# It’s the stupid, stupid (Part 2 of 2)
Date: 2025-04-12
Previous Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/it-s-the-stupid-stupid.part1.md

---

Sure America, the richest nation in the world, might have some citizens bored at the end of the last century but anti-intellectualism rose in many countries and American states that were struggling too hard to be bored. Furthermore Fukuyama’s book was published in 1992, two years after the NYT article on the decline of intellectuals, so arguably he needed only read newspapers of the time to “predict” the fall of enlightenment values that was already underway.

Maybe the boredom theory can be patched up by the very long term trend of declining birth rates. At the beginning of the Gilded Age in 1870 the average woman was still having 5 children, total fertility rate around 3.5 as some children died. It’s difficult to be bored when spending so much time on procreation. By 1990 the average family had 2 children and perhaps one starts to have the time and reduced lack of purpose for thinking that presidents should just “try” something.