Do you feel like we're getting collectively dumber as a population, or smarter?

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Scarier.

Though to be fair seems both an interesting living liberalism and stupid conservatism/religious 'craziness' grew during the past decades. Look you switched from G.W. Bush to Obama, only for a big symbol, and now you have tea partiers growing, you're really both, but when I come to think to the short term outcome I'd be pessimist, then 'Scarier', on the longer term you might become more reasonable...

Well, for what this exterior point of view is worth.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Scarier.

Though to be fair seems both an interesting living liberalism and stupid conservatism/religious 'craziness' grew during the past decades. Look you switched from G.W. Bush to Obama, only for a big symbol, and now you have tea partiers growing, you're really both, but when I come to think to the short term outcome I'd be pessimist, then 'Scarier', on the longer term you might become more reasonable...

Well, for what this exterior point of view is worth.

dude right wingers back in the day had their birch society, and thought segegration was a good idea. Even the biggest conservative intellectuals supported segegration, but this isn't mentioned that often because conservatives don't want people to know that their movement has always had tons of dumbsh*t ideas.

But the point being that the bloody conservative ideas step by step lost some ground in your country all along of its history. And for a while, while an interesting liberalism seems to grow too, they are gaining some back more and more, and since I'm pessimist for the short term I'd say you currently are in a negative trend. Which might also apply to Europe to some extents but on a lesser scale I'd say.

Oh and, that is if we're assuming intelligence and morals go along. In term of 'pure smartness', well maybe the lesser importance given to reflexion/knowledge, but more to pure reaction/feeling, didn't help to develop 'smartness' within the population (the huge place that all kinds of marketing techniques took in the society could be for something), but once again it would be more or less the same for Europe, at least. About it I don't know too, I'm mixed because knowledge has been more accessible than before and because the place that psychology took in the society gave interesting things I think, I like to think that it seems more dumb in appearance, which could lead people to stupid political ways in the short term, but that there is something less dumb behind it which could be interesting and that would show itself more after people would have chosen a screwed way.

Something like that.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...

lol, this is a really poor example, actually.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...

lol, this is a really poor example, actually.

So picking a corrupt and a racist as front runners, above a honest and successful statesman is a wise choice ?

Haha, I had forgotten your Jospin fondness, might play a role in the way you see it here.

Actually, taking this example and the way you analyze it to make the point that France is big on the trend of becoming dumb and narrow minded is not fair.

21 Avril is mainly about our bloody electoral system in which everything has to happen to during the presidential elections, it's the only way for people to express their preferences, it's our only 'proportional elections' (which is such a shame). There was a lot of leftist parties in 1st round, people expressed their small preferences, and the total of left was big enough, but well, that bloody electoral system made that it was impossible for PS to make the 2nd round. This combined to a time during which media emphasized insecurity during the campaign because of a few impressive facts, plus certainly some people annoyed by Chirac not being on the right enough, and here we go, all these factors made that results.

And about Chirac being a corrupt, well, it's quite unfair, it belongs to an epoch during all big parties in France were 'corrupt' because of the former political system, it's not like if he was a Berlusconi or something.

Then it's not as if France had been taken in a wave of corruption and fascism, don't make your Marianner (), thats just the succession of a few stuffs that led to a weird result on a given time, and if I actually think there is a trend like the one we could speak about in the US, taking this example to show it quite pointless to me.

If you wanna show such a trend then you can speak of the fact that France chose Sarkozy, an empty populist who emphasizes moral values but has yet to wonder about it himself, all that empty craziness ego in politics, the media craziness as well, the fact that something like 'Bloc Identitaire' (a growing far-right thing far more frank than what the FN became) even if they factually remain small they make more and more noise, the 'ethnical' problems that become bigger and bigger between 'French' and 'French with non European origins', and so on and so forth. Just for some starters.