Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New Yorks World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington took place. Do you think that the sense of history has been lost in Western society?
Singwell, I rated your question down because it’s misleading and irresponsible for you to come across with an unsupported 30% figure in the statement upon which your question is based as though you know it’s true. You cannot possibly know almost 1/3 of Americans don’t know the date. That’s 90 million people out of 300 million, Singwell. No one could know that, unless he talked to every person in America. What would be more correct is that you read or heard about a survey, published by God knows who and for God knows what reason, which reported that 30% of Americans surveyed claimed that they could not recall the date. Big difference. I’m sure you’re aware that polls and surveys can be skewed to fit whatever bias the surveyors conveniently want or need. I’d be interested in details on exactly who the surveyors asked. On a personal note, I don’t understand how anyone with half a brain fails to know the year because you can’t go for more than a day or two without seeing or hearing “9/11/0
No, but I do think that telephone surveys don’t necessarily represent the bulk of our society. For all we know, those people could have said they didn’t know just so they could hang up on an annoying phone call. Or perhaps they surveyed a bunch of grade schoolers who would have been too young to remember the events that took place on 9/11. The page you cited as your source in a different thread also says that almost half of that 30% who couldn’t remember the year were senior citizens over the age of 65. I hardly think that’s representative of the American people as a whole. Just because 30% of the people surveyed couldn’t answer the question, doesn’t mean that 30% of AMERICANS in general wouldn’t be able to answer the question.
