I don’t think that’s always been the case. At least in the past, it was expected of those who considered themselves educated would be expected to know something about the subject they were talking about. The new attitude is much more of a feelings based vibe where the only criterion for taking a given position is that it feels right to them. I wouldn’t expect everyone to derive everything from first principles, however I think at some point, you need to at least know how a given system works, or the actual facts on the ground before you form an opinion.

But we’re a culture that doesn’t read books, one that will absolutely fall for anything. The Q phenomena was pretty much a wake up call from inside the house. People somehow came to believe that germ theory was fake. Or that Biden wasn’t really in tge White House or something. The threads on numerology of the exact timing of a tweet were insane. We are more credentialed than ever, but I think it would be fairly rich to say that we’re educated. Most people seem to lack the skills to understand anything going on around them. They don’t understand logic, probability, statistics, history, or basic sciences. As such the ability to make rational decisions about how to run a government are lost. People who think demons run Hollywood won’t make good decisions.

I think the reason people are so into the culture war stuff is that it provides lots of opportunities to create negative imagery that play well on screens, and that it’s easy to generate a hot take on. It’s spectacles. The freaky looking trans person is a spectacle to dangle in front of the screen to get conservatives big mad, especially if it looks like the6 work in a school. Getting liberals hopped up by showing weird Jim Bob’s unhinged sermon is likewise easy. But this level of discourse is happening because the idea of having long conversations based on factual evidence doesn’t work on a society that runs on vibes.