So there’s a lot of flap going on right now about Mark Bauerlein’s overtitled new book, “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).”

As the latest in a very long line of hand-wringing polemics about These Kids Today (dating back to ancient Greece), Bauerlein predictably complains that all this sitting around and typing and staring at screens is ruining the minds of America’s future leaders, and that when these vacuous brats finally get their overdeveloped thumbs onto the joystick of power, we’re all doomed.

Tortured metaphors aside, I think Bauerlein could have benefited from reading a little history himself, before complaining about how few kids know Hitler from Stalin. Two things spring to mind:

1. There is almost no generation, since the invention of the printed word, that hasn’t recorded some elder bewailing the tragic, dissolute state of the community’s youth. And yet, here we still are, reproducing like mad and dominating the planet (at least until it dominates us back). Some other inventions, trends or people that have been predicted to doom society as we know it include:

• Elvis
• Socrates
• Philosophy
• Prohibition
• The Daily Show
• Verdi’s Rigoletto

2. Many pundits who compare Miss Teen South Carolina to the learned scholars of the past are forgetting one very important difference between now and then: the concept of universal education. Sure, when we look on older writings, we see erudition, historical and philosophical understanding, and careful thought. But those writers were the incredibly privileged scholars of their time.

If we compare the writing of historical scholars with those of modern scholars, I bet ours will hold up pretty well. But people tend to forget that universal education is an extraordinarily recent phenomenon, and our society is the first in history to attempt to educate all its citizens. For 99.9% of recorded history, the vast majority of humanity was illiterate, not even remotely educated about anything, and basically just struggling to survive and feed a family. Compared to the life of a slave, serf or peasant, today’s Wikipedia wonder kids have it pretty good.

Overall, I feel that Bauerlein’s argument is oversimplified for a catchier title. He even admits that he’s not calling America’s youth mentally deficient–just ignorant of information:

Because in my limited experience as a teacher, I’ve noticed in the last 10 years that students are no less intelligent, no less ambitious but there are two big differences: Reading habits have slipped, along with general knowledge. You can quote me on this: You guys don’t know anything.

I’ll be the first to agree with Bauerlein that Americans today (and most assuredly NOT just students) are woefully ignorant of the world around them. I will disagree, however, that this generation of Americans (or humans, period) is the first to have such problems.