Susan Jacoby wrote an op-ed piece, based on a book she is releasing, entitled The Dumbing Of America.  She decries the anti-intellectualism of America today, citing the rank ignorance about history and geography that is rampant today, as well as statistics such as 40% of Americans have never read a book in the last year.  She also discusses how our culture tends to denigrate intellectuals as “elitists,” as opposed to the down-home democratic ideal of average “folks.” What she neglects to address, though, is that when it comes to anti-intellectualism, our elites are the worst offenders!  It is precisely our intellectual elites–university professors, cutting-edge artists, culturally-in-tune authors–who are denying the efficacy of reason, insisting that truth is relative, and holding onto exploded ideas (such as Marxism and neo-Marxism) against all evidence.  Who is training the teachers and writing the curriculum that have gutted our young peoples’ education and deprived us of our knowledge base?  Who is denying that there is such thing as truth or goodness?  Who is denying the existence of beauty and purposefully making art that defies the canons of classical aesthetics?  Most common “folks” have better sense.  So I agree with the author in lamenting the dumbing down of our culture.  But until not just the “common people” but the intellectual elites who need to change their thinking.

A letter-writer to the “Washington Post” fulminates at the way NASCAR allowed the Daytona 500 to begin with a prayer.  Not only a prayer, but one that “invoked Jesus Christ by name.”  This, says the letter-writer, is another step in the effort to make Christianity into our nation’s official state religion.  Read  the letter.  Notice what is happening.  Yes, the government is not allowed to favor Christianity in schools, the military, and public events.  But now that same standard is being applied to a private event that receives no federal money (why should NASCAR need to?).   On a much larger scale, we have been seeing the God-free rules of the government applied in private companies, as in stores not allowing their employees to mention “Christmas” even in Christmas sales.   This is phenomenon has not just religious implications but also political implications.   People evidently see the government as so all-encompassing that government standards should be applied to EVERYTHING.

Inflation in the South African nation of Zimbabwe has reached Weimar-republic-like proportions. Michael Gerson writes how that nation’s dictator President Mugabe–who famously confiscated the land of all white farmers, who had supplied much of the food supply for generations–is funding his predatory government by simply printing money.   Back in 1980, a Zimbabwe dollar was worth about as much as ours.  Today, a newspaper costs $3 million, and a two pounds of chicken costs $15 million.  People have to carry around boxes of money.  If someone doesn’t collect a bill within 48 hours, it isn’t worth collecting anymore, since by then the hourly inflation will have rendered the original amount into chump change. 

Paul McCain has put up some more material on his blog devoted to that Lucas Cranach altarpiece.  He includes some exposition of the figures in the painting and what they mean.  Note the self-portrait of Cranach, who shows the blood of Christ shooting out from His wounds upon himself.  That’s a powerful confession of faith from the great artist.  Go to A Painting That Preaches Christ.