On 'dumbing down'

I've been basically mute on the matter of dumbing-down in the British media (and elsewhere), because the topic is so huge and so miserable - besides, everyone's written such reams about it, including much dross, that I don't want to add to the heap. But today in The Independent, Howard Jacobson says everything I'd like to say, only better, so here it is.

After the Revolution, the Terror. This - the invariable consequence of filling the heads of the uneducated with grandiosity - is what we are seeing on Celebrity Big Brother. In the days when she sweetly knew herself to be pig ignorant, Jade Goody had neither the reason nor the confidence to launch the sort of terrifying tirades to which poor little rich girl Shilpa Shetty has been subjected - never mind with what provocation - this last week.

But then television made Jade a star. Television rewarded her with renown for all the things she didn't know...

Read the rest here.