CULTURE WATCH : Dumb Sells

Is America getting dumber? The question was asked in a recent Times article that pointed to the increasing number of books that provide tips for the informationally challenged.

“Personal Finance for Dummies” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Managing Your Money” are two of more than 300 titles that now alarm some folks who see in this proliferation a growing dumbification of the nation. And movies like “Dumb and Dumber” and TV series like “Beavis and Butt-head” reinforce the idea that the trend is reaching beyond the bookstore crowd.

John Ratzenberger, the actor who played postman Cliff Clavin in the TV series “Cheers,” landed a new job as the official mascot of an “Idiot series” of books written to teach about computers, which confirms some sort of deliberate cultivation of ignorance. But to what purpose?

Some observers worry about the possible political implications of this trend. The question is whether there is truly an anti-intellectual feeling among a large group of Americans who, it would seem, take pride in their ignorance and their refusal to read.

We don’t see it. Rather we see cartoonish idiocy being used as a selling tool. In this situation, the word “idiot” is used as a synonym for simple, and the marketing experts are trying to come up with simple explanations for complicated things. If it works, it’s not dumb. And in its way it’s not different from the Socratic method of learning, which begins with the admission, “I only know that I know nothing.”