What is dumbing us down?

What is dumbing so many of us down these days, “smart” people included (Elon Musk, in Twitter, if not Tesla)? This could be the question of our age, to answer before it’s too late.

My new article in CEOWORLD suggests five possible explanations. Two are social:  the pressures of contemporary life and the decline of community. As we race around madly, many of us feel isolated, disconnected from the social ties of traditional community. These are hardly conditions that encourage thoughtfulness.

Another two relate to the toxic stews in which we swim. Who knows what all the chemicals that we inhale, ingest, and absorb are doing to our brains, let alone our bodies? Even more intoxicating may be the electronic toxins—those weapons of mass distraction, with their billions of bits bombarding us like flickering films. No wonder we have so much trouble seeing the big picture. That both sets of toxins are having no effect on our brains is difficult to believe—unless, of course, they are having this effect.

The fifth, really an amalgam of the other four, is that the farther we get from nature, the more thoughtless we become. Hence, to smarten up, we shall have to revert from our frenetic networks into natural communities, from our polluted cities into fresh air, and from our relentless distraction to focused attention.

To read the full article on CEOWORLD, please follow this link.