Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture [Hardcover]

Katharine Washburn (Editor), John F. Thornton (Editor), John Simon (Editor, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

This is a collection of essays which confront the decline in American life, art and thought, once so full of richness and vitality. The contributors speculate on the reasons why a vibrant legacy of knowledge, tradition and competence came to be so rapidly squandered. Can this "dumbing down" be halted or reversed? The 22 essays address such developments with vigour, wit, common sense and urgency. The contributors include critics and commentators Philip Loparte, Cynthia Ozick, Wendy Kaminer, Francine Prose, Sven Birkerts, George F. Kennan, Brad Leithhauser and John Simon. Although they are varied in their concerns and political allegiances, they are united in their dismay on witnessing a culture in the process of dissolution.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The idea that American culture is entering a great age of stupidity is something we hear everyday, but what distinguishes this collection of essays on that theme is the diversity of the commentators (and the damage they survey) and the wit exhibited in their reports. Noted essayist Phillip Lopate reports on Hollywood as afraid or merely unwilling to present characters who happen to be intelligent; Ken Kalfus writes about how Star Trek exhibits took the place of real science at the esteemed Hayden Planetarium; and Jonathan Rosen offers a controversial essay arguing that tragedy is trivialized by such institutions as the Holocaust Museum. While Dumbing Down contains more than 20 insightful essays delineating how American culture is being degraded, the effect is not depressing, but rather hopeful, in the sense that problems must be identified before they can be fixed.

From Publishers Weekly

It is a tribute to this engaging, cranky collection that critic Simon's introduction registers disagreement with the essays defining rock and roll and calling for more orthodox forms of religion. Among the essayists, David Slavitt laments that university students are now "more socially ambitious than intellectually curious," Robert Park condemns our acceptance of scientific illiteracy and Heather McDonald deconstructs the declining standards in the teaching of remedial writing. George Kennan reminds us that we need "an elite of service to others." Some essays?on psychiatry or sex or the social sciences?offer too-limited takes on broad topics. But this book, thankfully, has no neat ideological wrapper: James Twitchell reminds us of the ubiquitous influence of advertising, while Carole Rifkind describes how the mall compromises public space. Literary critic Sven Birkerts worries that the computer and the Internet may become our new deity: his fear may be exaggerated, but his solution?real engagement with books and ideas?is surely worth adopting. Thornton is a literary agent; Washburn is a freelance editor.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 329 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393038297
• ISBN-13: 978-0393038293
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,580,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This book itself suffers from dumbing down, January 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture (Paperback)

This book could have been so much more. While some of the essays include genuine insight into this serious problem, others suffer from the all too common temptation to catalog whatever the authors don't like. To conservatives, dumbing down is the fault of all those liberals; to liberals, it's all those conservatives; to humanities snobs, it's anything connected to science and technology.

Some of the examples of dumbing down are nothing short of fatuous. Is it really a sign of dumbing down that a newspaper publishes a science section? Is the art world truly waging war on heterosexuality?

Also, some authors tend to limit their evidence to what is happening in New York. Is the topic of the book the dumbing down of America or the dumbing down of New York?

Perhaps the worst offender is David Klinghoffer's essay on kitsch religion. Klinghoffer lectures us on the state of Judaism and Christianity, but he is clearly much more attuned to secular politics than to Jewish (let alone Christian) theology. He completely ignores the spectacular growth of the New Age movement, which is a glaring counter-example to his thesis. Moreover, while he calls for a return to thou-shalt-nots, he does not seem to care whether they come from Orthodox Judaism or Baptist fundamentalism; instead, it seems that any old set of thou-shalt-nots will do. That's what I call dumbing down.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dumbing Down Is Smart But Too Scabrous, May 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture (Paperback)

A mixed bag - like many edited collections. Many of the essays are vigorous and unsparing such as MacDonald's fine essay on the erosion of composition skills in our nation's universities, Epstein's virtolic attack against the political prejudices of the NEA, and Klinghoffer's witty account of kitsch religion. Moreover, the essays on the erosion and degradation of the physical and social sciences are persuasive and well-argued. Many of the essays, however, and more surprisingly those of the more renowed authors, have far less substance than style. Cynthia Ozick's essay on the decline of literate culture veers off into a discussion of Henry James and ends up seeming beside the point; John Simon's elitist and pretentious grousing makes one sympathetic to the defenders of popular culture; Kennan just rehashes Tocqueville and adds little else. Sadly, many articles also display a particularly slanted point of view - thus, for example, the trouble with education are multiculturalist teachers not the tragic underfunding of American education which the eloquent books of Jonathan Kozol amply disprove. Many of the essayists ignore larger social and economic factors which played a role in our cultural deterioration and instead point fingers at egregious culprits - spacey lit. crit. teachers, television talk show hosts. I still recommend the book despite its numerous flaws - including a totally needless introductory composite of extracts signaling our incipient doom (one quotes dates all the way back to 1960 which made me wonder why they just didn't up and cite Spengler while they were at it) - because a fair number of essays provide enough incisive commentary into the deleterious effects of a completely commercialized culture to warrant a sustained reading.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Goes against the grain of culture... and so it should!, April 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture (Paperback)

This must be the most politically incorrect book that you could read. But that is its strongest point. You have to be incorrect today to think properly. Behind every great movement which overturned a declining society there has been incorrectness. This book bucks the tide. It is unashamedly non-conformist. For that reason, it is a wonderfully stimulating read. My guess is that it will only appeal to those who already think like the authors. But if it does enlighten a dyed in the wool follower of political correctness that will be a welcome marvel!