What's So Great about America by Dinesh D'Souza
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.26 You Save: $10.74 (72%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of What's So Great about America
Book Review: The Foriegn Feeling of Feeling Good
Summary: 5 Stars
The book clearly begins with an effort to draw a polarized view of the Islamic and Western divide. Beginning with assimilating Precleses and Greece to today's West and then drawing contrast with an Islamic faith that advocates a conquest of anything not Islamic. For the West to ignore the views of Islamic doctrine D'Souza claims to be a mistake. In as much as we lament the idea of a church run State, Islam is diametrically opposite with sound church influenced state in their beliefs.
D'Souza suggests that agreeing to disagree with Muslims is a form of liberalism that we must put in check. It is liberalism itself that is at dispute. It becomes an obstacle when demonstrating that our society is a moral improvement upon theirs.
In D'Souza's attempt to patronize America and at the same time qualify him to write the book, an interesting note can be taken. As an immigrant from India, D'Souza recognizes while that it is possible for he an Indian to become an American in America; it is not at all possible to do the same in India, or any other country. He suggest that this is one of the many reasons explored in the book that enables A Christian, Jew, Muslim to work side by side in life and give no thought to the ethnic "bad blood" in their history. Becoming an American is less about your place of birth but about embracing ideas. The evil that lurks within is the academic left who preach multiculturalism as the anecdote to patriotism. They preach that forcing Western ways on other countries is bad. Yet for example when the British left India in 1947, India chose to keep many of the British practices. I learned in reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, that this adoption on technology has been a primary part of the evolution of man since Adam and Eve. How's that for a drawing from the best of theology and evolution? While multiculturalism is teaching the traditional religions and customs of far away countries in our educational institutions as current practice, those practices are actually fading away in those countries. When I contrast this with books I recently read, with pictures of Yannomami Indians of the Brazilian Rain Forest wearing T-shirts and Levi cutoff shorts, I believe D'Souza. Sure there may be a place for the past, but evolution and improvement in a standard of living is what humans do.
In meeting the challenge of multiculturalism, D'Souza brings up the question of ethnocentricity. He demonstrates that indeed this is not the sole domain of the West. Ethnocentricity is an aspect of all civilizations and in fact the more primitive the technology and life style the more prominent the observed degree of ethnocentricity. In contrast the West has carried forward in the center of it's thinking the practice of the Greeks. Whereby we continuously question our identification of what is good. We are willing to look at other cultures for the answer. I can't help but recall in every book I have read on Islam that proclaims everything there is to know is already written in the bible. In fact in Iran science is shackled by it's limitation in terms, words not founded in the Koran.
Science, Democracy, and Capitalism are the three staples that set the West aside from the rest of the world. Now add progress. This is a Christian idea, meaning the fulfillment of a plan. In the West Human Beings build on the accomplishments and discoveries of others. With this idea, people in America have realized a society where the common man sees himself as equal to a CEO in terms of freedom to choose his destiny. In America money is not an end but a means to a longer, healthier and fuller life. Money enables immigrants to pursue a life with dignity, security and comfort that they would not have realized in their homeland. The American allows a person to choose his destiny and work towards achieving his dreams. D'Souza illustrates this by describing the conversation between the parent and child where the questions is asked; "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The phrase that captures the answer is the pursuit of happiness.
By mid book it is clear that D'Souza is staunchly opposed to the activist views of multiculturalism. While there is a sentiment within the academic left who impose their ideals on naive students; the majority of this movement comes form African-Americans. What I find so amusing in the arguments he uses you realize the rhetoric in one side or the other. Ones beliefs or desire places him to see one interpretation of history as rhetoric and the other side of the same story as fact. Take the example from the chapter on The Reparations Fallacy where Fredrick Douglas sites the Congressional view of blacks ....please use a keyword search ....cigarroomofbooks.blog.... to gain more of my insights and to share yours.
Book Review: A thorough refutation of leftist propaganda
Summary: 5 Stars
In this day and age, there are people who were born in America, who derisively refuse to be classified as Americans.
There are some people now living in America, who were born abroad, but became citizens of the U.S., and are more American than some people who were actually born here.
Mr. Dsouza is one of those foriegn-born Americans.
He logically summarizes precisely WHY America is unique, and what positive influences America, and the West, have to offer. This is not just a defense of the United States, but the West in general.
Sure, America has had some ugliness in its history. Name one nation that has a perfectly benign history. What nation has ever been a "perfect" society from day one?
In fact, vast areas of the world exhibit on-going cultural injustices and conflicts that have not been resolved after a milennia.
Consider this:
America is a very young nation, with only two centuries and a few decades of actual history. Most of the other nations of the world have at least a thousand years of history, or much more. In the short time that America has existed, you can not ignore the vast and rapid progress that has been achieved. America, and the other Western nations, are a work in progress.
We have confronted our flaws, and continue to do so.
Among the oldest continuing cultures, an individual was/is strongly discouraged, if not blatantly prohibited, from advancing beyond the so-called "social-class" into which he/she is born.
In America (and the West), YOU largely determine your own progress and success in life. You are limited only by your own drive, ambition, and luck.
Among the various issues that D'Souza addresses in this book:
-Slavery:
America, and other Western nations did in fact practice slavery, ...but the America and the Western nations are significant in their achievement of ABOLISHING slavery.
-Colonialism:
Yes, many Western nations established colonies for the commercial exploitation of foriegn lands. However, the West GAVE UP its empires. In time, the West evolved in its beliefs to percieve that colonialism was immoral. Colonialism was humiliating for the subjugated cultures. However, under Western influence, many of these former colonies have adopted institutions that resulted in rapid and positive advancement in the world.
-For example: D'Souza's own culture of origin, India, was a Medieval society, stagnantly entrenched in its "caste" system, before the era of British colonialism. Look at India now: An up and coming economic power, a nation that produces a large number of scientists, engineers, and technologists.
- Slavery Reparations:
Precisely WHY this is a ridiculous concept, and why the descendants of slaves in America are much better-off than the descendants of Africans who remained in Africa. The LAST people born into slavery in North America, were born before April of 1865. The Confederacy surrendered, and all slaves were finally free. Well, THERE IS NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ALIVE TODAY!
But "reparations" advocates think "whitey" had better pay up anyway. Everyone? MY ANCESOTORS HELPED LIBERATE THE SLAVES! When someone is desperately trying to convince you that an ethnicity or race is "collectively guilty" for alledged "evils" commited by that groups ANCESTORS, ...you understand how PROFOUNDLY RACIST the accuser actually is. In 1933, Germany received a new Reichskanzler, who convinced a significant number of people that the Jewish minority was "collectively guilty" for the evils that the German people were subjected to after World War I.
-Conflict with the islamic world:
Why does the islamic world so savagely HATE the West, ESPECIALLY AMERICA?
A thousand years ago, muslims had established the first universities in Europe, ...while much of what would become Europe was struggling to establish actual nations out of its various barbarian tribes, in the aftermath of the collapse of Rome.
Consider how far the West has come in that time. Consider how far the West has come in just half that time. Consider how far America has come in less than a quarter of that time.
...What has the Middle-east produced or achieved since then?
Book Review: America, seen through the eyes of a conservative immigrant
Summary: 5 Stars
What is so great about America? Our land? Our wealth? Our system of government? Our people?
All of the above?
I think it is striking that all over the world, so many talented people want to join our American adventure. We're a nation dominated by immigrants, relatives of immigrants, and friends of immigrants. And I was very interested in what a talented immigrant would say about the nation he's joined. D'Souza is, of course, a politically conservative immigrant.
The book begins with a discussion of the destruction of the World Trade Center. The author points out that the terrorists were fanatics but not cowards (they did die to do all that damage). And that these fanatics do not like America, they do not like the American way of life, and they are willing to die to destroy our nation and to deprive us of our rights.
D'Souza explains that antagonism for America can be summarized as European complaints about our arrogance, Asian complaints about our lack of culture, and Muslim complaints that the whole idea of America is a subversive threat to Islam. And indeed, he says, the existence of the term "unamerican" (given that no one uses terms such as "ungerman" or "unpakistani") tends to confirm this.
There is a chapter on colonialism. The author makes four points about Western colonialism: the West did not invent colonialism, its colonialism was not the cause but the result of its wealth and power, colonialism eventually (if unintentionally) increased the wealth of the colonized lands, and colonialism (again unintentionally) introduced the language of freedom and human rights to colonized areas.
D'Souza also explains that America is unusual in that birth does not determine destiny. Anyone can pick virtually any profession to try to excel at. Couples who wish to marry can do so in spite of their status at birth. Of course, a downside for many immigrants is that their children become assimilated. Actually, I think assimilation is a plus, though (I'm a liberal, you see).
The next issue the author takes on is racism in America. There is a discussion of the history of slavery in the United States and its repudiation after the Civil War. And there is the question of affirmative action. The author believes that test score differences between, say, "Asian-Americans" and "African-Americans" are genuine, but that they have temporary and cultural causes that can be readily overcome, not genetic causes.
Now, what about American foreign policy? D'Souza does address the fact that we have often supported dictators of various sorts, including Somoza in Nicaragua and Stalin during World War Two. And we're sometimes wrong, even tactically, to do so. But he points out that we do much more good than bad overall.
Is the conflict between American society and militant Islamism a battle between two equally counterproductive ideas? Not according to the author. At the end of the book, he reminds us that our society produces folks who are "confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, and future-oriented." That compares favorably with being "wretched, servile, fatalistic, and intolerant." And the latter is what militant Islamism is producing.
This is an interesting book, and I recommend it.
Book Review: virtue vs. freedom
Summary: 5 Stars
I just bought this book and devoured it in an afternoon. I am grateful d'Souza wrote it, and didn't find myself taking issue with any major points in it. This is one of those books everybody and their brother reviews, so I don't want to write a general review, but I find myself now musing at length on one specific point in the book that I wish to address. After finishing d'Souza's book, I read Nils Christie's "Crime Control as Industry", and I find myself in light of this comparison considering the question d'Souza resolves so neatly toward the end about virtue and freedom.
Basically he states -- and I agree -- that virtue which is not freely chosen is no virtue. Therefore we don't need to feel so awful about the vulgarity in our society, because there is a great deal of freely chosen virtue, which therefore is genuine virtue. He is concerned that we are frequently unable to act, because we are so self-critical, and we can't do anything unless we're convinced it's just. So he gives us a valid reason to cut ourselves some moral slack, because he feels we need to be able to act in the current political climate. And there is validity to this. What concerns Christie is that whereas in most European countries there are around 100 prisoners per 100,000, in the US, there are about 700 prisoners per 100,000.
So how about this? As a nation, we freely do and express all this crazy stuff, but we also lock people up in very large numbers for doing crazy stuff, notably drugs. The high incarceration reflects an intolerance for crazy stuff. Christie discusses the relationship between individualism and incarceration. I was married to an Eastern European, and I felt incarcerated by the family. In a society with a clan mentality, there is a check on conduct which is not present in individualistic societies, and I hate it. But it seems to me possible that although the complaint laid at our door is formulated as vulgarity and lack of virtue, what really concerns both the fundamentalists in Iran and those in the Bible Belt is not some abstract need for virtue. Perhaps this concern about virtue is subconsciously expressing a deeper and more legitimate fear, that the personal constraints imposed on conduct by a clan mentality will eventually have to be replaced by the impersonal constraints imposed by the gulag. Perhaps the fear is not about virtue, although that's how it has traditionally been expressed, but about the potential collapse of a society in which the constraints imposed by the family and a local community are eroding. In my generation, it's much easier to get divorced than in my parents', because the social stigma is removed. Traditional churches are collapsing. The car allows you to simply leave an uncomfortable situation, for better and for worse. D'Souza jokes that he'll let his daughter date freely -- when she's about 30. Ha. Ha. But what parent doesn't know what he's talking about?
Book Review: Natural Law versus Rousseau
Summary: 5 Stars
First, it must be stated that Dinesh D'Souza is the best conservative author on the planet in terms of persuasive discussion. I like the mud-slinging of the likes of Ann Coulter as much as the next conservative (so delicious is it!), but there are polemic mud-slingers on the other side of the argument, too, who delight all those with an appetite to tear down traditional America; such "argument" is not likely to persuade one convert: it is just preaching to the choir.
Dinesh D'Souza, however, gives the liberal arguments fair treatment, with historical explanation, and acknowledges both the virtues and vices of those positions. Then he systematically proceeds to demonstrate why the conservative viewpoint is superior. If you could actually get a liberal to read this book with an inquiring mind (no small task!), there is a good chance that his/her political viewpoint will be changed -- if not reversed.
To me, the most illuminating revelation of this book (which I believe he also alludes to in his book, "Letters to a Young Conservative") is the guiding principle behind all liberal arguments that conflicts with the guiding principle behind all conservative arguments. Until you understand these underlying philosophies, you can not really hear what the other side is saying -- even if you are listening to them. D'Souza's argument is that Conservatives base their world-view on the Judeo-Christian ethic (no surprise there), or, if you prefer, the "Natural Law" view clearly relied upon by our Founding Fathers. According to this view, there is such a thing as "truth" and "morality" and a right form of governance among men -- to which we must all aspire. The modern-day liberal view was formed in the 1960s and was taken from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's incitement that "truth" is relative to each person -- that we only need to be true to our inner selves. For this reason, liberals can have "rights" without responsibilities (as in, "don't try to impose your morality on me"). While conservatives generally propose that abortion, homosexuality, adultery, etc. are "wrong," liberals truly believe that those things cannot be wrong if the person is being true to his/her inner self. Likewise, while conservatives -- in line with our Founders -- view capitalistic democracy as the highest form of government, liberals truly believe that the dictatorial imposition on a country of communism, fascism, socialism, etc. is just as good as a government which has the "consent of the governed."
I highly recommend this book. I intend to purchase every D'Souza book published.
Two Cheers for Imperialism!!