Somerset ’76 comments on this post:
Several things are factoring into what Jeff observes.
1) The perversion of American education over the last 100 years. How many folks today under age 65, regardless of educational level, could read and understand one of those McGuffey Readers written for fifth-graders? (Many of you will be stunned by the density of text and the vocabulary used therein.) And, of course, the fact that political “debates” are no more than an exchange of talking-points demonstrates again this overall dumbing-down. (Quite a different thing from, say, the Lincoln-Douglas affair.) Let’s not forget how impatient we get (me included) when a sermon lasts more than 20 minutes….
2) Along with the degradation of the substance of education has gone its pervasive anti-Christian, pro-Marxist tilt, in accordance to Dewey’s socialist plan. This has given rise to the anomaly that “educated” people are overwhelmingly leftist, while those of Christian and conservative instinct have little more than their own common sense to fall back on. Herein lies the appeal of Sarah Palin: she didn’t spend her life “palling around” with leftist intellectual elites, a la Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, et al. The destruction of a principled Christian intelligentia forces us into leadership choices of less-educated decent souls of common sense vs. pseudo-intellectual enemies of the good.
3) The permeation of sin into the lives of everyday people of all stripes, particularly through spiritually-compromising intimate relationships — not to mention the compounding of the problem as these dissolve and new ones take their place, oftentimes with children in tow. And there’s nothing like sin, a compromised conscience, to dull one’s mind, as this internal pressure induces either a refusal of awareness or else a perverse reordering of one’s priorities. Example of the latter: why are so many pro-aborts so keyed up on “animal rights” and/or environmental sensitivity? As to the former, it is why all kinds of things are coming out about Obama and his Marxist lineage and yet there is so very little concern….
New Sherwood 
Let’s not forget how impatient we get (me included) when a sermon lasts more than 20 minutes…
That’s a case of double whammy methinks. We’ve lost cultural literacy AND we’ve also lost good oration skills. Ravi Zacharias, a non-Catholic preacher in the style of C.S. Lewis, does hour-long speeches and I hang on every word.
LikeLike
“The perversion of American education over the last 100 years. How many folks today under age 65, regardless of educational level, could read and understand one of those McGuffey Readers written for fifth-graders?”
Which reminds me how happy I am that we are using them (and the equally-dense Catholic National Readers) in our homeschool.
LikeLike
While honored that my prior points were seen fit to be highlighted by a post of their own, I’ve detected a couple errata demonstrating yet again the fact that I myself am only a “pseudo-intellectual”:
– “[i]in accordance [b]to[/b] Dewey’s socialist plan[/i]” — the correct preposition is “with”.
– “[i]… leftist intellectual elites, [b]a la[/b] Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, et al.[/i] — The word choice implies that these named are a part thereof. Substitute the bolded with “as do”.
LikeLike
Isn’t it Fr. Corapi who calls common sense “God Sense” and attributes the loss of good old common sense to our collective loss of God in our personal and public lives? I think it was him, it seems so true. Just last night, while out to dinner with my husband, a tune on the ever-present television caught my ear, and I looked up to see a lovely song being played with words on a black screen about saving neglected and injured animals! What? All I could think about was all the neglected, silent, unborn children who loose their lives every day. Where are the commercials for them? Boy, I think we’re in for it here in America when God’s justice comes.
LikeLike