A Quote by Carl Sagan

The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Carl Sagan

Quote Topics

America Celebration Content Decay Down Dumbing Down Evident Ignorance Kind Slow Substantive

Quote Author

Carl Sagan
American - Scientist
November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Carl Sagan

I'm generally pessimistic about the dumbing down of America - especially with summer movies.

Elmer Bernstein

The ability to convince people of the wackiest notions - and both parties can do it - it's part of the dumbing down of America that's really highly problematic.

Gary Ackerman

The phenomenon of economic ignorance is so widespread, and its consequences so frightening, that the objective of reducing that ignorance becomes a goal invested with independent moral worth. But the economic education needed to reduce such ignorance must be based on austere, objective, scientific content—with no ideological or moral content of its own.

Israel Kirzner

Ignorance is in relationship to content; it is not just a spirit of ignorance. In verse 21 it speaks of "the truth in Jesus." Truth is content, truth has something to do with reason. Truth has something to do with the rational creature that God has made us. The dilemma here in the internal world is not just some sort of grey fog, it is in relationship to content.

Francis Schaeffer

Slow down. Enjoy life. It's tough to slow down if your mind is going a million miles a second. It's tough to slow down if you think what these people do here matters.

Frederick Lenz

In Britain, we've tended to replace the kind of architectural culture valued in much of Europe with an in-flight magazine lifestyle - all branding, marketing and 'accessibility', a word that usually means dumbing-down.

David Chipperfield

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

Robert Kennedy

In fact, entertainment has taken the place of celebration in the present world. But entertainment is quite different from celebration; entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration you are a participant; in entertainment you are only a spectator. In entertainment you watch others playing for you. So while celebration is active, entertainment is passive. In celebration you dance, while in entertainment you watch someone dancing, for which you pay him.

Rajneesh

For me, managing my energy means slowing myself down before the big event. I slow down the racing thoughts in my mind. I concentrate on and slow down my breathing. I listen to and steady my heart rate.

Lewis Howes

The slugs are ascending this steep city staircase that leads up to a huge Catholic church, essentially signifying their slow crawl towards death. The work reminds us of religion, mortality, natural decay, and the slow suffocation of commercialized societies.

Florentijn Hofman

America is an empire in decay. But we don't have to lash out and do damage on the way down. We can reverse some of the damage we've done. It's possible.

Viggo Mortensen

We don't have media literacy in America in any kind of substantive way. If we did, I think that (A) more of us would've recognized the threat that Trump posed from the beginning, and (B) no one would have been surprised at the bigotry that was in the DNA of his campaign.