I don't think it makes the US dumb if AS isn't a favorite book. People might just have more favorites or be favoring different books. If we're talking about education, we would have to look at a test of the ability to comprehend the themes in the book.

AS is a tricky one because most people I talk to about it claim to hate and clearly have never read it. Some people claim to love it, and either didn't read it or took away a radically different view of it.

That's because thanks to Dept of Ed most Americans are illiterate and those that know how to read would never tackle such a book because they wouldn't be able to comprehend it in the first place.

"Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States March 12 and 17, 2014 among 2,300 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online."

Weighted poll... uh, huh.