I had to blog about this. The other day I was flipping through pages of the July issue of Wired magazine when I saw this headline - “Putin? Never Heard of Her”. It immediately caught my attention and I started reading. Well, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in 2007 only 36% of Americans could name the president of Russia where as a “whopping” 47% could do the same in 1989. Wow. Did I read this right? That is amazing. In disbelief I immediately googled this research center and actually found the page that described this survey in details - http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=319. God bless the Internet.

It actually gets worse when you read the whole survey page. For instance only 21% can identify the current secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who by the way has been appointed to this position about a year ago). But 64% can identify Beyonce Knowles. “Well, being able to identify Robert Gates is not necessarily a benchmark” - I thought to myself in my attempt to explain the phenomena. Looking further down the survey page made this attempt futile.

Imagine this - your country goes to war. It maintains its heavy military presence with well over 100 thousand troops deployed to a foreign country for the subsequent 4 years. The public opinion is divided. Some countrymen support the war, some are against it. You would think that the public would be aware of the casualty rate that their army sustained over the course of its combat operations. You are mistaken. According to this survey only 55% of Americans know that approximately 3000 soldiers have died in Iraq.

There are lots of more interesting points in that survey. It is really sad that our contemporary society degraded to the point where we became so ignorant. I realize that being able to visually identify Robert Gates (not to confuse with Bill Gates the notorious founder of Microsoft) will not necessarily help advancing your business carrier (unless of course your work for the government). But it will effectively make you a not self-absorbed and well-rounded individual. So take your time, read it and ask yourself if ignorance is a bliss or a curse?

P.S. One brownie point to anyone who can name both men in the picture above :).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 9:06 am and is filed under Life, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.