Sagan on sliding back into superstition

The prescient Carl Sagan forecast I mentioned:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

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Also, the more I think about George Orwell in  connection with Sagan's warnings about a hypothetical America devoid of critical intelligence the more I think there's a real consanguinity in their views. 1984 and Animal Farm have more than a little in common with Sagan's dystopian America of the future. Explore this and other aspects of Orwell in Maria Popova's Orwell posts...

But more affirmatively, both Sagan and Orwell offered constructive advice, on critical thinking and writing, respectively:

• Sagan's Baloney-detection Kit
• Orwell's Six Rules for Writing Clear and Tight Prose