Why Is This Okay?

I remember someone asking why.

“Why,” a classmate queried our teacher in 4th or 5th grade, “is it so important that we know how to do math?” I liked math, and I was good at it. My classmate, probably not so much. But there were other subjects – natural science springs to mind – that left me equally puzzled and uninterested.

So why did it matter if my classmate ever mastered how to convert fractions into decimals, or if I could ever remember the difference between nimbus and cumulus clouds, or if someone else with an aversion to literature ever read Ivanhoe? Was it really going to have any sort of an impact on our lives in the long run?

Sometimes, when the teacher wasn't terminally frustrated at having to field such questions and/or educate kids who asked them, he or she would attempt an answer. We were never satisfied, but in the end, the state insisted we fill our heads with things like arithmetic and biology and grammar and American history, even if we could foresee no worthwhile objective to it.

Today, of course, while I never actually use much of what I learned in those first 13 grades, I'm grateful that it all helped shape my mind into a vessel with the capacity to store knowledge I do use, process information and occasionally, albeit too rarely, apply critical reasoning and analysis.

And while I still couldn't proffer a satisfactory answer to any of my or my classmates' counterparts in today's public schools, I'm comfortable with the fact that I got several A's in math, social studies and English (even if I never did finish Great Expectations) and at least eked out passing grades in bio, chem and Spanish.

These days, since we have so little else to bicker about in this country, we seem to be at constant odds over how best to educate the current generation of eager minds, kids ever eager to learn the answer to the timeless question, “Why do we have to know this crap?” Should we, as adults, encourage our tax-supported schools to try and teach critical thinking, or should they stick to raising standardized test scores? Are the three Rs still paramount, or do we need to prepare them for a more complex world? Should Darwin be the only theory we discuss in science classes regarding the evolution of the human race, or should we include other purely scientific gems such as intelligent design, healing through crystals, performing magic spells and excelling at Quidditch?

One thing we all seem to share is a desire to build children's minds and improve their bases of knowledge. But it doesn't ultimately work on everyone. Clearly there are clergy, politicians, college professors, the department head at my last job, even doctors and lawyers who haven't really benefited from the fundamentals of American education. And then there are the geniuses in advertising.

During at least one of my protracted spates of unemployment in journalism and mass media over the years since college, my parents have inquired, “Why not go into advertising? There seems to be a lot of demand for creative and intelligent people in that field.” Much like the put-upon teachers of yore, I could never really come up with an answer they found satisfactory. I'd talk about creative integrity and selling out and whatnot, but in the end I still wasn't earning a living, or I was working for Dad in aircraft parts distribution instead of in the field for which I'd (allegedly) been educated.

I've had viable opportunities to denigrate the advertising field in the past. “Head On. Apply directly to the forehead.” Political propaganda that turns indefensible lies into generally accepted truths. The posters for the film Two Weeks' Notice, which inexplicably left out the requisite apostrophe after the “s” in “Weeks.” All commercials for local car dealerships and ambulance chaser law firms.

But now, finally, I have my silver bullet, the ad campaign to end all ad campaigns, as well as any future concern that I might not be able to defend my decision never to consider working in advertising, and, finally, all arguments over whether we need those pesky rudiments of edjamakyshun.

And while I am truly grateful to the people at whatever illiterate and acalculeal agency came up with this gem, as well as the overpaid folks (whatever they make) at Embarq who approved it, I have to ask, Why is it acceptable to run such an ad in public and say to all those who question the value of an education, “Yes, it's possible to be a complete ignoramus and still be staggeringly successful in the field of advertising!”?

The offending campaign is, as mentioned, for Embarq, a Kansas-based media company that competes here in Las Vegas and in several other cities to provide local customers with phone, cable TV and internet services. Their chief regional competitor is Cox Communications, a company for which I also have no love.

But so proud are the Embarqers of their fine, fine home phone service network that they boast, on TV commercials and billboards around town: “41 times fewer dropped calls than Cox. That's right. 41.”

Now I'll be the first to admit that this town is a cultural wasteland. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas attracts the top talent in absolutely no academic field apart from hotel management. Five hundred times as many people use the local library to borrow DVDs and play computer games as to check out actual books. And the editor of the Review-Journal hasn't had an intelligent thought since he determined that using toilet paper beat the alternative.

But one of the larger billboards is on Las Vegas Boulevard, a.k.a. “The Strip,” which is the single largest tourist destination in the country. Millions of people come from all over the map every year to visit the fabled locale. So do we have to advertise to the world just how dumb we are?

“41 times fewer dropped calls.” A real feat of engineering, I must say, especially when you consider it's achieved by engineers working for a company with no grasp of basic arithmetic.

Let's say in a given day, Cox connects, just as an arbitrary number, 100,000 calls from local phone numbers. And of these, 5,000 are prematurely disconnected due to technical problems, or “dropped.”

Based on Embarq's oh-so-impressive claim, on any given day, no matter how many calls they connect, they drop one time fewer calls. So on this technically charmed day they've dropped zero calls. And then – hold on to your hat! – they drop an additional 200,000 fewer calls!!!!! So on the day in question, in comparison to Cox's 5,000 dropped calls, Embarq has dropped negative 200,000 calls!!!!! Forty-one times fewer dropped calls!!!!! That's not just impressive, it's supernatural!!!!!

Basic arithmetic, friends. You can't have 41 times fewer anything than someone else. You can't even have 1.00001 times fewer anything. Once you reach the sacred number one in this equation, which is the same as 100 percent, and you subtract it from the total, you have reached, amazingly enough, ZERO!!!!!

From what I understand about the cutthroat advertising industry, before they launch a campaign, they devote thousands of personnel hours to statistical and focus group research, they have all-night creative brainstorming sessions, they test all manner of slogans, graphics, promotional ideas and commercial actors. They pretty much don't jump in naked and swim with the sharks.

So how, I mean how in the hell, did Embarq and their ad agency, after all their preliminary work on this campaign, finally arrive at a copy line as all together flat out brain dead as “41 times fewer dropped calls?”

It's not just the stupidity, stupid. It's the message it sends about education, about public perception, about a trillion-dollar industry that doesn't actually produce anything substantive and values looks above talent and cool above competent. And because said industry paves the way for countless cultural trends throughout western civilization, it sends a pretty sad message about where we are and where we're headed.

If we keep going down this path, someday soon we might find that the median IQ in our society is roughly 41 times lower than that of other nations.