The dumbing down of America

I'm confessing my geekiness today, which should cause about as much shock as when Gandalf the Grey became Gandalf the White in the second book of the Lord of the -- oh, never mind. I am a member of MENSA, a society for geniuses. Membership is based primarily on IQ scores, but one also has to show proficiency in giving a nerdy laugh, receiving wedgies and, of course, the Star Trek quiz. I had to cheat on that part.\nI'm kidding. Not all smart people are dorks; it just so happens that I am. Today I'd like to speak on the decline of intelligence in our society. The evidence is really everywhere.\nLet me define what I mean. I knew guys on the farm who weren't book smart but could fix a tractor with ease. One of my buddies and I often argue about who's smarter. He claims he is functionally smart, which means if the tractor breaks down, he can locate the problem and fix it. I'm book smart, which means if the tractor breaks down, I can sit on the wheel and discuss Plato. \nIntelligence comes in many forms. But I've noticed that an entire generation of kids are not only unintelligent, but also don't know how to do anything useful. Kids who grow up in the suburbs with Michael Jordan posters on their walls and Gap clothes in their closets might have mastered going to school, but they didn't learn anything. These kids do just fine here at IU, because they've learned how to work the system. \nThus, we have a generation of cow-eyed, young adults walking around campus, bumping into each other for four years, who graduate from college and really don't know how to do anything but hang out. I assume most of them will end up sitting in some cubicle, drooling.\nLet me point something out. Most of you won't like it, but I don't care. I've stayed in the smart closet so long that I'm sick of it, and no longer care if other people like it or not. An IQ score of 80 is mentally challenged, 100 is average and 132 or higher is genius. I'll put this in perspective: John F. Kennedy's was 119 and Da Vinci's is estimated to have been in the 160s. Only 1-2 percent of the population is in the genius bracket. \nWhat do you notice? The distance between genius and average is a good deal further than between mentally challenged and average. What's this mean? Nothing is suited for the smarter people, who are often too bored in average classes to care. Being gifted is the equivalent of the average person sitting in a special ed class. \nI had a real eye-opener this summer when I started taking independent study classes. I easily went through 300 level classes in about a week. My grades before hadn't been great, but I'm taking six of these classes and have yet to get less than an A. Semester-long classes move so slowly I want to jab a pen in my jugular, and every time one of the herd animals breaks loose and asks "How many pages does this paper gotta' be?" I want to throw a chair at them. \nThe worst thing is that nobody reads anymore. I am constantly talking to college juniors and seniors who say they haven't read a nonschool book in years. They say they don't have time to read and then ask me if I caught last night's episode of "Friends."\nCollege isn't the only place where ignorance reigns. Nowhere is the decline of intelligence more pronounced than in this presidential race. Bill Clinton is a smart guy; he has to be to get from the hollers of Arkansas to the Oval Office. But he is an exception, and quite possibly will be the last intelligent person to take office for a while. I am amazed that a genuinely stupid person such as George W. Bush can get anywhere near the presidency. Presidents used to be the best and brightest. James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time. I doubt if George W. could wave "bye-bye" with both hands at the same time. \nIntelligence is not innately fixed. All we have to do is take an interest in the things around us. Please, turn off "Dawson's Creek," pick up a book and fill your minds with something other than pre-packaged knowledge you get from your classes. Otherwise, us smart people are going to take over the world. And you know what that means, don't you? Wedgies for everybody.