Zogby's “Gold Rush” Poll Shows More Americans Know Less

HL Mencken, a hero to those who think, once said, “Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” A corollary to that is, “what most people don’t know is quite a bit.” A poll by Zogby International for the designers of a new online game on pop culture called “Gold Rush” should scare the bejesus out of anyone who still thinks letting the people vote is automatically a good idea.

The poll surveyed 1,213 people across the US, and the good people at Zogby say the margin of error is 2.9%, about what one gets with a presidential opinion poll. The pollsters asked people to answer questions on current events, pop culture and what one might call high culture. The results speak for themselves.

Ignorance of foreign affairs shone through as 57% of Americans could identify Harry Potter as the protagonist of JK Rowling’s works (one hopes from the books, not the movies), while only 50% could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair. However, that is a stunningly good result for the PM, since only 11% of those surveyed knew that Samuel Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court. More than twice that number knew who won the most recent installment of “American Idol,” Taylor Hicks.

Almost three quarters of Americans know the names of the three stooges: Larry, Moe and Curly (Shemp left the act in 1931). Only 42% could name the three branches of the federal government: legislative, executive and judicial – although one could argue that Mr. Bush’s claim to a unitary presidency means that the legislative and judicial branches have left the act as well.

Two-thirds of those questioned knew that Superman came from the planet Krypton, a pretty strong result for a fictional character and a fictional planet. Just 37% knew that Mercury, a very real planet, is the closest in the solar system to the sun, an equally real star. That’s quite a testament to the teaching of science in American schools; maybe the reactionary right’s confusion of astrology with astronomy is to blame.

As for literature, the Muses weep. Sixty percent identified Bart as the son of Homer Simpson. Just 20.5% could name one of the Greek Homer’s literary offspring: “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” And when one thinks about it, who are the 4 out of 10 who don’t know who Bart Simpson is? It’s enough to make one have a cow, man.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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