The Death of Outrage, or Are You Smarter Than an American Idol?

Today we bring you another in what has become a series of laments about the sad state of learning in our modern society. Though this isn't strictly about books, it does have some bearing on reading, or the failure to read. This may come to either of my readers as old news, but last night was our first exposure to what we are about to describe: Kellie Pickler appeared on the television show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?"

Wikipedia tells us that Kellie Dawn Pickler, age 21, is an American pop country music singer-songwriter who finished sixth on the fifth season of the Fox television series "American Idol". She has since been signed to BNA Records as a recording artist, with her debut album Small Town Girl being released in late 2006. The album has been certified gold in the United States for sales exceeding 500,000 copies, and it has produced three singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Ms. Pickler graduated in 2004 from North Stanly High School in New London, North Carolina.

We have watched "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?" several times. It is a fine quiz show, vastly superior to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" because the questions do not revolve around pop culture, and because the show involves children. We also watched because we found first-year student Marki Ann Meyer to be adorable.

On the television show, Ms. Pickler was asked, "Budapest is the capital of what European country?" She replied, "This might be a stupid question, but I thought Europe was a country." She thought it might be France, and then was confused if France really was a country or not. When told the answer was Hungary, she did not believe the host. She said, "Hungry [sic]? That's a country? I've heard of Turkey, but Hungry? I've never heard of it." The video can be seen here:



That's good for a laugh, right? "It is her innocent ignorance that makes her so cute and likable," as someone commented on the television show message boards. But look at her face, and one can see she is completely overwhelmed, she is not acting the part of a ditzy blonde for commercial appeal.

Okay, so she's not a geography major. But since she is a musician, one would expect her to know about music. When she was asked what family of instruments the piccolo belonged to, she was still lost. She had no idea what a piccolo was, and it sounded as if she didn't know what percussion, woodwind, or strings was either. So she used her critical thinking skills and decided that the piccolo was from the percussion family because they both started with a P. She also determined that Franklin Pierce was a United States President because his last name began with a P, just as hers did.

Sadly, the audience found her answers funny. According to her website, when she appeared on "American Idol", her vibrant vocals, boundless energy, bubbly personality and refreshing honesty not only won over the judges, but endeared her to viewers as well. She is not stupid, she is quirky. She is not troubling, she is charming. Incredibly, Ms. Pickler has received numerous awards from local and statewide government officials praising her accomplishments as a contestant on the American Idol television show. Why hasn't she received numerous condemnations for her astounding lack of basic knowledge as supposedly taught in our schools? This is the death of outrage.

Ms. Pickler stands out as a perfect example of many. As far as we know, every contestant on the show has either flunked out or dropped out of the game before winning. The gentleman who followed Ms. Pickler answered the very first question wrong: how many e's are in the word mathematics? Something we are supposed to be taught in first-grade spelling.



Ms. Pickler undoubtedly possesses appealing features, including many of the attributes prized by the superficial male. She certainly has a pleasant singing voice. Her website calls her life a "fairy tale". What we are being told is that one needn't be smarter than a fifth-grader to be successful, one needs only smarts; happily ever after is equated with celebrity; looks will take you further than knowledge; all our heroes are whores.

On Apprenticeships

Callie bristles at the bold assertion that all bloggers are in it for the money. She doesn't make money blogging. We don't make money blogging. I suspect few bloggers make any money at blogging. So why do it?

The question assumes that money is the reason for everything. We would not be surprised if 90% of all writers don't make money writing, or have to supplement their writing income in order to pay the rent. Before Vermeer's time, artists lived the high life on their art, having wealthy patrons for their support. Beginning in Vermeer's time, artists produced art for themselves, and if they wanted to make money at it, they had to find a way to sell their art to the public. Today, patrons of the arts primarily build museums, or make donations to charitable funds, or throw lavish champagne parties for other wealthy patrons to coincide with the opening of an exhibition. No longer do they pay artists to live and produce art.

So, taking the assumption that money is the reason for everything, and tweaking it, one wonders what is the payoff in blogging for nothing. Again, the reward has been lost in history. Knowledge is something which fewer and fewer people have today. More and more people have specialized skills--that is not the same as knowledge. The old way of gaining knowledge, or learning a subject, and probably the best way, was apprenticeships.

Often beginning in youth, people became apprentices to a master in a guild. In the guild, one learned far more than just how to cobble a shoe, or fire a brick, or paint a portrait. Apprentices worked their way from the ground up, doing all the menial tasks for the master, and thereby learning every detail of the craft, including the work involved. More importantly, apprentices learned critical thinking, how to analyze, accept, reject, improve, and codify knowledge. They made no money, but they acquired intellectual capital.

Following this period of apprenticeship, which typically lasted for seven years, one attained the level of a journeyman. Journeymen were day laborers in possession of documents from their master or guild which certified them and entitled them to travel in practise of their craft or art. When they finally produced and presented to their master what was deemed a Great Work, they attained the level of master, at which time they became members of the guild. And so the process would be repeated.

Stefanie tangentially laments the things taught in today's schools. What is offered to prospective students these days is not so much knowledge--intellectual capital--but image. Too many students aren't interested in the best teaching, they are interested in the best college. Commercials don't entice one with the reality of learning, they lure with the final goal, upward social mobility, the making of money, the high-paying cushy job (though your results may vary). Schools do not teach critical thinking, they teach capitalist skills, such as balancing a checkbook, or producing a spreadsheet. Details and context are left out of education. The goal of all this is not to produce individuals in possession of intellectual capital, but to produce good consumers.

Once again, when we look back to previous centuries, the finishing touch to any good education was a grand tour of Europe. This was equivalent to the work of the journeyman, traveling, learning, acquiring additional intellectual capital, and honing one's ability to think critically. Once this was achieved, the person was ready to produce a Great Work. Today, four years of partying in college is seen as the final inevitable step in an education. Students learn what they are told, see what they are shown, and more often than not feel they are entitled to whatever they want, because they are paying for it--they don't learn, they purchase an education. Only the few who move on to a doctorate fully follow the path of apprenticeship, a thesis being the equivalent of a Great Work.

Some bloggers aren't trying to make money at blogging. Some recognise their efforts as an honing of their critical thinking abilities, an accumulation of intellectual capital, or an apprenticeship to a career in writing. Knowledge is its own reward. Critical thinking exposes the fallacy that money is the reason for everything.