Education doesn't sell in America.

I despair for this country. Maybe it's true in other countries, too, but I fear that the search for verifiable knowledge is a minority pursuit.

One wonders how 60 million voters could cast their ballots for a man who, to a person who is even reasonably informed, is obviously ignorant of the workings of government. What sorts of culture do these voters consume?

I may have mentioned before that for-profit companies that have tried to make it on cable television by selling educational programs seem to have failed. I ate at a local restaurant the other day, and they had a big screen TV playing the History Channel. The program playing concerned whether or not there might be thirteen quartz crystal skulls placed here on Earth by space aliens, and just what magical powers these skulls might have. Do such skulls exist, asked the narrator? If so, are they real or fake? Apparently, you need to get all thirteen together to release their awesome power. Well, wouldn't you know that one is missing?

Anyhow, this is the sort of fare that the History Channel and the Discovery Channel are reduced to. I don't know if they get more viewers this way, or if these shows are cheap and that's all their advertising revenue will pay for.

Then, whenever I walk into my local big box bookstore, what do I find? There is a modest, but perhaps adequate, Science section. Together with Nature, Animals, and Pets, it covers about one row of shelves. History and biography have roughly the same acreage.

I would say that the lion's share of the store's territory is taken up by Religion: Bibles, Christianity, Christian Inspiration (as apart from other books about Christianity), Christian Fiction(!), Religious Studies (including comparative religion, books on Judaism, Islam, and Eastern religions), New Age and Alternative Beliefs, the Occult. All of these, by the way, are classified as non-fiction.

Philosophy has about two racks of shelves. Sharing the bottom two shelves of the second rack are books on Atheism and Linguistics.

What sells? I would say Wishful Thinking. Wishful thinking is what's driving the country now.

It's little wonder that people don't have the capacity to figure out which news is fake and which is real.

I Am Not Your Negro: Go see it, and then...

I went to see the new documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on an unfinished project by James Baldwin to try to tell the story of America by recounting the lives and deaths of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and James Meredith.

I believe that most white people in the U.S. would be shocked by the film, but I was not, having already read several books of essays written by Baldwin.

I will say two things about Baldwin's essays: First, James Baldwin is one of the best and most thrilling writers in the history of America. Second, even though I grew up in the 1960s as a white person sympathetic to the struggle of blacks to be respected as human beings, before I read Baldwin, I had no idea of the true nature of the problem. I truly believe that, until you have read James Baldwin, you do not understand America.

As wonderful as I Am Not Your Negro is, a feature length film can only give you a taste of the riches contained in Baldwin's books.

Here, I will concentrate on his essays, rather than on his fiction. These are the Baldwin collections I know about.

Notes of a Native Son
The Fire Next Time
Nobody Knows My Name
No Name in the Street
The Devil Finds Work
The Evidence of Things Not Seen
The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writing

I don't think you'll regret reading these books unless you are really resistant to seeing American life clearly.