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Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down expands on the ideas of this essay and argues his side quite effectively. His ideas are based on his multiple decades as a successf

by Meekro 6y ago

Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down expands on the ideas of this essay and argues his side quite effectively. His ideas are based on his multiple decades as a successful schoolteacher and are well-supported by history. You don't have to agree with them, but you seem to be dismissing them too quickly and casually. For example, here's a quote from Dumbing Us Down that I found persuasive: "We had school, but not too much of it, and only as much as an individual wanted. People learned to read, write, and do arithmetic just fine anyway; there are some studies that suggest literacy at the time of the American Revolution, at least for non-slaves on the Eastern seaboard, was close to total. Thomas Paine's Common Sense sold 600,000 copies to a population of 3,000,000, twenty percent of whom were slaves, and fifty percent indentured servants."

theLotusGambit 6y ago
Saying his ideas are well-supported by history is a bit generous considering his historical arguments always seem to boil down to a barrage of anecdotal evidence of dubious factual value. To be fair, I've only read the Underground History and not Dumbing us Down, but here's a quote from wikipedia: "The publicity generated by the initial success and compounded by the publishing disagreements propelled the pamphlet to incredible sales and circulation. Following Paine's own estimate of the pamphlet's sales, some historians claim that Common Sense sold almost 100,000 copies in 1776,[13] and according to Paine, 120,000 copies were sold in the first three months. One biographer estimates that 500,000 copies sold in the first year (in both America and Europe, predominantly France and Britain), and another writes that Paine's pamphlet went through 25 published editions in the first year alone.[7][14] However, some historians dispute these figures as implausible because of the literate population at the time and estimated the far upper limit as 75,000 copies." Now, this gets into a bit of a weird circular argument where the book didn't sell as many copies because the people weren't literate and therefore the people weren't literate because the book didn't sell so many copies. Still, claiming that the book sold 600,000 copies seems disingenuous unless Gatto expanded upon it. I don't remember him citing his sources either in his book, but it's not like I've looked at the sources either, so whatever.
bmistree 6y ago
From the little I've read on the topic, there are many good reasons to be skeptical of the 600,000 copy figure cited here. This [0] article summarizes some of the debate. At a high level, the number seems to be derived from Thomas Paine's assertions that he sold 120,000 copies in the first three months of Common Sense's release. However, Paine had no way to measure this number and likely didn't even have a way to reasonably estimate it. The article mentions a historian that analyzed data from the time (number of known printings and maximum batch size for a print run): "Putting all this together–twenty-five printings at a maximum of 3,000 each (even though most print runs were probably much less), Loughran places the far upper limit at 75,000, but she thinks the true number was much less than that." I don't know much about Gatto or Dumbing Us Down. However, I personally don't find this quote persuasive, given the uncertainty around the 600k figure. [0] https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers/ https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-...
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the 600000 copies is accurate, the next question then becomes how many other books was it competing against? I mean if there was just this book and the bible for sale, that might explain it (obviously there was more competition, but not quite as much as there is today) After that is answered we should probably also note that Paine was a celebrity of sorts at the time.

by Meekro 6y ago

theLotusGambit 6y ago

Saying his ideas are well-supported by history is a bit generous considering his historical arguments always seem to boil down to a barrage of anecdotal evidence of dubious factual value. To be fair, I've only read the Underground History and not Dumbing us Down, but here's a quote from wikipedia: "The publicity generated by the initial success and compounded by the publishing disagreements propelled the pamphlet to incredible sales and circulation. Following Paine's own estimate of the pamphlet's sales, some historians claim that Common Sense sold almost 100,000 copies in 1776,[13] and according to Paine, 120,000 copies were sold in the first three months. One biographer estimates that 500,000 copies sold in the first year (in both America and Europe, predominantly France and Britain), and another writes that Paine's pamphlet went through 25 published editions in the first year alone.[7][14] However, some historians dispute these figures as implausible because of the literate population at the time and estimated the far upper limit as 75,000 copies." Now, this gets into a bit of a weird circular argument where the book didn't sell as many copies because the people weren't literate and therefore the people weren't literate because the book didn't sell so many copies. Still, claiming that the book sold 600,000 copies seems disingenuous unless Gatto expanded upon it. I don't remember him citing his sources either in his book, but it's not like I've looked at the sources either, so whatever.

bmistree 6y ago

From the little I've read on the topic, there are many good reasons to be skeptical of the 600,000 copy figure cited here. This [0] article summarizes some of the debate. At a high level, the number seems to be derived from Thomas Paine's assertions that he sold 120,000 copies in the first three months of Common Sense's release. However, Paine had no way to measure this number and likely didn't even have a way to reasonably estimate it. The article mentions a historian that analyzed data from the time (number of known printings and maximum batch size for a print run): "Putting all this together–twenty-five printings at a maximum of 3,000 each (even though most print runs were probably much less), Loughran places the far upper limit at 75,000, but she thinks the true number was much less than that." I don't know much about Gatto or Dumbing Us Down. However, I personally don't find this quote persuasive, given the uncertainty around the 600k figure. [0] https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers/ https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-...

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the 600000 copies is accurate, the next question then becomes how many other books was it competing against? I mean if there was just this book and the bible for sale, that might explain it (obviously there was more competition, but not quite as much as there is today) After that is answered we should probably also note that Paine was a celebrity of sorts at the time.