The state of the American mind : 16 leading critics on the new anti-intellectualism / edited by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow.

Subtitle from cover.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword-- America: Are we losing our mind? / Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow -- Introduction-- The knowledge requirement: what every American needs to know / E.D. Hirsch Jr. -- Part one-- States of mind: indicators of intellectual and cognitive decline. The troubling trend of cultural IQ / Marl Bauerlein -- Biblical literacy matters / Daniel L. Dreisbach -- Why Johnny and Joanie can't write, revisited / Gerald Graff -- College graduates: satisfies, but adrift / Richard Arum -- Anatomy of an epidemic / Robert Whitaker -- Part two-- Personal and cognitive habits/interests. A wired nation tunes out the news / David T.Z. Mindich -- Catching our eye : the alluring fallacy of knowing at a glance / Maggie Jackson -- The rise of the self and the decline of intellectual and civic interest / Jean M. Twenge -- Has internet-fueled conspiracy-mongering crested? / Jonathan Kay -- Part three-- National consequences. Dependency in America: American exceptionalism and the entitlement state / Nicholas Eberstadt -- Political ignorance in America / Ilya Somin -- In defense of difficulty: how the decline of the ideal of seriousness has dulled democracy in the name of phony populism / Steve Wasserman -- We live in the age of feelings / Dennis Prager -- How colleges create the "expectation of confirmation" / Greg Lukianoff -- The new antinomian attitude / R.R. Reno.