The Age of American Unreason | 
| Author: Susan Jacoby
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 598
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.6
ISBN: 0375423745
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.91
EAN: 9780375423741
ASIN: 0375423745
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 important May 2, 2008
All Americans should be required to read this book to learn why H.L. Mencken called us the "boobocracy". Non-Americans should read it too, to better understand why Americans are so confused and confusing.
The problem is not "elitism" April 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
How long should a new nation retain its "frontier" status? The United States used the condition of "filling an empty continent" to disclaim any need for intellectual advancement for over a century. During the following decades, learning may have become more widely disseminated and an "American culture" may have arisen to overturn that imported from Europe. Still, there remained the attitude that the "intellectual" was a figure of elitism.) While that picture is necessarily false - what other single nation has garnered so many Nobel awards? - "intellectuals" have not been held in high regard in the US. As Susan Jacoby reminds us, Richard Hofstadter's 1963 "Anti-intellectualism In American Life" was a breakthrough effort in pointing up how and why his countrymen viewed higher learning as they did. Jacoby has done more than merely updated Hofstadter in this excellent overview. She exposes some of the root conditions leading to her country spawning a tide of "unreason".
Distilling Jacoby's presentation to its basic element, we realise that the foundation for today's "Age of Unreason" lies in education. While that seems a paradox in a nation with so many noteworthy science, economic and other figures, the general picture confirms her analysis. It's not the education system itself that draws her ire - although she has some serious comments on that topic - but the diversionary elements either distracting the young from learning or failing to help preparing them for education. The former is something long commented on - the video screen. Whether it's games, "children's" programmes or simply "surfin' the 'Net", the video monitor leads children away from real mental challenges or sources of useful and meaningful information. Instead, children - and no few adults - are inundated with "infotainment". It boils down to "junk thought" being broadcast in one form or another and retained by those least able to resist it.
That manufactured term is almost self-explanatory in declaring why decline of the printed page is another of Jacoby's topics of concern. Reading, she argues, is falling by the wayside because images and sound-bites provide quick, simple explanations of what is deemed "reality". The brevity of presentation and the superficial forms used to convey it have led the young away from understanding the complexity of everyday issues. Jacoby lists the symptoms of the loss of reading, from shrunken book review sections in newspapers to her own experience as a journalist. Where once she was commissioned to produce lengthy, analytical pieces on a given topic, editors now put severe limits on word-count. Reading is being downplayed and readers are demanding and expecting to be less challenged and less informed about subjects. Brief, easily absorbed snippets - whether informative or not - have become the norm.
Nowhere, of course, is better placed to provide the "quick answer" than is religion. Jacoby's discussion of the role of fundamentalism [she eschews adding "Christianity" to the description] is extensive and thorough. Evangelical Christianity has experienced a rollercoaster ride through the years in the US. There have been, according to the author, three "Awakenings" of religious intensity in North America, the first prior to independence, the second in the early 19th Century and the third in the present day. Each has been typified by an aversion to a perceived dominance by an "intellectual elite". As Hofstadter had noted in his earlier book, the Awakenings have spilled over into a broader social arena than religion alone. Since religion is perceived as the very underpinnings of a stable society, any ideas or information challenging religion, established or evangelical, loss of religious intensity is viewed as tantamount to leading to social chaos. Stability, whether informed or not, is the aim. Only faith can provide consistency.
Although there are some missing elements in this book - why should religion gain such a foothold in one of the world's most literate and scientifically advanced nations, for example - this is a work deserving a wide readership. Jacoby doesn't make detailed comparisons between her native country and elsewhere, yet, she's concerned about what the decline in intellectual growth means for the future. Perhaps she considers that obvious, but the poorly informed readers she's concerned about might be better served by a nudge in that direction. Given the number of recent works on these questions, Jacoby is hardly alone in her analysis of the intellectual condition of the US. In terms of communicating the issues, her writing skills place her at a more accessible level than some of her colleagues. In any case, the issues are clear and her approach unequivocal. This book is, therefore, essential reading. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
 Smart, but tainted by partisanship April 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am glad that I read this book. It deals with critical topics and social issues. Central to the discussion is a distinction between "anti-intellectual" and "anti-rational." For example, there are highly intellectual people who are anti-rational in their social and/or political thinking. In sum, lots to chew on here, and very relevant to our country in this era.
Why only three stars? At times the author is over-confident and/or too outspoken. Her partisanship can undermine what might otherwise be a valuable discussion. For example, in dismissing the proponents of separate sex education she resorts to name-calling and innuendo, using "separate but equal" - terminology that is historically loaded and judicially rejected - to simply dismiss another point of view, rather than give the other side any benefit of scientific doubt. On this topic the author perhaps reveals a lack of understanding of science or at least the specific scientific topic involved.
 Some Good Points But Obnoxiously Smarmy Tone Overshadows Them April 27, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
Ms. Jacoby has some valid points to make, especially when it comes to the media, pop culture, and government-run schools. Unfortunately, her obnoxiously arrogant rants against religion made it very difficult to for me to get through her book. Her tone is what some like to call "snarky" but that usually comes across as mean-spirited hostility. Think Michael Moore on the left or Ann Coulter on the right. This type of arrogant insulting of those with whom the author disagrees often completely overshadow the legitimate merits of his or her argument. Incivility has the tendency to "turn off" anyone who does not already 100% agree with him or her.
Ms. Jacoby describes religious believers as "willfully ignorant", the Bible as "supernatural fantasy", a belief in anything other than atheistic Darwinian evolution as a "cockamamie idea", and calls faith a "toxic" force that is one of the chief "enemies of intellect, learning, and reason". She approvingly quotes PBS journalist and noted liberal Bill Moyers, who calls Christians "ideologues [who] hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality." And that's just in the first chapter of the book!
It's really too bad that Ms. Jacoby has let her personal grudge against religion (and Christianity in particular) bias her writing because portions of "The Age of American Unreason" are excellent.
 Age of Unreason April 22, 2008
4 out of 25 found this review helpful
The subject is an excellent one, unfortunately the author makes a mess of it with poor reasoning, questionable facts, little documantation with the grand finale turning into a political rant. My advice, don't waste your time.
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