What does it take to be smart?

Joel Stein, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, has a theory. He says that people today (some of whom have difficulty finding their own home countries on the map) are not any less smart than their elders. They just know different things. He says people concerned about our growing Idiocracy are just insecure about their own intelligence. Thinking he's just as smart as anyone else, he asked Adam Winer, the author of How Dumb Are You?: The Great American Stupidity Quiz, to write a test so he could challenge Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason.

One of the questions was to quote the third line of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. Mr. Stein's answer? "Who brought stripes and bright stars through the perilous night." Mr. Stein defends his answer -- "at least my version, unlike the real one, makes sense and has a verb in it." Is he kidding? We learned all the words to the national anthem in the second grade. Our teacher made sure we understood the history and significance of the song. Mr. Stein might be interested to know that there is, indeed, a verb in the "real one," and it does, indeed, "make sense." The part he quoted is only the beginning of the question, "Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?" Mr. Stein should understand that Mr. Key was overwhelmed at the sight of the U.S. flag still waving over Ft. McHenry after a night of fierce fighting. What is the "sense" of Mr. Stein's version?

Mr. Stein contends that his generation knows how to "problem-solve and filter information better than our grandparents ever did." Tell that to Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Marie Curie, Clara Barton, Helen Keller, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Queen Victoria, George Washington Carver. . .
if Mr. Stein has ever even heard of these people.

Mr. Stein has certainly not convinced Essie May he is smarter than she is. By the way, Mr. Stein failed Mr. Winer's test. Ms. Jacoby missed only two questions.

"Are Americans getting dumber? Not exactly." The Dallas Morning News; November 5, 2008; p. 31A.