Aside from the fact that the US has the absolute worst public educational system in the industrialized world -- measured statistically, anecdotally or just by observing its products -- it's also the overwhelming leader in religiosity.
According to a
2003 University of Michigan study, 46 percent of American adults attend church at least once a week, not counting weddings, funerals and christenings, compared with 14 percent of adults in Great Britain, 8 percent in France, 7 percent in Sweden and 4 percent in Japan.
So what? Well, another study on religiosity and its effects on issues like social strife and cohesiveness, this one from 2005 and published in
The Journal of Religion and Society, brings up some interesting results and demonstrates the disconnect between American assumptions and objective reality. For example:
The study shows a direct correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality, which if nothing else, disproves the widespread belief that religiosity is beneficial, that secularism is detrimental, and that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful.
Surveys show that many Americans agree "their church-going nation is an exceptional, God blessed, 'shining city on the hill' that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world." This assumption flies in the face of the actual statistical evidence that (study author Gregory S.) Paul examined.
And this:
All of the subsequent results that compare religiosity against dysfunctionality show a basic correlation between the two, though anomalies exist. Paul’s second figure (Figures 1 and 2 here) shows a positive correlation between religiosity and homicide rates.
The United States is a strong exception, experiencing far higher rates of homicide than even (strongly theistic) Portugal, while Portugal itself is beset by much more homicide than the secular developed democracies. Hardly a "shining city on a hill" to the rest of the world, Paul writes that, "The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner predicted.
The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly." This deviates immensely from what most Americans consider to be common wisdom: that religion is beneficial. "But in the other developed democracies religiosity continues to decline precipitously and avowed atheists often win high office, even as clergies warn about adverse societal consequences if a revival of creator belief does not occur."
Now, what the hell does all this have to do with the numbing of America and its amazing indifference to the daily outrages perpetrated on us and the rest of the world by the thieves, liars and murders occupying the white house?
Well, I think that if your educational system fails to teach you anything but how to pass through a metal detector and gain a lifelong taste for grease burgers; and your dependence on religion for wisdom and guidance gives you a bunch of bad information and resolves nothing; and your critical thinking skills have been destroyed by public education, religion, PR and advertising; and your alleged free press is composed of cheerleaders for the status quo and propagandists for wealth and power; and the primary economic organizing unit -- the corporation -- is shown time and again to be a soulless, malevolent money-making machine with zero regard for its debt-slave workers; and your government has become a thoroughly corrupt bribocracy loyal only to their corporate paymasters, completely controlled by those same amoral corporations and in place exclusively to promote corporate well-being and eliminate anything whatsoever that could threaten profitability...
When this is your reality -- and I think it's a fair description of life in modern America for all but the wealthy elite -- it gets pretty hard to keep paying attention when you know every single day is going to be a bit worse than the day before and that there are no institutions left to turn to for help or sanity or comfort.
I stay current because I'm an information junkie and because I've been expecting something like the BushCo implosion for a long time. It's kind of fascinating to watch as my most cynical speculations about the American future become today's news.
But people who are wired differently than me, those who prefer to avoid bad news rather than confront it, have a pretty good point. You've got to be a bit of a fatalist to watch your own country come apart at the seams and not avert your eyes from the carnage.
Hope this helps. Gawd knows it's long enough.
wp
On edit: a couple of revisions for clarity (as if it's clear now).