Junk Politics: The Trashing of the American Mind [Paperback]

Benjamin DeMott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2004

When George Bush's inaugural address stressed civility, compassion, and character, he was continuing a decade-long trend of American politicians trying to get "touchy feely" with the American electorate. Who could forget Bill Clinton's "I-feel-your-pain" chatter from the 1992 election, or the party conventions of 2000 where delegates recounted tales of privations endured and overcome. What this amounts to is the growth of no-politics politics—or "Junk Politics," as Benjamin DeMott — one of America's leading cultural critics — names it. DeMott explains that lack of character, civility, and feeling, rather than inequality and injustice, is seen as the root cause of our "national woes." Great causes—like the civil rights movement—nourish themselves on firm awareness of the substance of injustice. But those causes, DeMott warns, are losing their voice as junk politics gains ascendance. Junk Politics looks at the cultural influences and political signals of the last half century that have stamped the apolitical style of those in power. He focuses on some of the lesser-known but defining elements of Bush-era antipolitics rhetoric and action; that poverty is a character problem, that "leadership" is first of all an emollient, as he digs deeper into the cultural soil that has nourished these views.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

These essays offer a refreshingly impious denunciation of the movement for "civility" in public life-a movement, DeMott says, toward nonpolitics, in which, for instance, presidential candidates talk about their personal lives instead of addressing large issues. DeMott, emeritus professor of humanities at Amherst College, says that celebrity, consumer culture and "touchy-feely" policy initiatives like faith-based social work and character education work to "personalize" and "moralize" political debate and deflect attention from addressing America's problems and the large-scale programs needed to solve them. Despite DeMott's connective essays, the argument doesn't always cohere across these disparate articles (originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and elsewhere). He leaves loose ends, suggesting but never proving that the civility movement is a red herring concocted by "top dogs" to distract challengers to the status quo. He also lumps together too many unrelated trends under the term "junk politics." It's hard to see compassionate conservatives, the sexual revolution, management gurus, Dave Eggers, George Will and L.L. Bean catalogues as examples of a single phenomenon. Moreover, the notion that the post-Gingrich era is a time of excessive civility is questionable, and DeMott doesn't adequately explain how the trash-talking, ideological wing of the conservative movement relates to this mushy, apolitical "junk politics." In DeMott's defense, his critique is amorphous partly because his target is a sensibility. He is often effective at analyzing the national psychology, especially in his witty deconstructions of everyday culture. Junk Politics hints at a promising new approach to the well-worn topic of Americans' disengagement from democracy, but DeMott could have done more to synthesize and clarify the ideas in these disparate essays.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books (January 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156025565X
• ISBN-13: 978-1560255659
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,939,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential in every way. - the perils of the touchy feely!, March 11, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Junk Politics: The Trashing of the American Mind (Paperback)

A brilliant intervention by cultural critic Benjamin DeMott -- these beautifully written reports and essays identify the malaise at the center of American politics and show how the obsession with character and civility -- the "perils of the touchy-feely" -- are actually a dangerous and reactionary distraction. The book is particulatly sharp about post 9-11 political discourse. Essential in every way.

6 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Junk Cultural Criticism, February 26, 2004

By 

Marcus Welch (Dark Side of the Moon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Junk Politics: The Trashing of the American Mind (Paperback)

Saying that politicians produce "junk politics" is like saying that authors produce junk books or that "cultural critics" produce junk cultural criticism.

DeMott provides a false choice between sentiment and substance and then proceeds to define substance in a politically sectarian way - egalitarianism. Even if we were to accept DeMott's definition of substance, John Edwards is an example of how "substance" and sentiment can go hand-in-hand. Edwards frequently engages in the cheerful and (even worse) civil "politics of personal testimony" on the one hand and offers proposals that address inequalities on the other. Perhaps DeMott would argue that Edward's proposals are not sufficiently radical. He would have a hard time arguing that they are not substantive. (But it would be nice to see him try.)

It is hard to conclude that political discourse suffers from an excess of civility when two of the best selling political commentators are Michael Moore and Ann Coulter. If "teachers" lacking in civility is what DeMott wants in his politicians, then Gingrich is his man.

For a guy who demands substance from others, DeMott is conspicuously AWOL when it comes to his own. If the vapid prose of Benjamin DeMott is an example of the constructive alternative to the horrors of "civility" then I am prepared to be horrified.

DeMott's book is an idea for an essay inflated into the size of a book. At 270 pages, it is about 250 pages too long.