Acquired Learning Disabilities

I worry that we humans are an endangered species. It isn't only global warming or nuclear proliferation but a combination of half a dozen things that could do us in.
We were endangered once before about 70,000 years ago, when our numbers went down to a few thousand. Whether this was because of a drought or a volcanic winter isn't known. This time around our endangerment is mainly due to our own thinking patterns, prejudices and ideologies.
You could call some of these bad mental habits Acquired Learning Disabilities or ALDs. For example Soundbite Syndrome involves arguing from brief narratives seen or heard out of context. In severe cases an individual can think only in 30-second soundbites. This problem is of course induced by the broadcast media.
In Literalism or Metaphor Deafness a person assumes that any text has only one interpretation, no matter how old it is or how often translated. Some individuals with this disability are overly practical. For instance in this morning's paper a letter to the editor takes an environmental columnist to task for calling water "sneaky." She meant that you never know what water will do underground especially in the porous rock formations that characterize my region. But he said she was "emotional" and "sentimental" because after all water doesn't have a personality.
People acquire History Amnesia from being exposed to dull and sanitized history in school, and the lack of historical context in the MSM. We all know what happens when you forget history--you have to repeat a loop like a film that has missed its sprockets.
In Non-America Blindness, those of us in the United States view the other 95% of the world's people in terms of their disasters, wars, tourist attractions, and whether they resist or conform to "American values" and America's leadership.
Want to add to the list?
---Coralie