One of the great vexations of the modern age is trying to figure out whether we’re actually experiencing the dumbest generation in human history. Logic would suggest that previous generations were much dumber than us. We have ready access to iodine, for example, and we do not believe that flies emerge spontaneously from rotting meat. We all use computers. If you put Julius Caesar in front of a computer, he would have no idea whether to give it some sheep entrails or what, and he was one of the smartest dudes of his millenium. Yet the catch of the modern perspective is that we know only the most clever people from history, whereas every jackanapes currently alive is, you know, right here. The internet only magnifies this effect. It’s hard not to despair when you have real-time access to the fervently professed opinions of people who know not a goddamn thing and couldn’t put the first thing with the second if they knew two, but who can say? Probably, we’re all smart enough to know that we only seem dumb because we can see ourselves so clearly. Still, there has to be one dumbest generation in history. Maybe it’s us.
