A Low Denominator Is Not Uncommon

July 20, 1986|By Jeff Kunerth of The Sentinel Staff

The allure of trivia is the illusion of knowledge. Being able to dredge from the depths of the brain little unconnected bits of information has a certain satisfaction regardless of whether those facts have any significance. It makes a person feel just a bit brilliant to be able to name Ringo Starr's only No. 1 hit song or the year that Katharine Hepburn won her first Oscar or the correct name for the dots on a pair of dice.

Trivia is the confetti of knowledge, all sliced and diced and shredded into scraps that, all by themselves, have no meaning. The trivia buff substitutes memorizing the first few words of the Constitution for understanding its entire contents.

Our obsession with trivia doesn't require us to know much about anything -- just a little about a lot of things. Today's Renaissance man is a contestant on Jeopardy.

To a large extent, the popularity of trivia is the result of this nation being the most highly educated on Earth. The shame is that we so often use our education in pursuit of the trivial; we memorize the inane and play along with Wheel of Fortune.

Trivial pursuits, in fact, have become an American way of life. Throughout society, Americans have elevated the insignificant and disparaged the profound. Sporting events such as the Super Bowl have taken on the status of national holidays, while real holidays have been reduced to merchandising extravaganzas. Everybody moans about the commercialization of Christmas, but it gets harder every year to find a parking space after Thanksgiving.

''Trivialization,'' writes critic Norman Corwin, in his book Trivializing America: The Triumph of Mediocrity, ''amounts to a low-grade, chronic disease . . . For the most part, Americans do not know what they suffer from and those who do are divided about its nature, whether they want to cure it, and whether it can be cured at all.''

In trivialized America, documentaries are relegated to the bottom rung of moviedom. Even the best ones have a hard time finding theatrical release. Instead, the theaters are filled with flesh and gore and special effects.

Poetry goes ignored and unread, while Americans consume bushels of romance novels and cat-cartoon compilations.

When soup cans and Coke bottles become art, then art has been trivialized. When students become more concerned with grade-point averages than with learning and when universities become diploma mills, then education has been trivialized.

Scholarship becomes trivialized when college professors study the significance of lawn ornaments. Dining out becomes trivialized by assembly- line fast food. Music has been trivialized into aural wallpaper by Muzak. Religion has been trivialized by plastic Jesuses on the dashboard and plastic preachers on the television.

''The nation's brain power,'' said media critic Harry Skornia, ''has been criminally trivialized and 'kitschified.' ''

Long before the trivial became a board game, Adlai Stevenson pondered the significance of a nation obsessed with the insignificant: ''With the supermarket as our temple, and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fill the world with an irresistible vision of America's purpose and inspiring way of life?''

Today, Adlai Stevenson, the heavy thinker, is the answer to somebody's trivia question.

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