I read this last night and it sent shivers down my spine – prophetic!

[yogini]

Carl Sagan wrote The Demon Haunted World (© 1995) as “a personal statement, reflecting my love affair with science. But there’s a second reason: Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness”.

[alberg]

1. I read that book - one of the best books I've ever read.

[Schema Thing]

2. That book changed my life when I exited from a fundamentalist cult

it set me on a better road.

[RKP5637]

3. Very very wise and prophetic words. I feel each day we are drifting there ... I'm amazed

today, for example, when some adults make it a big deal doing just elementary math. I was in high-tech for years and I dare say most of the population is woefully disconnected from the future. They will use the end results, but not understand what's in the black box. And the knowledge will fall into the hands of a few ... which could well lead to a theocratic dystopia IMO.

[yogini]

11. It takes courage...

to speak the Truth and use Reason.

I’ve noticed people using the phrase, “Well it’s my ‘personal truth’”, when they are faced with facts they don't like or reject in order to justify their opinion or point of view. The other is: “Let’s just agree to disagree” – and I can accept that unless it’s something serious like whether the Earth is round or flat!

If we don’t continue to have people who challenge our concepts, and are willing to test those concepts, then “anything goes”; it just usually doesn't go to a very good place.

Rational Humanism is looking better and better.

[Quantess]

4. Welcome to DU!

[RoccoR5955]

5. Dr. Sagan was one of the wisest people I knew.

I guess we all learned something of Astronomy and Space Science from him on TV, but he was a great educator in person.

I really miss the man. He steered a lot of us in what I believe is the proper direction that we must take, if we are to survive and evolve into a more intelligent species.

[renate]

6. the decline in logical/scientific thinking isn't the reason for the change in the economy

Wall Street and the 1% are the reason for the change in the economy, or at least the main reason. There are still plenty of talented people who love science and would be able to keep the United States in the forefront of technological development and research if it weren't for the changing economics of outsourcing, government investment in research, and penny-pinching in education. I suppose the fundamentalist approach to science is partly to blame--at least when it comes to investment in medical/biological and ecological research--but I really think it's economic policies that have caused our decline.

But yes, this is very prophetic.

[marions ghost]

7. well said

RepubliCons have created a situation where the only research is what they want to fund, not what makes sense for benefits to humanity & the planet.

[xxqqqzme]

28. and they only want

to fund the result they need to justify their situation. Which is the self perpetuating downward spiral to ignorance.

[BuelahWitch]

8. A nation full of critical thinkers would not have elected Reagan

or the rest of the lawmakers who helped to ship so many of our jobs overseas.

[marions ghost]

36. Greed trumps critical thinking.

I know someone who is intelligent, sharp in every way, & she will agree with you on most logical arguments on various issues. But her hubby made money in the market. She votes R.

[uponit7771]

10. +1

[redstatebluegirl]

18. My husband is doing biomedical research

Between the cut i. Federal funding, the state cuts to education and the fundamentalists who are terrified of things they do not understand the US is falling behind other countries. Research not only cures disease, it helps the economy by generating jobs, provides great hands on teaching opportunities for the next generation and brings international attention to our research institutions.

The new teaching load requirements cut into research even further. My husband loves teaching, but if you are given overloads each semester there is no time for the lab. He already works 60 hours a week just to keep up with his teaching, the grants, new, old and proposed and his lab full of grad students.

People need to wake up before we become a third world country full of uneducated citizens.

[truedelphi]

25. Sorry but I disagree.

Most people in this country are woefully un-educated about economic matters.

And most people pride themselves on the notion that "These economic policies are beyond my understanding."


This is not a matter of "education" as far as college degrees and school certificates. I have two friends with PHD's who tell me they don't care to figure out economic matters.


So we are now in a situation where people voted for the Lesser Evil, even though that Lesser Evil gave Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke the keys to the economic kingdom.

If people understood what these two men have done, and how the DOJ has pretty much looked the other way regarding any type of real justice for those who perpetuated the fraudulent economic situation, then there would be a total change.

And anyone paying attention can find out what is happening. The two people I mentioned above do not work quietly. Geithner has traveled all over the world, to many many economic summits, where he officially tells the assembled foreign ministers that "Obama works for me." And judging from what has gone on, with the banks and large financial institutions now receiving some 49 cents out of every dollar of profit generated in this economy, it is clear that Geithner's statement is true. (In my parents' day, back in the sixties and seventies, only eight cents out of every dollar went to financial concerns.)

But when you have the people that are closest to the President being Immelt, Geithner, and Jamie Dimon, it isn't surprising that the the middle class is being extinguished, bit by bit by bit. Already 12 million people have been foreclosed. And there is no real way to bring the middle class back, until there is a huge shift in who runs the country. As long as 49 cents out of every dollar of profit gets to go to the banks, the middle class is in hell.

[CrispyQ]

39. I agree with every word you say,

yet I voted for the lesser of two evils. I'm in a swing state & in the end, women's issues were more important to me than casting a vote of conviction for Jill Stein. ~sigh. I at least made my decision knowing what I was voting for. I have friends & family members who could not tell you who Immelt, Geithner & Dimon are.

[truedelphi]

50. Somewhere inside a palatial ballroom, perhaps

even in an undersea location like the sort of million dollar mansions the Housing Cable Channel often portrays, the Four Hundred Ruling Families are clinking their celebratory champagne flutes, and passing the trays of duck pate and caviar.

They are so very happy that they have it figured out. They can bring oligarchy to what was a vibrant democracy a mere fifty years ago. They can destroy the rule of law, eliminate habeus corpus, allow for the highest rate of imprisonment of citizens in any country on the planet, and the whole secret is: make sure you keep the population so afraid of thinking even for a moment of any alternative. Oh and the Middle Incomed people? They are all on the same trajectory that the passenger pigeon was on in the late 1800's.

Now it is possible to run X vs Xx, (Where X means total embracing of the dictates of the Upper .01% .)

All that is necessary to keep anyone from thinking of anything other than voting for X is to make sure the population is scared shitless over the possible elimination of an inalienable right.

This election, the Powers that Be used Women's Health as the buffer issue. Next time, it could be the notion that if you don't vote for X (or Xx) then there won't be affordable drinking water.

In any event, all anyone had to do was watch the official debates to see who would win the election. The poor were not mentioned in any of the debates. (I think there may have been one mention in passing of the poor.) The middle class was mentioned less than six times.

And Obama let Rmoney know in the very first debate that he was fine with embracing Simpson Bowles.

[RepublicansRZombies]

9. did the exact same thing to me and is still happening, but I hope he is wrong, I need my hope

We the People beat all the money, all the lies of the corporate media and GOP election suppression(possible theft)...

and we did it with places like DU and all the other social media, in a beautiful expanding web of truth and fact.

The more they try to lie now, the more we will rise to crush them on the net. Their time is over.

We've had a few steps backward, as often happens, now we get a massive progressive effort forward.

Time to end the wars and big government, and create a new Renaissance of forward thinking and technological creativity to solve the real problems of people around the world, find creative healthy sustaining energy technologies so that greed for resources will never again define our national policies, and with our new found wealth we can help raise the entire planet to the standard they desire.

It's our turn. (It's been hard, you people!) We deserve massive progress on behalf of the human race.

[LongTomH]

13. Make it so, Number one!

Seriously, I'm entirely onboard with this! Maybe, just maybe, if we work our asses off, we'll have a Progressive Era for the 21st Century.

[LiberalAndProud]

12. This is only tangentially related, but

my 8-year-old granddaughter was watching YouTube videos yesterday. She didn't believe me when I told her mermaids aren't real; the videos were spoofing. And my 14-year-old granddaughter firmly believes everything she reads about the Illuminati and alien encounters.

Our ability to discern fact from fantasy is constantly challenged. Giving today's children the tools they need to make those distinctions is imperative. I'm just not certain how one achieves that end. When I was a child, it was tv that disseminated the fantasies. I'm talking about commercials, not I Dream of Jeannie. I worry for our future.

[freshwest]

17. The attack on public schools has been an attack on scientific literacy and reasoning.

The failure of people to support learning of objective scientific method was facilitated by media appealing to human emotional indulgence and sentimentality. Science fiction at one time inspired technical achievement then went into pushing scenes from medieval life and magic as romantic.

The dumbing down of the USA was achieved by slashing public institutions and giving R&D to international corporations. They possess the means of space exploration and other high achievements, which no longer exist in the public sphere due to demonizing the government.

Now that such knowledge is the sole property of the private sector, the interest of humanity and the planet have been disregarded in their quest. They have put up the No Trespassing sign to the public and its government, which accepted it as part of the None Of Your Business mentality.

We've been indoctrinated to accept the rule of corporations free of regulations or forced to operate in the public good. This was done by appealing to human venality.

Time is not on our side in this. The Carl Sagan quote I found here somewhere may have come from this book:

This world as we know it is only just one brief moment that appears to us to be an endless horizon of time ... this time grants comfort ... and this comfort breeds complacency ... and from complacency stems ultimate stupidity and eventual destruction.

[LiberalAndProud]

20. I don't entirely disagree.

But I don't think it's entirely about lack of education or intellectualism. My older granddaughter is actually intellectually gifted. I think it has more to do with the quantity of all sorts of information, good, bad and indifferent. There is no quality control, and our filters are getting clogged with all sorts of detritus. It seems we believe everything and nothing, all in the same moment. It is easy for the gullible to be sucked in, and children are usually quite gullible. There is a reason we indoctrinate at a young age, be it religious doctrine or institutionally acceptable behavior. I am truly at a loss what tools to provide or how to provide them to install reliable filters.

I tell them to question everything. That is the best I have to offer.

[freshwest]

29. That's your and my fortunate situation. Children in areas that turned education over to corporate or

religious based schools would punish your child for speaking against the way they are seeking to structure society.

Examples of this are:

Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014134247

Louisiana to give $700K to schools run by a "prophet" who also runs a school for "prophets"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021094886

BACKFIRED: Louisiana GOP Angry That Muslims Can Use School Vouchers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002904834

That's just what I found at first search here at DU on one state only, but this is nation wide. And the reputation that some religious schools have had for turning out well-rounded scholars, is no longer the case.

Ann Romney called for all public schools to be closed, that all children should be in religious schools. This has been a constant chorus for twenty years or more, with aversion to emigrants and minorities of all kinds. It was abetted by well-funded campaigns by those who sought to break the power of secular and progressive ideas. In doing so, they gained the power of media and promulgated many lies about what goes on in public schools.

They are getting bolder, now taking public infrastructure and not paying for it, and building their own little fiefdoms where none can say nay. I applaud your work with your daughter, but the state of education in part of this country is just as bad if not worse, than Carl Sagan predicted, and they are pushing into all the arenas of public infrastructure with libertarian ideology and religious dogma.

We had a moment in time, and have been and are being, pulled back to the darkness of superstition and stupidity. With Obama in office stressing education and trying to fund more teachers and public works, being resisted by those who already profit from privatization, we're in danger here. I do not imply that we will fail in our work to save what so many have worked for so hard and for so many years.



Enjoyed chatting with you.

[LiberalAndProud]

37. Your post inspired much thought.

You focused on Louisiana, so my mind wandered. Do you suppose schools offering snake handling instruction will qualify for vouchers? It would seem so. Perhaps home schooling will be the only option left as the delusional masses gain greater sway.

I agree in total with all you had to say regarding public education and the dangerous drift to privatization and cultism. Such a thing is a multifaceted weapon, and as it gains foothold, doesn't bode well for independent thinking or critical thought. Having said that, teaching our children to test well doesn't lend itself to those qualities either. The danger is real.

[freshwest]

38. The problem of home schooling, despite access to the public library in communities or the internet,

and only if the parent is so inclined to stress science, reasoning and history as opposed to religion, is lack of public infrastructure still. Public schools have provided for science laboratories and other ways to test one's ability and desire for critical thinking skills and scientific experimentation. This was the gift of the New Deal, using shared resources to fund the Commons where all could learn.

I was fortunate to grow up in the era of government sponsored R & D, where the knowledge gained was applied universally. The schools I attended were built by the WPA, gorgeous, large building with all kinds of vocational, arts, physical education facilities as well as well-equipped lab classrooms that were designed into the buildings.

Some of the most whacked out wing nuts are the result of home schooling with religious and anti-government overtones, due to isolation and too many times, physical and sexual and even what I'd term religious abuse. These are not producing well rounded individuals who are willing or able to function in an increasingly diverse society. In fact, many are groomed to live their entire lives separate from and in opposition to the larger society. This is where the secessionist and fortress mentality has emerged, with their belief system justifying crimes on the people they do not consider part of their world.

The world that Carl Sagan is describing in the OP is feudal in economic, social and scientific constructions. I want no part of it and it wants no part of me. I am its enemy, the fossil Rush disdains, the evil one Beck warns his benightedly followers about, and among the ones they want to die off, or be killed. No time to rest.

[sheshe2]

43. Sagan's quote is so very true for many in our world...and that is sad.

"This world as we know it is only just one brief moment that appears to us to be an endless horizon of time ... this time grants comfort ... and this comfort breeds complacency ... and from complacency stems ultimate stupidity and eventual destruction."

If it is followed by the masses Then it will be our destruction...true. Are the powers that be trying to dumb the children of America down. Yes they are. They are trying to dumb down half the adults of this country with their fear and hate too.

They are taking away science,freedom of thought and an individuality that makes a person stand strong.Not just from children but from the adults that raise them.It scares me as it should scare us all.

However, I see a brighter side on the horizon. We all need that hope.

I have a niece , she is our free spirit , much like her aunt. She and others like her will be our future. She is a worker/co owner of a food co op. Her work not only delivers farm fresh foods, but raises awareness in the community to health eating. They are also offering people with SNAP benefits the ability to purchase these foods at a discount.

She also teaches classes around the community about healthy eating. Her Co op is linked to the UN web site this year. It is the Year of The Co op.


Do not completely despair. Our youth is with us...they will educate those we cannot.

May our youth lead the way when we are no longer able.

[freshwest]

44. Yes, they are the future. We are in good hands, with them. With these others, I don't know, Sheshe.

[sheshe2]

46. Hitler's youth going blindly into battle...

I know.I despair...yet I must hope.

[freshwest]

14. And we are there now, very little enlightenment left.

[yogini]

15. It takes courage...

to speak the Truth and use Reason.

I’ve noticed people using the phrase, “Well it’s my ‘personal truth’”, when they are faced with facts they don't like or reject in order to justify their opinion or point of view. The other is: “Let’s just agree to disagree” – and I can accept that unless it’s something serious like whether the Earth is round or flat!

If we don’t continue to have people who challenge our concepts, and are willing to test those concepts, then “anything goes”; it just usually doesn't go to a very good place.

Rational Humanism is looking better and better.

[Ligyron]

33. The Main Problems is:

Not too many people know how to determine the truth or to reason properly.

Critical thinking skills, logic, evaluating evidence, constructing or recognizing good arguments are not being taught in schools. At least not to the extent necessary to produce an informed citizenry. It's all about belief and emotion and then looking for excuses to justify such.

[yogini]

42. That's why we need to remain "mindful"

Clarity in a world of confusion is no small thing. When we see clearly, and tell the truth, we encourage others to do the same.

[SheilaT]

16. The inability of so many people to use any kind of critical thinking

often discourages me. I'm constantly asking things like, "Who said?" or "Where did you read or hear that?".

Too many people think that if they see it on the internet it must be true. Or that what's shown in movies must be accurate. It's why, even here on DU, people will post something that they may think isn't quite accurate, but have managed never to have heard of Snopes or any other b.s. debunking site.

And then of course, things like being able to do basic math, or spot logical fallacies, are sadly lacking.

[FarCenter]

19. Democrats use sentiment; Republicans use principles; neither use quantitative analysis of the facts.

[meegbear]

21. Holy Billions and Billions Batman ...

Carl's spot on!

[midnight]

22. Carl Sagan was well aware of NAFTA and most likely the ALEC pipe dream....

[heaven05]

23. prescience

always liked his presentations.

[SpankMe]

24. I'd be more impressed if he'd written this in the 60's.

By 1995, when this book came out, the slide into Sagan's foreboding was well under weigh. This isn't all that prophetic. Lot's of folks were seeing this decline as already in process and inevitable in the mid-90's.

[Texin]

27. I agree with you on that. Manufacturing was well into its decline before this was written in 1995.

I remember discussing it with a man I dated at the time who told me he had witnessed employees where he worked actually dismantling production equipment in order to send it to China back then. It's only been escalating since that period and before. I remember having a discussion with him about the Texas state legislators tossing around the idea that Texas motorists would have to be fingerprinted and the print tied to their drivers' licenses, and he told me that he wouldn't do it if it passed, to which I replied that he wouldn't be doing any legal driving in the state of Texas if he didn't. That law wasn't enacted, but the licenses today are bar coded with some sort of information that law enforcement personnel can scan into their databases.

I don't see Sagan's piece as being so much prescient as it was an observation on an increasingly intellectually lazy society. It's not entirely the fault of the masses, though. Public school curricula has never emphasized the importance of the concept of individual critical thinking and analysis of anything. And one can't lay the entire fault on the educational process in this country alone. I don't wish to incite fury, but organized religion has a long established precedent in controlling thoughts and behaviors through indoctrination and the fear of retribution and eternal damnation and punishment (as if living a hell on Earth wasn't enough for some people, it needed to follow them into an afterlife that may or may not actually exist - and probably doesn't, but the churches need to make money to survive so they make their followers obedient so they're perpetually terrified and glad to obediently pay out whatever paltry sums they can scrape together to buy salvation and keep the churches coffers filled so they won't carry their mundane personal hell into hell in the hereafter).

[bora13]

26. I dropped everything and have been

reading this book with few breaks since I was kindly informed of its existence by yogini!!

rock on...

[yogini]

31. That's why this kind of sharing works!

[patrice]

30. NAILED it: "... unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true ... "

= Psychological ADDICTIONS.

[spanone]

32. knr

[Paper Roses]

34. This man was so far beyond his time. Wish he was still with us.

Maybe someone would listen.

[arthritisR_US]

35. Wow, how prescient! n/t

[Hydra]

40. We were in trouble back when he said that

And it's just getting worse.

I can't go a day without running into people that are offended by me doing fact based analysis of daily problems. Magical thinking and straight disbelief in anything that doesn't suit their worldview is getting pervasive.

The 2nd scariest thing I've ever heard from someone was: "Thinking is hard...it hurts my brain..."

The zombies are here...and they want you to give up your brain...

[hifiguy]

41. A superb book from a first-rate mind.

Dr. Sagan remains one of my few personal and intellectual heroes.

[bhikkhu]

45. I've bought that book four times

I keep giving it away to people I know who haven't read it!

About ten years ago, it was the book that inspired me to go back to college.

[Yavapai]

48. Same here

I keep buying copies and giving them away.

Maybe this book should be bundled with the movie "Idiocracy" and read in high schools.

When I was in high school, we had a teacher that used to give lessons that kind of were like Penn and Teller's "Bullshit " series. I believe
His goal was to get us to think for ourselves rather than blindly follow the herd. This world needs more people like Carl Sagan!

[agent46]

47. I grew up

I grew up surrounded by new agers. Something about the manufactured ethos of that ever expanding subculture struck me as off kilter. Read this book in 1998. It cleared my head. I owe a lot to Carl Sagan.

[blackspade]

49. Holy shit!

It totally sucks that he died.
He would have been a great voice of sanity today.