Is Bush a Reflection of American Stupidity or an Anomaly?

Their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that little time remains for them for thought.

Alexis deTocqueville - "Democracy in America" 1835

Much has changed since deTocqueville, a French aristocrat visiting America for the purpose of finding solutions to the penitentiary problems in France, toured America. At least on the surface. New ethnic groups. The suburbs. The Digital Revolution. Paperless money. Super highways. Super markets. Super sized food. And artificially super sized bodies.

Yet, despite these changes and all the diversity they’ve caused, the foundation of the American character that was so firmly developed by 1835 has remained in place 171 years later. If you haven’t yet read "Democracy in America" (the unexpurgated version) please, do so, for there you will see today’s America. There you’ll find the conditions that bred a culture supportive of dumbed-down politicians and ideas. There you’ll see a foreigner’s diplomatically guarded disgust for people who shunned profundity as if it were a disease. In a nutshell you’ll see - the Tyranny of the Majority, a phenomenon that provided a platform to Bush and the Neocons.

"I know of no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America," he noted. And what’s the modern variation of this? Campaign slogans substituting for critical thinking. Thirty-second ads that encapsulate entire platforms. Debates that superficially cover polarized issues. A mass media aiming for the common denominator and the Almighty Dollar.

Sure, there are blog sites like this where intelligent people gather, but for the most part these efforts represent the lost voices of the minority - a choir continuously preaching to itself while, unfortunately, yet invariably, the idiocy of the majority perpetually rules the fate of all.

The fix is in, and it’s not those alleged Twin Towers bombers, or the Masons, or the Illuminati, or the Jews, or whatever other bogeymen you’ve got. The most formidable enemy of all is mass stupidity, which is especially tragic in a land of "well" educated people who should know better. Who should care more about their collective welfare and the values ruling it.

Even if Bush and his team finagled two elections, they were close enough so that only a minimum amount of finagling was required. How was that possible? How could so many people vote for such an incompetent, bluntly ignorant person for president of the most powerful nation in the world? Is that Bush’s fault? Or the American people?

"In the principle of equality I discern two tendencies: the one leading the mind of every man to untried thought; the other prohibiting him from thinking at all," deTocqueville wrote. It’s now indisputable; the riddle can be solved. America chose the latter. Oh, for a while there, when America was generating a fair share of originality - Copland, Gershwin, Satchmo, Tennessee Williams, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Miles Davis, Jackson Pollack - it appeared that this was going to be the land of untried thoughts. But not long after the Chrysler building came the cookie cutter skyscrapers. Not long after Miles came hip-hop sampling that respun old rock as if old rock needed to be revitalized.

Now Broadway’s a shadow of its former self. Cinema is geared almost exclusively for commerce. Literature has run out of vitality. Journalism is woefully short of verity. Politics is a circus of bankrupt values. And all over the landscape - from coast to coast, from Canada to Mexico and within the borders of Canada and Mexico - you hear that grinding monstrous soundtrack, rumbling along the Earth like a prehistoric creature, blaring out of Hummers and SUVs and midsize cars, grotesquely overemphasizing the bass range so that the bolts are incrementally spinning loose, accentuating hip-hop rage and indignation. It’s the music of thoughtlessness. It’s the product of cyclical corporations packaging rebelliousness for $12.99, as if it’s gonna make a dif, hear what I’m sayin’? It’s elementally Untried Thought writ large. It’s the concerto of tragedy - the requiem for a lightweight. A country running on empty fooling itself that its stupid little toys are true rewards.

For deTocqueville, the prevailing appetite for equality was going to be the chief influence on America. At first, it sound like an aristocrat whimpering because he’s lost his status. But his observations have become true; equality has been the great leveler. What was lost via the grand embrace of equality was the culture of excellence - the highest level of art, music, literature, respect for the classics, etc.- that was cultivated by the elite. America’s common individual, who wanted to feel equal to the highest rank, lowered the highest rank in order to do so. Hence, the "um, ah, my fellow Americans I’m just a regular guy like you" persona of Reagan, the "aw shucks" approach of Bill Clinton, until, it finally spirals down into the unmitigated idiocy of GW Bush.

John Edwards talked about "Two Americas - rich and poor." A more apt characterization would be "Two Americas - stupid and smart." It’s a strategy the Republicans have played quite well: Put the bumbling puppet out front - GW - and rule the country according to Neocon ideology. Keep Wolfowitz behind the curtain and drag out Rumsfeld, only half an intellectual. If America had critical thinking skills it wouldn’t focus on Bush bashing, but instead would deal directly with the ideas and values ruling this country. But, unfortunately, that kind of thinking is too unattractive.

"I think in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United sates," deTocqueville claimed. So is it any wonder Americans never really understood that Communism would fail because it was based on utopian ideology that could never be made real? Is it any wonder that many American still can’t discern that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11? Or what the difference between Sunni and Shia is?

So, indeed, if the Illuminati or the Templars or the Jews are ruining the world through a sinister cabal, then they’re doing so because most common individuals have little interest in understanding profoundly the ideas and values ruling their world. So who’s fault is it then? If, on the other hand, it’s a matter of a few hundred utopian Neocons running the world, the same is true. In all fairness, they’ve compiled a literature. They’ve made their ideas clear. But, sadly, Americans are more interested in following the fate of a few moderately talented singers on American Idol than they are in discovering and discussing the ideas ruling this world.