June 14, 2007
by Steve Hammons
Much has been discussed and written about the "dumbing down" of Americans.
Some of the symptoms of this alleged deficit in intelligence have been said to include many troubling indicators, from simplistic explanations of complex national and international issues to low school test scores to preoccupation with celebrities and TV wrestling.
Is American society really sinking to new depths of ignorance, as some observers fear? Are we IQ-deficient sheep to be led by some people and groups in politics, the media and other elements of our society?
Similarly, are we not bright enough to recognize deception and psychological manipulation by those within and outside of our country?
Although there does seem to be reason for concern about this "dumbing down" phenomena, it also appears that Americans are becoming more aware and more insightful in our perception and understanding of a wide range of emerging developments.
THE MEANING OF INTELLIGENCE
For most of us, the word "intelligence" used to often refer to how smart an individual was or how high their IQ score was.
In recent years, the concept of intelligence has come to routinely bring to mind military intelligence, the CIA, the "intelligence community" or intelligence operations. This shift may be worth noting.
Average people have become much more familiar with the concept of intelligence-gathering and the professional field of intelligence as it is practiced within the military and civilian agencies.
In some ways, this seems like a positive development because citizens should be aware of the intelligence activities of their government, lest they become the victims of intelligence agencies, as we have seen in many countries.
In addition, this increased awareness about and understanding of intelligence operations also might make average Americans interpret their own daily lives using similar concepts.
This can include gathering information from reliable sources, analyzing and interpreting information, comparing information from different perspectives, organizing the information and communicating it to others who may have a "need to know" and benefit from the information. In these ways, gathering "intelligence information" can lead to greater intelligence of the individual and groups.
These processes can be applied to personal health, family finances, career opportunities, purchasing decisions and many other practical areas. The "intelligence gathering" concepts that Americans are now more familiar with can be applied to learning about the developments in technology, science, medicine, the environment and other important areas.
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Of course, the growth of the Internet has contributed greatly to our ability to gather information and "open source intelligence (OSINT)" in ways that will benefit our lives and increase our understanding.
Perhaps even more significantly, what the intelligence community and many other researchers have discovered about human intelligence and consciousness may provide major benefits for each and every one of us, our families, friends and our society.
EMERGING DEVELOPMENTS
As more and more people read about new discoveries in the field of human psychology and consciousness, there is a growing awareness that these developments will affect all aspects of our lives: politics, society, media, education, communications, defense, human relationships, the arts and many related fields.
All of these human endeavors flow, in part, from human psychology and behavior, from our intelligence or lack of it.
Now, we are rapidly realizing that people can have many kinds of "intelligence" and these aptitudes, skills and abilities can be used in many successful ways.
For example, our natural intuition, gut instincts, "street smarts," "people skills," and the relatively new research into interesting unusual human perception such as "anomalous cognition" are becoming more valid as legitimate types of intelligence.
Scientific and psychological researchers as well as intelligence professionals have found that these features of human consciousness are turning out to be very important.
This results in a kind of awareness that some types of intelligence, especially in a society like the United States, are often a grass-roots matter - coming up from the people.
Those in positions of elite power and great wealth often tend to think intelligence flows from the top down - sort of the "trickle down" theory of human intelligence. They may feel that average Americans must be led, guided, perhaps deceived and manipulated by the elites in charge and behind the scenes.
But for those citizens who are becoming more aware of the emerging and highly significant breakthroughs in the study of unusual human perception, it is clear that Americans are rapidly getting more intelligent and disappointing those who would want us dumbed down.
If we look around at our communities, our media, our local and national governmental activities, we are sure to see many situations that do not seem at all intelligent. We see foolish, destructive and often very sad and tragic circumstances, all created by unwise human decisions and behavior.
But attempts to dumb down Americans cannot succeed because the emergence of intelligence is a natural and inevitable process. And this process is underway now in our society in a very significant way - maybe in a way that will surprise us.
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Steve Hammons [send him email] has worked as a journalist, editor, counselor, juvenile probation peace officer, public safety urgent-response specialist, teacher, instructor and US Government researcher. He graduated from Ohio University with studies in communications/journalism, health education/psychology and pre-law. Hammons's two novels, Mission into Light and Light's Hand, tell the story of a US joint-service military and intelligence research team investigating emerging special topics. Visit the novels' home page at: www.navyseals.com/community/members/ohio52
