The steady decline of American society and the American education system from the mid-1960s to the present, and how it impacts jury duty:
The entire premise of this book revolves around this section. American society and the average American citizen have degraded to the point where the concept of jury duty is no longer practical. I don't want to repeat what I have written on the homepage. If you have come directly to this page, please first read the homepage to see my description of how society and the average American have changed in just the last 50 years. In this section, I would like to present and discuss a rough timeline of American society. No one in power is willing to admit that the average American can no longer be considered an effective juror by any reasonable standard.
Before Mid-1960s: I refer the reader back to what I have written on the homepage. To a large extent, the typical American who lived during this time could socialize, listen, and think—at least in the traditional sense of those terms. This was a time before our education system went down the path of gradually “dumbing down” everything in the name of “fairness.” It was also before the government made it such that people could get by without learning the skills needed to hold down a job and support themselves. I believe that during this time, a typical person sitting in a jury waiting room had the basic skills needed to understand and perform her/her duties as instructed. I admit that I am avoiding a discussion of the highly discriminatory policies of America's past, as far as who was and was not allowed to serve on a jury. I am simply making the point that society as well as the typical American citizen “back then” was very different than society and the typical American citizen today.
Mid-1960s to Early 1990s: In my opinion, the mid-1960s was the “beginning of the end” of America. Certainly nothing happened “overnight,” but the decline of American society and the American education system can be traced back to this point in history. American history has a distinct “Before Time” and a distinct “After Time.” The mid-1960s brought us the concept of “handouts” which made it such that people could survive even if they didn't put forth an effort to work hard and obtain an education. It also marked the beginning of when schools started focusing less on true education, and were more concerned about avoiding accusations of discrimination in any manner of speaking.
The end result of all this was a gradual yet consistent lowering of the proverbial “bar.” Students were socially promoted through the grades because schools were afraid of the political and logistical implications of holding students back. Teachers and administrators began to lose more and more control over behavior issues because of the ramifications of “punishing” a student in any manner of speaking. Having been born in 1972, I observed this phenomenon firsthand. I do acknowledge that much of what I have written applies more to big cities than to rural areas, but the vast majority of Americans live in the former.
Early 1990s to Mid-2000s: The early 1990s brought the early days of the Internet. This marked the beginning of the time when we started to become more and more helpless, and less and less social with each passing year. Instead of talking with real people in person, it gradually became more acceptable to spend all day and all night in an online chat room typing acronyms and short phrases to strangers in meaningless fashion. By this time in history, our public education system was essentially a complete farce. As an example, I earned my college degree from a fully accredited city university which at one time had an outstanding reputation. What I observed, though, was that a large percentage of students required remedial education (which the college provided). These students did not have the reading, writing, and math skills expected of a high school graduate. In many cases, students were not even on a middle-school level. I also observed firsthand how professors would give students a 50-point curve on an exam if the average score was 25 because it would have been a “political nightmare” to fail so many students. It goes without saying that the college had to “walk on eggshells” to avoid any accusations of discrimination. The “social promotion” which the students experienced in elementary, middle, and high school simply continued on through college.
Mid-2000s to 2015: The mid-2000s brought the early days of social media and smartphones. At the time, I think it is safe to say that no one predicted what would result from such, and how fast the technology would advance. It was all just a novelty at first, and offered some basic conveniences and opportunities for electronic interaction and networking. There is little reason to elaborate in this section since even my younger readers have lived through this time. In plain English, “Boy have we gotten dumb and helpless.” More significant for the discussion of jury duty, though, is that we have become paradoxically highly antisocial. For example, instead of sitting on a park bench with a friend, and having him/her show you a printed picture of his/her new cat and having a discussion about it, all you have to do is click a “Like” button underneath the cat photo on the person's social media page, and your role as a friend is done. If, in addition, you post a comment of “omg cat lol :-) wat it's name?!?,” the person will hold you in high regard. If you post such a comment in a timely fashion after the photo is posted, the person will likely consider you to be among his/her very best friends. In plain English, the mid-to-late 2000s brought America "past the point of no return,” assuming we ever had some glimmer of hope after the 1960s.
Again, there is hardly the need for further discussion. The younger segment of the American population has figuratively become a bunch of illiterate zombies drooling on themselves while staring at their electronic devices all day and all night. The “bar” has dropped abysmally low. To some extent, this impacts older Americans as well. Even older folks who were born and educated in the “Before Time” can often be seen staring at and pecking away at their smartphones or tablets with glazed-over eyes. People would rather (and are expected to) just click a “Like” button instead of phoning the recipient of the "Like" and elaborating on the matter. Something as simple as sending an e-mail comprised of full sentences and paragraphs to a friend is rapidly becoming unheard of. In plain English, our society is just barely still fit for jury duty (if it is at all), and any last traces of suitability will soon be completely gone as the older generation ages, and the younger generation takes its place.
2015 to 2035: The future will bring us increasingly immersive forms of entertainment that will serve to make us even more useless of a population than we already are. As a concrete example, do we really want to have a jury of people who reluctantly take off their virtual reality headsets when ordered to do so by the judge overseeing the case they are about to try? Do we want a jury of people who have completely forgotten how to say hello to someone in the “real world” because they never learned how to do so in the first place?
Future technology will continue to make us more and more helpless, both physically as well as cognitively. Machines will increasingly predict our behavior patterns and the information we seek, and will offer suggestions and help accordingly, and will do the things that we have pre-programmed them to do. We already have this to a great extent, but as the technology improves, we will become more and more mindless and feeble. We won't even have to exert ourselves pressing buttons because we will be able to speak every single one of our commands. We already have this to a great extent as well, but the technology will become more prevalent with each passing year. Socialization by any traditional standard will be completely gone. Our bodies and brains will effectively be nothing but “mush.” Twenty, if not five or ten, years from now, I simply do not see how we will be able to continue trying cases by juries of random untested people “off the street.” It is for this reason that I feel we as a society need to begin moving toward a system of cases being judged by panels of judges who have education and verified abilities at an established standard. The matter is revisited in the next section of the book.
The point that I am trying to make in this section is that America has a distinct “Before Time” and “After Time.” As people who were born in the “Before Time” get older and are no longer to be found in jury waiting rooms, they are being replaced by younger people who were born in the “After Time” who neither care about jury service nor are capable of fulfilling the role of juror by any reasonable standard. I truly don't see how jury duty as we know it can continue for much longer in the United States. Now is the time for us as a nation to begin deciding how we want to handle the judging of cases that are currently handled by a jury.
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Before Mid-1960s: I refer the reader back to what I have written on the homepage. To a large extent, the typical American who lived during this time could socialize, listen, and think—at least in the traditional sense of those terms. This was a time before our education system went down the path of gradually “dumbing down” everything in the name of “fairness.” It was also before the government made it such that people could get by without learning the skills needed to hold down a job and support themselves. I believe that during this time, a typical person sitting in a jury waiting room had the basic skills needed to understand and perform her/her duties as instructed. I admit that I am avoiding a discussion of the highly discriminatory policies of America's past, as far as who was and was not allowed to serve on a jury. I am simply making the point that society as well as the typical American citizen “back then” was very different than society and the typical American citizen today.
Mid-1960s to Early 1990s: In my opinion, the mid-1960s was the “beginning of the end” of America. Certainly nothing happened “overnight,” but the decline of American society and the American education system can be traced back to this point in history. American history has a distinct “Before Time” and a distinct “After Time.” The mid-1960s brought us the concept of “handouts” which made it such that people could survive even if they didn't put forth an effort to work hard and obtain an education. It also marked the beginning of when schools started focusing less on true education, and were more concerned about avoiding accusations of discrimination in any manner of speaking.
The end result of all this was a gradual yet consistent lowering of the proverbial “bar.” Students were socially promoted through the grades because schools were afraid of the political and logistical implications of holding students back. Teachers and administrators began to lose more and more control over behavior issues because of the ramifications of “punishing” a student in any manner of speaking. Having been born in 1972, I observed this phenomenon firsthand. I do acknowledge that much of what I have written applies more to big cities than to rural areas, but the vast majority of Americans live in the former.
Early 1990s to Mid-2000s: The early 1990s brought the early days of the Internet. This marked the beginning of the time when we started to become more and more helpless, and less and less social with each passing year. Instead of talking with real people in person, it gradually became more acceptable to spend all day and all night in an online chat room typing acronyms and short phrases to strangers in meaningless fashion. By this time in history, our public education system was essentially a complete farce. As an example, I earned my college degree from a fully accredited city university which at one time had an outstanding reputation. What I observed, though, was that a large percentage of students required remedial education (which the college provided). These students did not have the reading, writing, and math skills expected of a high school graduate. In many cases, students were not even on a middle-school level. I also observed firsthand how professors would give students a 50-point curve on an exam if the average score was 25 because it would have been a “political nightmare” to fail so many students. It goes without saying that the college had to “walk on eggshells” to avoid any accusations of discrimination. The “social promotion” which the students experienced in elementary, middle, and high school simply continued on through college.
Mid-2000s to 2015: The mid-2000s brought the early days of social media and smartphones. At the time, I think it is safe to say that no one predicted what would result from such, and how fast the technology would advance. It was all just a novelty at first, and offered some basic conveniences and opportunities for electronic interaction and networking. There is little reason to elaborate in this section since even my younger readers have lived through this time. In plain English, “Boy have we gotten dumb and helpless.” More significant for the discussion of jury duty, though, is that we have become paradoxically highly antisocial. For example, instead of sitting on a park bench with a friend, and having him/her show you a printed picture of his/her new cat and having a discussion about it, all you have to do is click a “Like” button underneath the cat photo on the person's social media page, and your role as a friend is done. If, in addition, you post a comment of “omg cat lol :-) wat it's name?!?,” the person will hold you in high regard. If you post such a comment in a timely fashion after the photo is posted, the person will likely consider you to be among his/her very best friends. In plain English, the mid-to-late 2000s brought America "past the point of no return,” assuming we ever had some glimmer of hope after the 1960s.
Again, there is hardly the need for further discussion. The younger segment of the American population has figuratively become a bunch of illiterate zombies drooling on themselves while staring at their electronic devices all day and all night. The “bar” has dropped abysmally low. To some extent, this impacts older Americans as well. Even older folks who were born and educated in the “Before Time” can often be seen staring at and pecking away at their smartphones or tablets with glazed-over eyes. People would rather (and are expected to) just click a “Like” button instead of phoning the recipient of the "Like" and elaborating on the matter. Something as simple as sending an e-mail comprised of full sentences and paragraphs to a friend is rapidly becoming unheard of. In plain English, our society is just barely still fit for jury duty (if it is at all), and any last traces of suitability will soon be completely gone as the older generation ages, and the younger generation takes its place.
2015 to 2035: The future will bring us increasingly immersive forms of entertainment that will serve to make us even more useless of a population than we already are. As a concrete example, do we really want to have a jury of people who reluctantly take off their virtual reality headsets when ordered to do so by the judge overseeing the case they are about to try? Do we want a jury of people who have completely forgotten how to say hello to someone in the “real world” because they never learned how to do so in the first place?
Future technology will continue to make us more and more helpless, both physically as well as cognitively. Machines will increasingly predict our behavior patterns and the information we seek, and will offer suggestions and help accordingly, and will do the things that we have pre-programmed them to do. We already have this to a great extent, but as the technology improves, we will become more and more mindless and feeble. We won't even have to exert ourselves pressing buttons because we will be able to speak every single one of our commands. We already have this to a great extent as well, but the technology will become more prevalent with each passing year. Socialization by any traditional standard will be completely gone. Our bodies and brains will effectively be nothing but “mush.” Twenty, if not five or ten, years from now, I simply do not see how we will be able to continue trying cases by juries of random untested people “off the street.” It is for this reason that I feel we as a society need to begin moving toward a system of cases being judged by panels of judges who have education and verified abilities at an established standard. The matter is revisited in the next section of the book.
The point that I am trying to make in this section is that America has a distinct “Before Time” and “After Time.” As people who were born in the “Before Time” get older and are no longer to be found in jury waiting rooms, they are being replaced by younger people who were born in the “After Time” who neither care about jury service nor are capable of fulfilling the role of juror by any reasonable standard. I truly don't see how jury duty as we know it can continue for much longer in the United States. Now is the time for us as a nation to begin deciding how we want to handle the judging of cases that are currently handled by a jury.
Go to Next Topic
Go to Table to Contents