This book is about the dumbing down of America. The indictment isn’t new. As far back as 1963, Richard Hofstadter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his challenging book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. He decried the breakdown of reason and knowledge in the fields of politics, education and religion, and the general vulgarization of culture.

His troubling work was viewed as a cogent and powerful critique of American democracy.

Now, Susan Jacoby, a well-known author and journalist, picks up where Hofstadter left off. She reports on the widespread nature of junk thought, junk science, youth culture, celebrity culture, degradation of the language, television-screen technologies for infants, women’s and African-American studies departments and innumeracy, as well as other forms of illiteracy. She is also concerned with the rise and multiple dangers of religious fundamentalism.

Quick to flaunt their patriotism, a surprising number of Americans know little about the constitution they venerate.

Asked whether they could recall any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, a majority could name only freedom of speech. After that, only four in 10 could name freedom of religion and one in three, freedom of the press. Forty-two per cent think that the constitution explicitly states that the first language of the United States is English, and 25 per cent believe that Christianity was established by the constitution as the official government religion.

The young are even more ignorant than their parents and grandparents. About half of adults – but just 41 per cent of teenagers – can name the three branches of government. Only four in 10 adults – but just two in 10 teenagers – know that there are 100 U.S. senators.

How do Europeans differ from Americans in their attitude toward religion? Europeans have responded to modernity by becoming more rather than less skeptical about traditional religious dogma. Homosexuality, abortion, embryonic stem cell research and the teaching of evolution are simply not divisive political issues in most of Europe today.

They find it extraordinary that three times as many Americans believe in the virgin birth as in evolution. They fear that America “will go on a crusade” in the Muslim world or cut aid to poor countries lest it be used for birth control.

The author writes that to add to the muddle, it seems that Americans are as ignorant and poorly educated about the particulars of religion as they are about science. A majority of adults in what is supposedly the most religious nation in the developed world cannot name the four Gospels or identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible.

She writes, “How many citizens understand what creationism means, or make an informed decision about whether it belongs in classrooms, if they cannot even locate the source of the creation story?”

As might be expected, Jacoby considers the triumph of video-based culture as the primary source of America’s mental decay. Yes, she admits that “screen media” has “many intellectually useful components,” but also believes that “it is on balance an unfriendly habitat not only for serious high-level intellectual endeavour but also for the more ordinary exchanges of ideas that enliven and elevate culture at every level.” The more people watch – or IM (instant message), or e-mail, or play video games – the less they read and converse.

Here, of course, the author is fighting a losing battle. But it is shocking that more than two-thirds of Americans, according to recent surveys, are unable to identify DNA as the key to heredity, or understand radiation and what it can do to the body. Most shocking of all is that one in five adults is convinced that the sun revolves around the earth.

There is no mention of Canada in the book, but there is no reason to believe that most of the findings for Americans would differ for Canadians.

The author who calls herself a “cultural conservationist” is understandably gloomy about the future. But take heart! I am sure that there is more than just a saving remnant that will preserve and further cultural values into tomorrow.