"KNOW-NOTHINGS" REVISITED: THE MEANING OF POLITICAL IGNORANCE TODAY.

UNITED States elections; UNITED States politics & government; DEMOCRACY; CITIZENSHIP

Forty years after Hyman and Sheatsley applied the term "know-nothings" to refer to those steeped in political ignorance, this study asks if they still remain a substantial segment of the U.S. public. They do. Data from the 1984 National Election Study show that nearly three in ten adults cannot pass a "test" of political information and knowledge, even when "grades" are severely inflated. Although the know-nothings do not constitute a potentially anti-democratic lumpenproletariat, their ignorance may prevent them from understanding what U.S. democracy means and why it should be preserved. The analysis here casts serious doubts about the "improvability" of mass publics, which is one of the tenets of the "citizenship" theory of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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