—Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
“To educate the mind and not the morals is to educate a menace to society’’.- President Theodore Roosevelt.
And, unfortunately, it isn't a lack of brain power, but a lack of understanding of how to think analytically and how to solve complicated life problems.
If craftsmen, repairmen, and builders were as incapable of solving problems as Americans in general, our nation's technology would grind to a halt and tall buildings would tumble to the ground.
Don't get me wrong about craftsmen and builders, et al. Apart from their thinking on the job, they don't seem to be any better than the rest of the people at managing the large and small issues that face Americans.
It may be that modernity has outpaced our ability to keep a grasp on large amounts of mental input. Just too much information in our daily lives.
Or it may be the Dunning-Kruger effect wherein people don't do the mental work because they think they are already so damn smart they don't have to do the heavy lifting (i.e., an overestimation of intellect combined with an unwillingness to do the work required).
Whatever it is, we as a nation--and probably as a world--are headed for some serious disasters in the very near future. We are pushing a very big pile of manure up against a very powerful high-tech fan.