[jrspruitt]

This is exactly what I was thinking, while reading through the comments, the phrase "Neeerds!" kept playing in my head from the Revenge of the Nerds movie. The American culture has not been favorable to intellectuals socially, at least in my life time, 36 years. I believe most people tend to gravitate to what is socially acceptable. Also there is a sense I get from the political media, that intellectuals are to be demonized. Intellectuals generally seem to speak of complex problems, with complex solutions. Which are a hard sell in a form that seems to live off the 30 second sound clip, not to mention any ideological conflicts. And then there is the part where being an intellectual is hard work, it takes dedication, sometimes a complete lifestyle to gain, and maintain. Something that you'd have to put down the remote control, get off the sofa and go get. Its an up hill battle, TV, which is the most powerful form of dispersing to the people, what their culture is and thus, what they should be doing, to maintain their social status, is easy to do, more so than learning about a topic. Also the people making it, want to do what ever it takes, to make sure you keep watching instead. Then the people through ratings, tell the producers what they want to watch. So it is rather easy for this process to spiral out of control. The race to the bottom if you will. The internet has changed things a bit, it brought fame and glory to some smart people, the innovators and the builders, but I would still wager the vast majority is still tied up in social networking. Recently getting a twitter account I've noticed whats on TV tonight, seems to trend quite often.