Presumably that in part is the reason for the watering down in the quality of U.S. public education K-12 so that the populace is less educated and less informed than the one that preceded it. Further, our culture extols the Entertainment industy (in which I lump the sports guilds of the NFL, AFL, NBA and so on), revering Celebrity, youthful good looks and money, whilst denigrating education and other homely values.