Idiot Nation

Michael Moore's essay "Idiot Nation" is an opinion editorial explaining Michael Moore views about the idiotic people in the United States.  He believes that Americans are ignorant, lazy people, and the politicians of this country are to blame for it.  He explains the negative school experience that America's youth is faced with and the effects of a seriously flawed educational system.  Moore points out the most obviously idiotic actions of our country's elected officials and asks us all to question our role in our idiot nation.  We all have the power to make a difference in our nation, let's do something good by using our brains!

1. The general education requirements at Cabrillo I think are definitely adequate for educating me to be a well-rounded individual.  I am required to take a variety of classes that have helped me in the real world, and that I use apply to my daily life.  My general education has required a variety of math classes, english, communications, history, arts, and science.  I believe that Cabrillo in particular is a great school as far as community colleges go. 

1. The most interesting part about reading this piece was Michael Moore’s examples of our nation’s idiocracy.  One example that shocked me as just completely ridiculous was Fred Barnes’ comment about children being uneducation about the lIliad and the Odyssey.  But when Fred Barnes was asked to explain what the lIliad and the Odyssey are he was stumped and mumbled “fine, you got me.”  This type of example is a recurring trend throughout this essay.  It really goes to show that people will do a lot of pointing fingers in the wrong direction without first looking at themselves to see what change they could make in their own behavior.  I really enjoyed that his retort to that comment was, “you gladly hawk your ‘wisdom’ to hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting citizens, gleefully scorning others for their ignorance.  Yet you and your guests know little or nothing yourselves.  Grow up, get some books, and go to your room.  Another example from this piece that I enjoyed was the reference to American politicians being obsessed with standardized testing in our schools. Kids already hate taking tests and forcing them to do more tests will just make kids absolutely dread them and in turn be less motivated to do well, producing lower scores, and more politicians taking the wrong approach to produce higher scores.  

I actually read this article when I didn’t even know it was assigned for this class and Imo glad that it was one of the ones on the course syllabus.  I don’t totally agree with a lot of Michael Moore’s harsh opinions, but as far as his view on education I believe he really hit the nail on the head.  It’s as if he sees the truth and everyone else is seeing the world with a blanket over their eyes.  I believe that the problems in our education system could be more easily solved if we all stopped to look at things practically like Michael Moore.