Excellent question. Seems "Squirrel!" is the answer. Any shiny thing that helps them not to think is pursued instead of the important stuff.

Infantilism, focusing kids on perceived social injustices over anything else, getting people attached to instant gratification when they're young so they don't understand the concept of how to build anything (such as knowledge or skills) over time, instead expecting themselves and others to instead perform at the highest level instantly.

There are a lot of reasons. Imagine if instead of teaching kids "retard is as bad as a racial slur!" and that "2+2 doesn't always equal 4!" because we are too scared people will get offended, we actually taught them the hard facts and spurred them forward even though it can get hard!

When I was growing up through the 2000s, do you know how many times I heard the phrase "grammar Nazi" from people who were corrected from overtly terrible spelling or grammar? A lot.

Even as a kid and then young man, I knew that was going to continue to present with lowered intelligence and education levels, because peers were treating "grammar Nazis" poorly and laughing alongside the ones who couldn't take even the mildest criticism.

Now those people have children.

Because

1. they’re being poisoned, medicinally, nutritionally, and environmentally
2. they’re being raised in single parent or split parenting household(s)
3. we imported millions of people who have been generationally malnutritioned and poorly educated
4. lots of them have probably been traumatized one way or another on top of that
5. even without all of the above, half of people are, by definition, on the bottom half of the intelligence curve, and 1-4 are lowering the curve