Few things in America embarrass me more than Snooki and Kim Kardashian. Since I think we can agree that Kardashian is at least a clever devil, a capitalist even, then that leaves just Snooki.

She’s not even clever.

And I’ve never even watched her show, “Jersey Shore.”

Recently she sat down with GQ to show what and how she thinks (I know…I just used that word in reference to Snooki), and I almost felt dumber for reading just an excerpt of the interview.

From Matt, at Warming Glow:

Ahhhh, nothing makes me feel like intellectual pursuits are a complete waste quite like Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi speaking straight from the heart. This time, the New York Times bestselling author sat down with GQ and shared her views about reading, politics, how she’d change “Jersey Shore,” and absolutely nothing that will make you feel good about the state of the nation.

Yep. The state of the nation. I can empathize with that. Especially when other writers are questioning what Kim Kardashian’s business transaction, er, I mean, wedding and subsequent divorce, mean for the institution of marriage. Wrote Reem Nasr for Policy Mic:

Pop culture’s obsession with weddings is clear. The attention and emphasis is on how to throw the most fabulous wedding and less on how to make a marriage last a lifetime. The shift is moving from a focus on marriage to one on weddings. So while we are less interested in the mechanics of sustaining a long-term relationship with someone else, we are blindsighted by the chance to plan an extravagant event that everyone can remember even if the marriage does not last. It is interesting to see that the wedding industry is booming as more and more marriages are breaking. The Pew survey tells us that marriage is less important to young people today, but American culture is still fascinated by a lavish wedding.

Kardashian may have missed the mark this time around, but we can be sure to expect another wedding spectacular in her near future.

Well, said, Reem…but back to Snooki and the tidbits of wisdom she imparts to Mark Green at GQ.

GQ: So, I’ve got to ask: You’ve really never heard of J.K. Rowling or Maya Angelou?
Snooki: I don’t read. I don’t like to read Harry Potter or anything like that. It’s not my style.

GQ: But you’re a New York Times best-selling author!
Snooki: Yeah, doesn’t mean I have to read.

GQ: Fair point. What is your favorite book?
Snooki:Dear John. I read that in a day because it was so amazing. And then I ended up seeing the movie and it was really good. We were supposed to read in high school but I never did because I just used the CliffsNotes, books were too long.

What? No shout out for Twilight?! But wait! There’s more!

GQ: What do you think people’s perception is of you guys?
Snooki: They just think that we’re stupid, that we have no education, and all we do is drink, have sex.

GQ: Do you want to change that?
Snooki: Oh, I would love to. I have an education, I went to college, you know?

Obviously we did not know, and obviously whatever college that was no longer claims you as their student.

But wow. Just wow.

I can’t help but recall a few lines from Harold Bloom’s “Closing of the American Mind” on the decline of intellectualism in America. Sex is not the end of man’s nature, though Snooki may act it and Kardashian may use it in her transactions. Indeed, it is only the beginning, and their use of sex not only trivializes it in our society and culture, but diminishes its role and how it separates us from animals. Writes Bloom:

In all species other than man, when an animal reaches puberty, it is all that it will ever be. This stage is the clear end toward which all of its growth and learning is directed. The animal’s activity is reproduction. It lives on this plateau until it starts downhill. Only in man is puberty just the beginning. The greater and more interesting part of his learning, moral and intellectual, comes afterward, and in civilized man is incorporated into his erotic desire. His taste and hence his choices are determined during this “sentimental education.” It is as though his learning were for the sake of his sexuality. Reciprocally, though, much of the energy for that learning obviously comes from his sexuality. Nobody takes human children who have reached puberty to be adults. We properly sense that there is a long road to adulthood, the condition in which they are able to govern themselves and be true mothers and fathers. This road is the serious part of education, where animal sexuality becomes human sexuality, where instinct gives way in man to choice with regard to the true, the good, and the beautiful. Puberty does not provide man, as it does other animals, with all that he needs to leave behind others of his kind. This means that the animal part of his sexuality is intertwined in the most complex way with the higher reaches of his soul, which must inform the desires with its insight . . .

Or sex and the sexual can be just one more means to an end: entertainment or closing of a business transaction.

Do America a favor: turn-off Snooki and turn off the Kardashians. We don’t all need to be the intellectual equivalent of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but a step higher than the “cliff-notes only” attitudes of Snooki and her coterie might not hurt. Indeed, it may be just one more thing that stops America’s competitive slide in the world.

[Warming Glow][GQ]