Dumbing Down

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
9
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, cinema, news, and culture. When an entire society has been dumbed down sufficiently, it is no longer capable of understanding complex issues and will reject anything that seems like it may be difficult to understand. Beyond that, a dumbed down society demands simple answers, even to questions, where simple answers don't exist and purveyors of simple answers may attain positions of power for which they are entirely unsuited.