"Isn't the more parsimonious explanation that our culture is now composed of poor critical thinkers who are poorly educated, lack sophistication and nuance, and accordingly have terrible taste?"
Hasn't this always been true though? Widespread public education systems did not exist for 99.9999% of human history. How could it be that education is more present in the world than it has ever been in history yet we somehow have worse critical thinking skills? Blaming the ills of society on education doesn't make much sense when we've had societies much longer than we've had public education.
Hasn't this always been true though? Widespread public education systems did not exist for 99.9999% of human history. How could it be that education is more present in the world than it has ever been in history yet we somehow have worse critical thinking skills? Blaming the ills of society on education doesn't make much sense when we've had societies much longer than we've had public education.