Yes, on some important points.
He talks as though corporate media culture is the only culture. In many ways America is the last bastion of authentic English, Scots and German culture.
He talks as though no one in America has any culture older than 1950. I am a young man, and when I was growing up public schools still taught Shakespeare and King Arthur and Homer.
He talks as though the English language is determined by what is in the dictionary. In reality, 'tis the other way 'round.
Replies (3)
It's not that the culture has been entirely eradicated, but rather that it has become the dominant culture which is then exported to many parts of the world. Just compare how people spoke 50 years ago to today, in one example. Slow changes that may seem otherwise natural, except they always trend in a negative direction.
Are they still teaching homer and shakespeare, or has that been deemed racist and turned into a diversity Disney movie? Again, not exclusively in the US, but it's pretty easy to see how standards in schooling have dropped year by year since I left. I could see it dropping in real time in the lower grades as I was leaving school some 20 years ago.
The vocabulary problem is caused by our educational system, which is common throughout the world. Its because kids are grouped with their own age group and the only person talking to them with a bigger vocabulary is the teacher, and teachers are usually trying to dumb down their vocabulary so kids can learn the material faster. I used to be a teacher. The solution is multi-grade level classes, maybe even putting kids in the same classes as adults. No kid should ever be sitting next to someone of the same age.
They are teaching things like "The Outsiders" and "The Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank) because it let's them bring up Marxist generative themes so they can indoctrinate kids into becoming communist activists.
