumbing Us Down|''Dumbing Us Down''}} * {{annotated link|Grade inflation}} * {{annotated link|Lie-to-children}} * {{annotated link|Low culture}} * [Low information voter](/source/Low_information_voter) * {{annotated link|Manufacturing Consent|''Manufacturing Consent''}} * {{annotated link|Obscurantism}} * {{annotated link|Post-factual politics}} * {{annotated link|Prolefeed}} * {{annotated link|Herd behavior}} * {{annotated link|Sound bite}} * {{annotated link|Stupidity}} * {{annotated link|Superficiality}} * {{annotated link|Universal education}} * {{annotated link|Easiness effect}} * {{annotated link|Way Station (novel)|''Way Station''}} {{end div col}} == Further reading == A compilation of essays by philosophers, politicians, artists and thinkers titled ''Dumbing Down'' was published by Imprint Academic in 2000, edited by [Ivo Mosley](/source/Ivo_Mosley) and included essays by [Jaron Lanier](/source/Jaron_Lanier), [Claire Fox](/source/Claire_Fox), [Ravi Shankar](/source/Ravi_Shankar), [Robert Brustein](/source/Robert_Brustein), [Michael Oakshott](/source/Michael_Oakshott), [Roger Deakin](/source/Roger_Deakin) and [Peter Randall-Page](/source/Peter_Randall-Page) among others.{{cite news |last1=McCrum |first1=Robert |date=12 March 2000 |title=Raised highbrows |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/mar/12/society1}} * {{cite book |editor-last=Mosley |editor-first=Ivo |title=Dumbing Down: Culture, Politics, and the Mass Media |date=2000 |publisher=Imprint Academic |location=Thorverton, UK |oclc=43340314 |isbn=978-0-907845-65-2}} (collection of essays) ==References== {{Reflist|2}} ==External links== * [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19196474 "Is the internet dumbing us down?"] [MSNBC](/source/MSNBC) review of ''The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture'', by Andrew Keen {{Media culture}} {{Media manipulation}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Dumbing Down}} Category:English phrases Category:Mass media issues Category:Education issues Category:Criticism of journalism --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Dumbing down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down?action=history)). 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