Customer Reviews

Age of American Unreason

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Jacoby is at her best when she reasons close to the facts, documents her claims, and builds logical sequences from those facts. She is at her worst when she engages in speculative, broad brush generalizations that seem to be presonalized impressions.

Her book has the texture of being written from two mindsets, one more objective and untimately far more informative, and the other, more subjective and tendentious without the assurance that those impressions are carefully grounded in evidence.

Because of this dual natured, dual flavored style some reviewers have accurately sensed the weak side of Jacoby's thought processes and taken umbrage. Which isn't entirely unfair, only incomplete and one sided criticism.

Where Jacoby shines, and when she shines she shines brightly, is the spot on deconstruction of the "belief path" that America has taken over the last three decades from the Reagan Revolution, some would say the seeds were planted in the Nixon administration (this with Nixon's calculation that the religion card could be played for maximum political advantage) until the NeoConservative debacle of the present.

Jacoby makes a strong case that Americans are not inherently stupid, anti-rational, or ahistorical clamoring rubes (although a superficial reading of her book could leave one with that emotive sense of her thrust), rather that the American media, American educational structure, and the introduction of disruptive technologies have colluded to produce an atmosphere so sterile and lacking of nutrition that Americans are growing up as stunted, incomplete, intellectually damaged citizens dangerously unprepared for the global tasks we will soon face.

This is a most terrible actuality to see as it truly is. The average, average mind you means that a good percentage are above this number, watch seven hours of television in a 24 hour period, what's worse is that the average American now watches indiscriminately, using television as an escapist drug, not as a source of information. Her evidence (which I badly wish she had closely documented and footnoted) is that today the viewer will watch 7 hours of television regardless of what is being broadcast. In other words, the viewer doens't care what is on, only that there is something marginally viewable. One must wonder, when does vegatation become outright addiction of the same power as opiate addictions ?

This stuporous, bovine, cud chewing, glazed over, hypnotic fog appears to be matched with a near contempt for science, rigorous logic, reasoned philosophy, or even the conversational reference to any of the above. When a high percentage of science teachers are unaware that large reptiles ceased to inhabit the Earth and mammals began their ascent at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, thus humans and dinosaurs could not possibly have lived at the same time, if you can imagine, and assuming her statistic is accurate, that 25% of high school biology teachers actually believe in Human-Dinosaur cohabitation.... the only thing one can conclude is that our educational system is so broken it would take another massive meteor impact to change anything, as the phase goes, "Houston, we have a problem"...

Yes, we do... a serious dysfunction that goes all the way to the core of our society...

Regardless of its imperfections, Jacoby has written an essential book for taking stock of this social-political-educational moment in American history, and we would be fools not to begin asking hard questions as to who and what we have allowed ourselves to become as a people.

Susan Jacoby's beautifully written and convincingly argued book should be sine qua non reading for ALL parents, as well anyone who has anything to do with education. She clears away any doubts one might entertain about the benefits of even the most "educational" videos for young children, backing up her points with evidence from reliable sources. According to a recent study carried out by the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, overexposure to videos like "Brainy Baby" may actually be impeding language development in babies.
The book's acute analysis of political "communication" and media punditry should also be required reading for anyone who aspires to make an informed and wise choice in the crucial political battle currently being fought for the future of our nation. Her observations are all the more interesting in light of the current attack on "eloquence" in political speech--with its specious implication that one cannot be eloquent and effective simultaneously.
There are purely intellectual pleasures as well to be had from Jacoby's wonderfully ambitious reach into American history. I particularly enjoyed her investigation of the idea that, from the very beginning, our democratic culture rested on a contradiction: [Jacoby, 37] "The health of democracy, as so many of the founders had proclaimed, depended on an educated citizenry, but many Americans also believed that too much learning might set one citizen above another and violate the very democratic ideals that education was supposed to foster."
I particularly recommend the downloadable vodcast of Jacoby's interview with Bill Moyers [Feb. 15th] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html . Given the very substantial interest the book has already sparked, there may be some hope for us yet.

This is a book I should have liked. I picked it up enthusiastically when I read the jacket flaps, as it seemed to make an argument that I often find myself making -- more and more people decide matters on the basis of their preconceived biases with little regard for the facts. People don't like being troubled by facts when guesses, hunches, gossip, and drivel are so much easier and more amusing to digest.

As a college professor, I guess I qualify as an intellectual, although that word seems to have multiple surplus meanings, only some of which I consider an accurate reflection of who I am. But without question, I'm an advocate of evidence as a basis of reaching conclusions. I teach research methods to doctoral level students and write papers for scientific journals. I serve on editorial boards and have been a peer reviewer for public and private (nonprofit) research agencies. I take matters of evidence seriously.

So, why did I end up being disappointed in a book that seemingly advocates for the values I hold in such high esteem? Before answering that directly, let me say that there were parts of this book I did find informative and engaging. For example the discussion of how reason guided many of America's founders' view of the world, was handled skillfully (although I might not catch minor glitches because this isn't an area in which I have anything beyond a general level of knowledge). What disappointed me, however, was an apparent disregard for the role of evidence as the basis for other conclusions the author seems more than willing to treat as factual.

This may be best illustrated by a quote from p. 250, which closes a section discussing the impact of video media on young children: "Is more research required to tell us what is already known from medical studies of drugs and from millennia of educational effort -- that the impact of any substance or exposure, good or bad, is magnified by the length of exposure and that the effect is strongest on immature and therefore more malleable organisms?" So, here we have a book decrying unreason arguing that we shouldn't do research into a topic because received knowledge has taught us all we need to know about the matter. I consider the nature of inquiry to be ongoing, with further refinements in our understanding of various phenomena arising from continued scrutiny and questioning of prevailing beliefs. Jacoby's stance reflected in the quote is as fundamentally anti-intellectual as some of the ideas the author criticizes. First of all, video (of which I'm no particular fan, especially for the very young) is not a drug. Nor is medical research the most relevant, as we are considering behavioral and educational outcomes rather than health status per se in the discussion preceding the quoted statement. Millennia of educational effort, to use her term, have not helped us to perfect the process of education. Why should it be treated as having a higher yield in this particular instance? Her statement is an argument, not evidence. Also, it is factually incorrect to state that the impact of any substance or exposure is amplified by duration (although that will sometimes be the case). (Someone with a true respect for reason and the role of evidence as a basis for conclusions would shy away from the word "any" in a context such as this.) Furthermore, there are well documented (as well as intuitively obvious) counterexamples involving processes of habituation and adaptation, in which sensitivity to a stimulus is dialed down, not up, as a result of prolonged exposure. Our attention is channeled away from stimuli that are prolonged and relatively invariant. One summer, I worked next to an amusement park shooting gallery. I cringed and blinked with every shot fired for the first day or so. Then, I blinked but didn't cringe. Then I didn't blink. I'd habituated to the sound of a rifle being fired. The specifics aren't as important as the tone of the quoted statement. Nor is this particular dismissal of fact as a basis for conclusions the only instance in the book. (Nor, in fairness, is every conclusion unsupported.) But how can a claim such as this lodge itself in a treatise that targets unreason and denounces claims that lack a factual basis?

My sense was (and this is opinion on my part) that Jacoby is less comfortable with notions of evidence than with reason. Stated differently, her intellectual approach strikes me as more attuned to the humanities than the sciences or mathematics. Both reason and evidence are imperfect tools, of course. But there are differences. When the two clash, a scientist is inclined to be swayed by evidence, at least until better evidence comes along. In scholarly fields that have relied more heavily on reason than empirical evidence, this may be less true and I say that not as a criticism but merely an observation. When there is no definitive evidence, reason is likely to be an attractive and powerful alternative. While Jacoby praises the sciences as a means to establishing facts, she seems not to take a scientific approach to truth-seeking in some cases (like the one discussed above). Jacoby seems most comfortable in the intellectual milieu of the humanities, to oversimplify, perhaps.

Reason is good and we don't see enough of it. There, she and I would agree. But I hold evidence -- despite its sometimes transient nature -- as a higher approximation to truth. Of course, the two together are better than either alone. But Jacoby's casual attitude toward evidence really undermined her arguments for me. Had she taken the same stance and presented her ideas as opinion, with the benefit of supporting evidence where appropriate, I would have found little with which to quibble. But, in the context of asserting the intellectual laxity of Americans, her assertions, when not supported -- and occasionally contradicted -- by facts, really put me off.

To end on a positive note, one implicit goal of this book is to stimulate thought and discussion. It has succeeded. I'd rather read a book with which I disagree in part than one that fails to stimulate my thinking at all. This book did make me think, even if those thoughts were critical at times.

"The Age of American Unreason" combines author Susan Jacoby's elegant historical analysis with ample references to modern American culture in making an excellent, often persuasive, case in explaining how and why American culture is literally at its nadir now. And yet, her fine book doesn't have the polemical logic and focus found in two other books published this year, Kenneth R. Miller's "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul", and Robert S. McElvaine's "Grand Theft Jesus". I strongly suspect that this may be due to the vast scope of Jacoby's book, which covers everything from the rise of scientific illiteracy and the advent of pseudoscientific nonsense like Intelligent Design and other flavors of creationism, to the political alliance between Fundamentalist Protestant Christian zealots and the conservative wing of the Republican Party. It may also be due, alas, to Jacoby's penchant for relying upon anecdotal memories of her youthful past in the 1960s, which, when compared and contrasted with her elegant historical analyses of American culture in the mid and late 19th Century, doesn't seem as persuasive.

Jacoby mourns the passing of a "middlebrow" culture which manifested itself in the forms of popular lectures on science attended by hundreds in the late 19th Century, to the publication of Will Durant's "The Story of Civilization", and the airing of classical music broadcasts by major radio and television networks. Instead, it has been replaced by a "lowbrow" culture noted for its corrosive effects on American culture. This includes not only the advent of rap music, but perhaps, more importantly, the de facto "segregation" of American studies into ethnic and gender studies which promote, not discourage, exclusion in American college and university classrooms. A "lowbrow" culture that has also embraced junk thought, ranging from, of course, the popularity of so-called "scientific" creationism, especially Intelligent Design, to those who have been advocating against mandatory immunization of children for measles. A "lowbrow" culture that is more widely disseminated than before, due to the rapid rise of the Internet, which Jacoby, not surprisingly, is quite critical of.

So, the reader may ask, what should be done to stem the rising tide of ignorance? In an all too brief closing chapter, Jacoby argues on behalf of "cultural conservation". Cultural conservation will succeed only if Americans turn away from a "culture of distraction" and embrace instead, concepts and facts that are firmly rooted in reality (For Jacoby one recent notable example of this is Judge John Jones' ruling at the conclusion of the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District Trial, in which he noted explicitly how and why his decision critical of both the school district and Intelligent Design creationism was based upon expert testimony from scientists like Brown University cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller and University of California, Berkeley paleobiologist Kevin Padian, among others.). And yet, Jacoby notes, her plea for "cultural conservation" may be too late, simply because the United States has become so firmly entrenched in a "culture of distraction" that is noted more for its obsessive worship of celebrities than for trying to adhere at all to any semblance of rational thought. Jacoby's massive tome is bound to provoke liberals, as well as conservatives, for its dire analysis of the present state of American culture; whether it will be as persuasive as other, earlier works like Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life", remains to be seen.

Although initially skeptical of the author's broad claims about anti-intellectualism and her numerous assertions, she won me over by the end of the book. How refreshing for someone to argue *for* intellectualism and reason, and to do so persuasively.

Ms. Jacoby tells us there are historical roots to anti-intellectualism, and points to the markers in history. She then moves to the present state where the landscape is rather bleak.

One reader suggests the book is thinly annotated and could be shorter. But her theme is broad and it's one that is perhaps difficult to show by empirical evidence. I read it more like a historical book, where the sources are generally more bibliographical in nature and one must rely in part on the soundness of the arguments presented. To this natural skeptic, her arguments stood up well. Readers are bound to find some claims, or maybe many, they disagree with. At the least, the author stimulates a great deal of thought. Those looking to weigh and measure the book on the conservative/liberal divide (as some apparently have), have probably missed the point of the book.

This was, by far, one of the best works of non-fiction I have read in my lifetime. I have a hard time even beginning to describe all of the reasons I found this book so appealing. On the most basic level, it was very well written and researched. Simple things, such as the eloquent language of the author added to the work... and dare I say, for a person who feels well versed, I had to look up several words in the book. A fact which I loved because I was truly learning something from the author, a point I am sure she would appreciate. And the learning did not stop with the vocabulary.

The history lessons she taught, many garnered from first hand accounts, went deep into a world hidden from normal minds. The term `intellectual' has received such disdain from the masses over the last century, that I have heard nothing about the true origins besides the negatives. On the other side, I also picked up insight on how many people found themselves believing much of the information spread. This book really allowed me to look at both sides from each point of view.

As I followed the history, I slowly grasped the flow of society which led us to our current predicaments. As a person of only 31, I have been living through the gradual `dumbing down' of America since my birth. I lived with the hostility of having common sense at a young age. I have worked in offices that were no better then a sports bar when it came to conversation. I have seen the open hostility on the internet as `flame wars' erupt from both sides of an issue and I have wondered how my fellow humans could be making so many poor choices.

In a sense, I have been isolated by the world. While this book allowed me to understand the how's and why's of a world going wrong, it did more then merely point out these flaws. It made me aware that these attacks against those seeking truth have been going on for as long as our country has been a nation (and probably since the dawn of mankind). I'm comforted in the knowledge that I am not alone in this mess. And, most importantly, this book impressed upon me that it is vital for all free thinkers and intellectuals to do even more to bring rational thought back to the table.

What is so disturbing about Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason is that it is true. I disagree with some other reviewers who see The Age of American Unreason as a left/right, conservative/liberal discussion. Ms Jacoby's points of view fairly dig out issues that either side could be upset with. There are places I think she is unfair to the Christians in the country and I think it is "unreasonable" to see all conservatives as dim and all liberals as gifted and polite.

Generally speaking, Jacoby hits the nail on the head when she points out that we are in a country that places little value on intellect and reason. Most of us are at least mildly aware that society rewards even intellectually average people who are pretty and can recite a few lines in front of a camera, or who can catch a ball before 100,000 fans, but pays our teachers, police officers, and other vital public servants salaries that could be considered insulting. Society is reflecting the culture's value system and it "ain't" reassuring.

Ms Jacoby doesn't do a good job looking at the role of MTV and the hip-hop culture in placing rude and ignorant behavior at the forefront of what is acceptable. Ignorant behavior, by the way, isn't in the sole control of conservatives, but equally distributed throughout the population. I also believe that she pays little attention to what has become the "dumming down" of society via public education. Truly educating children isn't the mission of the educational community anymore. Passing standardized tests is what education is all about in the modern world. Citizens who aren't taught to think critically can be recruited by any political or social movement to the detriment of us all.

I must also disagree with other reviewers who see her work as undocumented. She offers enough proof for me.

I highly recommend The Age of American Unreason. It will disturb you regardless of your political affiliation, but then isn't that what books of this nature should do?

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]

Unlike other reviewers, I couldn't give a hoot if Jacoby is on the left or on the right of the political spectrum. Her book, in spite of the references to politics, transcends it and speaks to something much deeper in our culture. I love Jacoby's expressions "junk thought" and "the culture of distraction" because these expressions hit many nails on their heads. As an English professor, I can testify from my experience (although I don't have the exact data) that many students (except perhaps for English majors) don't read and no longer care to read. If they are asked to read in class, they feel as if they are asked to walk on hot coals: they can't figure out words that are more than a syllable long, they have difficulty managing complex or compound sentences, and they read mostly without intonation and emphasis. A book, in the English language, even a relatively easy one is Chinese to them. And that's where Jacoby's discussion on the culture of distraction is most relevant. Why can't college students read? Because they are constantly distracted by toys and blazing lights: video games, instant messaging, iPods, cell phones, iPhones, blogs, myspace, and of course tv. This is why, as Jacoby eloquently explains, "...the cognitive reward for the master of the game amounts to little more than an improved ability to navigate other, more complex video games." By contrast, after reading Anna Karenina, "the reader is left with an endless series of questions about the nature of betrayal, the sexual double standard, the compromises of marriage..."(252) etc., questions that help us understand ourselves and other human beings. So instead of engaging with others, the new young "distracted" generation is engaging with various screens, in isolation and ignorance of human feelings. What we are losing is what Einstein described as the most important emotion, "the emotion of the mysterious," which, he says, is at the cradle of all great art and science. Walk down the halls of any college or university nowadays (except for Ivy League schools) and look through the windows at students' expressios during class. Do you see interest? Do you see deep thought? Do you see wonder? Not generally so. Sometimes, yes. But in most students you see boredom and the expression that often transmits the message, "how do I get out of here fast enough with a good enough grade?" And if this is not a crisis, I don't know what is. We may be advancing toward the time when even college graduates won't be able to read a simple document, never mind a book.
Who is to blame? Many. But the important thing is how to solve this problem. Technology is here to stay, of course, but how can we persuade the young that it must be balanced with discipline, hard work, wonder, and most importantly, learning? And how do we persuade them that learning is hard but as important as the oxygen we breathe? Perhaps Jacoby is right. We need a crusade. And I will be the first to join her if she starts one.
S. Spilka

Susan Jacoby's newest book (she being the author also of among other tomes "Freethinkers") is very interesting, especially if you are of advanced years such as myself and share her historical perspective. She takes her inspiration from Richard Hofstadter's influential "Anti-intellectualism in American Life," but brings her own distinctive perspectives to bear. In brief, Jacob asks why has there been such a distinctive deline in America's formerly "vibrant and varied intellectual life," an essential element for democracy to function. Instead, we manifest a "denigration of fairness", anti-intellectualism, and a lack of patience with opposing viewpoints.

Jacoby points to a number of contributing causes that have had their unfortunate impact over the period since the end of WWII. Among the leading "usual suspects" are television and other media, shortened attention spans, fundamentalist religion, local control of schools, pseudo-science and anti-rationalism, and a loss of love for the English language. The "Red Scare" and McCarthyism also took their toll, tar and feathering "eggheads" as being out of touch and snooty. A very fine chapter is devoted to the Middlebrow culture period, one I remember well growing up in the 1950's with the "Great Books," encyclopedias, and the Book-of-the-Month Club. Jacoby argues that the turmoil of the 1960's does not bear much of the blame for our intellectual decline, but she does zero in on what she terms the "culture of celebrity" and the youth culture. A principal Jacoby target is the "new old-time religion" which attacks science, argues the Bible is literally true, and has successfully linked up with political conservatives and Catholic right-wingers in an unholy alliance. Another excellent chapter is on "junk science," including intelligent design, "post-abortion syndrome," "recovered memories," fat studies, and single-sex education. A decline in scientific literacy makes us vulnerable to this pap the author suggests.

Is this just ranting and raving?--if so, it is pretty interesting. Sure, Jacoby overstates her case in places, but nonetheless I found myself with 6 pages of notes after completing the book. One point that will cause disagreement is Jacoby's writing off of the internet and other electronic gizmos as devices which enhance our intellectual resources. I for one could not live with Google and am still amazed that I can get the answer to any question by pushing a button. Another quality publication by Berryville Graphics in Virginia. Unfortunately, the very folks who most need to read this book will deny themselves that opportunity, which is a pity.