Conservative Ignorance

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center indicates that 65% of those Americans polled recognized that carbon dioxide gas was linked to temperature change. I'm not sure whether this should be viewed as encouraging or depressing. One might see it as encouraging in light of other recent polls which indicate that only a minority of Americans believe in evolution, however it is certainly depressing that there are still 35% of us who are so profoundly ignorant as to either not know of the relationship or to not believe it.

American conservatism thrives on ignorance; it could not exist otherwise. The systemic anti-intellectualism of the right has never seemed so rampant as it does today. Mention climate change in a newspaper article and one can be assured that flood of responses will follow - all citing the "irrefutable fact" that global warming is a myth - or a dastardly creation of socialist politicians out to destroy the American economic miracle (which hasn't seemed so miraculous lately by the way). It is amusing that conservatives love to harp on the failures of the "government education monopoly" - all the while not understanding that it is exactly the failure of the American education system which makes conservatism possible. John Stuart Mill once noted that while "not all conservative people are stupid, most stupid people are conservative." The latter point has never been truer than it is today.