Could not disagree more, for much of human history only the rich and their offspring typically had access to higher education and crucially learning materials, books where horrendously expensive for example for all but the most wealthy.

We live in a golden age for autodidacts, that people often seem intellectually incurious says less about the society and more the people who constitute it, many people are simply incurious - it’s not a bad thing, it is their life and they are free to live it how they want, it doesn’t hurt me that people binge watch the Kardashians.

And the idea that society has somehow gotten worse and prior generations where not like this is crazier still.. we are only a couple of centuries out from executing spinsters for witchcraft and believing in curses.