Trivial Pursuit - the pros and cons of cultural literacy

National Review, Nov 8, 1999 by David Klinghoffer

You could argue that the kind of Trivial Pursuit worldliness valued in New York is just a distorted form of Hirsch's cultural literacy, and hence has in it at least something to be praised. But from the perspective of Seattle, where you can get away with not knowing the difference between Pope John Paul and St. Paul, there's something refreshing about a head cleared of stuff that you really don't have to know. Evidently at my cable guy's church the pope/saint distinction isn't energetically pursued; and frankly, if you're an evangelical/nondenominational Christian and hence don't believe in popes or saints, why should it be? I've started to doubt the Hirschean educational model altogether. Is it really such a terrible thing that a gas-station attendant in Long Island never learned what Rhode Island is? Did he become an appreciably better citizen after I had informed him that it is a state?

On hearing my Oldsmobile story, a friend in New York said, "Yeah, you know, I can tell you the name of every model of Oldsmobile that's been made for the past ten years. For some reason stuff like that just sticks in my mind." He sighed. "But in the morning, I still can't find my car keys."