Richard Cohen – Moron of the Year?
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post wrote an op-ed piece defending ignorance last week. If you haven’t yet read the article, you really should. In it he attempts to explain to a high school drop-out why knowledge of basic mathematics is not really necessary. The crux of his position is that he’’s done just fine without knowing algebra, so therefore it must not be important. My favorite bit is when he demonstrates his wondrous reasoning skills by proclaiming the proof that “writing is the highest form of reasoning” is “all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence.” Yes, Richard, and I know several heart surgeons that aren’t so good at changing the oil in their Mercedes. Still, I’ll take my chance with the MD over the guy at Jiffy Lube if I ever need a triple bypass.
It’s appalling to know that this ridiculous, I mean truly silly, argument is what passes for serious discourse in one of our nation’’s most prominent newspapers.
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