The Age of American Unreason
by Susan Jacoby
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Book Summary Information
Author: Susan JacobyEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-12
ISBN: 0375423745
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of The Age of American Unreason
Book Review: disturbing and thought provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
I was listening to the Sibelius Symphony N. 2 on my iPod today and thinking about this book. In the fourth movement, a lovely theme emerges from a swirl of background sound, rising to an inspiring climax. The instrumentation constantly changes: first the strings have the theme, then the woodwinds, then the brass. The background shifts, becoming more complicated, more agitated. The emotional effect on the listener can be shattering.
Why do I bring this up? It's because listening to this kind of music, and even more playing it, has become a dying art. Instead, we have mindless raps, white noise, offensive lyrics, horrible junk that has hijacked the term "music.' (for more on me and my book The Nazi Hunter: A Novel, go to www.alanelsner.com)
In this important book, Jacoby examines why Americans are becoming more and more ignorant, distrustful of science, of intellectuals, of knowledge itself. She reserves special scorn for religious fundamentalism with its easy reliance of unprovable and disproved notions -- but she does not argue exclusively from a liberal perspective. She also has plenty of criticism for outlandish educational theories and nutty university faculties.
Jacoby traces the history, which goes back to the earliest days of America, of distrust of science, fervent and unreasonable religious fundamentalism and hostility to learning in general and intellectuals. President George W. Bush stands at the apex of this horrible trend -- it produced him and he upholds it. "America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism," she argues.
The result: "A lazy and credulous public increasingly unwilling or unable to distinguish between fact and fiction."
Americans don't read much and are reading less and less. We devotees of Amazon.com are the minority. American kids more and more are addicted to the Internet. They grow up watching a flickering screen instead of reading books. This discourages them from thinking or fantasizing outside the box.
In no area has this been more damaging than in America's refusal to admit to the facts of global warming or to do anything about it. This week, the Senate finally began discussing legislation to begin tackling the problem. Naturally, the Bush White House said it would veto it.
As the New York Times said today, "The Bush administration has worked overtime to manipulate or conceal scientific evidence ... to justify its failure to address climate change."
It says an internal investigation by NASA's inspector general concluded that political appointees in the agency's public affairs office had tried to restrict reporters' access to its leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen. He has warned about climate change for 20 years and has openly criticized the administration's refusal to tackle the issue head-on.
Interestingly, the papers are also reporting today that General Motors wants to get rid of its Hummer division.
"I think G.M. is basically declaring the S.U.V. dead," said John Casesa, managing partner of the auto consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group in New York. "The trend away from these vehicles is irreversible."
Thank God sanity is finally reasserting itself but it is so late. We have lost eight valuable years.
Americans like Bush overwhelmingly still believe in the "literal truth" of the Bible, which most have never read. They believe in the Genesis account of creation, doubt the 'Big Bang' theory to the extent they have heard about it and still do not accept the theory of evolution.
The very word "intellectual" has become a pejorative shorthand for "leftwing extremist."
We have opted for a culture of easy, immediate gratification. In politics, voters want their immediate needs met and don't care about the long term. They don't understand complicated arguments and concepts -- they don't want to and they can't because they lack the ability to read and think and discuss concepts that can't be summed up in one bumper sticker.
This is a deeply disturbing and pessimistic book. It's a must read - for those of us who still can.
Summary of The Age of American Unreason
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public.Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment--from television to the Web--and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.
At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.
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