Now, I hear people all the time talking about "kids these days" and how they're too obsessed with texting and consumerism and lattes to be intelligent. That is definitely true of a lot of young people nowadays. But I reject the idea that people were so much smarter or even in some ways polite in the past.
Back in like 1910 American authors were complaining that kids were idiots that didn't know their history; lots of Americans in the present day would see 1910 teenagers as being some sort of perfect race of uber-polite magic people, who obeyed their parents and worked hard and were good citizens.
It's a bullshit idea; sanitation in the past sucked, Victorian manners were extremely oppressive to women, less kids were in school, and more worked in factories and learned even less than they do now.
That said, there are aspects of past Western society I extremely admire, and lots of people nowadays (both young and old) are idiots who don't even try.
But let's not look at the past through rose-colored glasses.
Self-inflicted ignorance is not a recent phenomenon.
(Not trying to attack you in anyway, just using your quote to transition to that aspect of the topic. ^_^)

I have always said regarding elderly people who are forgiven their stupidity on the basis that they're old. Except in cases where there is proper medical degeneration of the faculties they are not stupid because they're old - they're stupid because they've always been stupid.

"How fortunate for governments that those it seeks to administer do not think" - Adolf Hitler.

I've always been somewhat unusually smart,I was home schooled to be honest,and one of the greatest things my grandmother taught me was one never stops learning (although she tended to hem one in with her religious views)

I can remember at something like five listening to a kids tape and they were talking about going into space in a school bus (which I thought el primo stupid) and then they said then went outside and floated around-I said that was impossible as there's no air in space!

If there's one thing I taught myself is that we know exactly squat about some things and if that's the case it's best to shut up until you can prove it lest you make a fool of yourself.

In many cases, I think as people become older, they become more themselves, due to some combination of brain degeneration, hearing loss, and no longer giving a shit.

Barring Alzheimer's and other diseases, the passionate, intelligent and engaged typically become even more so as they age, while the fundamentally boorish, stupid, and self-absorbed morph into the insufferable toddlers they've always been, as they slowly shed their manners, concerns, and inhibitions.

But, people like Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson, James Randi, Ray Bradbury, George Burns, and Arthur Miller prove that you don't have to become cranky, dotty, and dull when you get old.

Ah, Libertarius, you caught me out! Although I did insert the word "seems", I was neglecting to clarify that it seems to me, that there is a modern culture of stupidity. Maybe it has always been there, but with our modern viewpoint on society - and quite possibly a bit of revisionist history thrown into the mix as well - it's hard to see it as the same thing.
Certainly, I'm happy to have the conveniences of our era and wouldn't cope well without them.
I'm still waiting for this collapse of society that's supposed to be happening now that Christian values are being thrown out and people are accepting gays, unmarried couples having kids, etc, etc.
Hm, still waiting. Or maybe not, just getting on with things.

That's golden witch TrojZyr, thank you for the laugh. Pure gold and 100% on the mark!

I wasn't exactly a child prodigy but I was no idiot. I tended to be better at the English based subjects while struggling a bit with maths. I find it difficult to hold my attention when a subject doesn't interest me. When I was in school I read all the time sometimes neglecting other aspects in my life because of it. I wonder if anyone here can relate to this as well but I would become so entirely involved and captivated by something that I would hardly eat. I certainly didn't eat for pleasure.I learned/read for pleasure. My mother had an awful time with it because while she would try to feed me I was just too preoccupied with other things. The way I saw it I was wasting time sitting down at the dinner table when I could be in my room reading a book or whatever else was occupying me at that point in time.

I always wondered why other 6 year olds weren't memorizing all the dinosaur names like I was, and why couldn't they spell them.

I wasn't a child prodigy or anything, I just felt most of the kids were concerned with things I found banal. I felt i couldn't talk them about the Poe I was reading or the cool show I saw on Nova.

I asked my grandma once why I have to pretend to be dumb when talking to people, she said not to.

I haven't since.

Hatred Incarnate...

Did you mean "Elie Wiesel?" The book was entitled "Night," I read that and "Maus" when I was twelve.

Is this a question more of asking about quantifiable intelligence, such as test scores and grades in school? Yes I was good at school without trying, but socially inept in comparison to my peers. I still feel this is one thing I need to work on. I have always been able to use my ability to learn to adapt to situations and have had more understanding of people around me their reasons for doing what they do, and been able to get out of sticky situations, as well as getting people to react certain ways, and be able to bend people's wills at times sometimes on an unconscious level. But as I get closely involved my once seemingly unerring view of people is sometimes blurred and becomes impossible for me to understand or relate.

I am not sure which measure of intelligence you are asking about. Or how you would define intelligence itself. It is to me like saying I am a mathematician I understand the entirety of how to figure out an equation. Measuring intelligence in this way, yes I was 'intelligent'. I would rather be able to apply my intelligence, to solve problems for instance being an engineer and being able to create a power plant, or energy efficient light-bulb something in this way. Although this is a broad generalization, and maybe not applicable in every respect. In this way, at least socially I was retarded, as in slowed. In part because I was so focused on being better than everyone else in school, even though it was easy and looking down on everyone else's seemingly lower intelligence, instead of observing and applying the strengths in which I did not have.

I was not challenged, even in advanced classes which caused me to stagnate and ignore the possibility that I did have areas in which I could improve on. At least I can realize this although regrettably I did not realize it until later than I should have, I kept much of these personality traits and still find it easy to look down on people for not being able to grasp what are to me simple concepts.

Even when writing, I sometimes have trouble to explain a simple thought without having to detail, and be wordy for me to get a point across. Such as this.

When I was a child I was.. different. I had a whole different set of interests than other kids. I didn't want to play much, and if I did I mostly did coloring. I was obsessive with hygiene and cleaning at the age of 5 - my room was like army camp. I knew how to read and write and do basic calculus before going to any kind of school or daycare. I was interested in only few things - my coloring, the universe and bugs. I pestered my mother all the time about this or that star and asked her questions retaining to the universe and space and matter and so on. When I got to school, I was advanced from first grade to the third. Everything was just too easy. I changed schools to take up music, and was a very curious nature, I wanted to know the hows and whys of everything.

Sadly that time's long passed. I'm not that smart anymore I think. Reality and the harshness of the world made it for me. Loosing innocence and curiosity because of cruel kids and understanding of the world made it. Now I'm more bitter, sarcastic and so on. But on the other hand, school has became interesting, sadly I'm not the patient type.

I have video evidence that I demonstrated logic from an early age. In the video, I was attempting to climb a rock but struggled because of its steepness - so I just walked around the other side of the rock (where it was less steep) and climbed up from there!

I also learned to speak from an early age (my poor parents!) and I learned to read before I attended nursery school. At the age of 9, I was told that I had the spelling age of a 12-year-old. I can't recall any other achievements at the moment.

I am still a quick learner nowadays, so it's great that I've had some consistency.

As a very young child I had a huge obsession with music. It's the only thing that would silence me from crying and put me to sleep as a very small infant. (Funny thing, one of my earliest memories is my parents wheeling the little Television into my room and playing a video of Dire Straits 'Money for nothing' to put me to sleep.)

I also had an incredibly vivid imaginary friend for most of my younger years, a naked woman with blue skin and white hair. Yep. I started young with my fascination with the female form apparently.

I was writing stories before I could actually write. I'd produce page after page of nonsense chicken scratch, then proceed to 'read' it to my family. So no surprise I turned out a writer.

With all this...acknowledgment of intelligence, it strikes me that I am often smitten with absolute awe and wonder at just how stupid I can be. Then, lest I fall in a pile of self-dejection, I remember that being stupid is much like being crazy...those who recognize when they are generally aren't.

I was more interested in technology. When I was 6 and I got a gameboy color and pokemon red, then over time I used to live almost across the street from a movie gallery where I could buy cheap titles. I spent most of my afternoons playing Age of Empires, then just beginning my interest in computer technology. When I was starting middle school I didn't do very well, I barely passed and then failed my 8th mark so I had to take it again. I wasn't at all popular, I would hang out with people who would always down me. I think it was around 8th grade that I shaped up (at least a little) and started being interested in science and mostly history.

My freshman year I failed at least one class per trimester and had a LOT of complicated computer classes mostly because it involved Microsoft word and a lot of business bollocks. I had difficult teachers up until sophomore year that wouldn't help me, or I wouldn't care. I got most of my papers I wrote out in English classes back because my vocabulary was very high which really irked me. I still am not a very social person and have a small amount of friends here and there I haven't shut out and I constantly learn more and more about computer tech (more so now a days). My sophomore year I also left my highschool because I hated most of the people in it and the teachers for the most part angered me, and decided to go to an alternative highschool, which has actually been helping for the most part. I still go there to this day and things have been looking bleak on my future though that's my story.