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The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information Hardcover – January 21, 1992


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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 408 pages
  • Publisher: Random House; 1st American ed edition (January 21, 1992)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0394576438
  • ISBN-13: 978-0394576435
  • Product Dimensions: 1.4 x 6.6 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Though Revel's stated aim here is to examine why human beings ``neglect the genuine knowledge that is available to them and...base their conceptions and actions on false information,'' he ends up delivering mostly a tirade against the Left that becomes a vehicle for defending his earlier writings (How Democracies Perish, 1984, etc.). Revel's claim that he could as well take to task ``scholastic Aristotelian ideology'' as the ``more familiar'' Marxism sets his tone. Certainly the notion that ``we use our intellectual faculties to protect conviction, interests and interpretations...dear to us'' has merit. But Revel never explores this idea beyond applying it to the supposed acceptance of communism by Western thinkers and liberals who ``have always adhered to the official Soviet `truth' of the moment.'' He warns against the ``a priori trust in perestroika and glasnost'' demonstrated by duped Western democracies soft on communism; rails against the ``pigheaded Left''; and scolds the media for failing to credit the ``classic dictatorships'' of Franco, Pinochet, and Marcos for being better organized than their Marxist counterparts. Among his more unsettling, unsubstantiated claims: that, despite their nostalgia for Third Reich symbolism, recent ``hallucinatory resurrections of the Nazi danger,'' as embodied by neo-Nazi groups, are ``a political fable'' invented by the Left to distract attention from the horrors of communism; that ``humanitarian aid'' is a ruse, ``a gigantic racket'' engineered by calculating Marxist despots; that ``the falsification of information is today...above all a left-wing phenomenon''; and that the supposed racism of France's National Front and the apartheid state of South Africa are not akin to fascism but are mere xenophobia, being ``prompted by thoughtless prejudice, not by a clearly argued ideology.'' A conservative storm cloud of right-wing rumblings and intellectual lightning. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Customer Reviews

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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful By Enigma on November 16, 1999
Format: Hardcover
Revel shows the major paradox of the 20th century. When we have a vast array of information at our fingertips, we simply overlook the truth out there and embrace the lies given. He shows that Democracies only thrive in an aura of truth but they will ultimately fail in a arena of lies. He poignantly shows how the politicians, scientists, educators and the media give up truth to follow their own agenda propagated by fallacies.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful By brian komyathy VINE VOICE on August 28, 2005
Format: Hardcover
Our future depends "on the correct or incorrect, honest or dishonest use of information." "Formerly ignorance was the enemy, today it is falsehood." Communism and Nazism are both dead, hence it's an interesting point that the Left wants to keep Nazism "alive," so to speak; apparently to sustain the myth that the Right is the danger which we must remain vigilant against, as they continue to trumpet the notion of collectiveness and anti-capitalism under other guises; as well as the notion that enlightened government can transform society if given the power to do so. In a way this is to be expected: "A school of thought that knows it is in a state of decline struggles even more fiercely to preserve its identity." Revel is not at all surprised consequently that French textbooks even into 1980 continued to embellish Sovietism. (I'd add further that Hitler denunciations still out number anti-Stalin comments 1000-1. Moreover, how many films touching on Lenin or Stalin have been made? Why is nothing on film about communism/Soviet brutality in Eastern Europe and the Baltics/Soviet Gulags/Red terror wholesale murderings/show trials & Soviet anti-semitism...just to name a few subjects that are ignored while Nazi issues/characters/events feature in countless films.) But just because the French Revolution, and its communistic offspring, can be seen to have proved a failure (in Eastern Europe, the USSR, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, North Korea, et al) doesn't mean fans of such states' 'motives' have reconsidered their inclined views. As Lauret Fabius, the former socialist prime minister of France, has put it: "Socialism is a direction." As long as it can claim anything supposedly positive (Castro's famed health system, for instance) it gets a pass on everything else.Read more ›
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful By Jerry on July 23, 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Just started the book. Especially appreciate it because of the non-American perspective. Also, the relevance of media influence on public opinion, particularly, the spotlight on the deceit that misleads the gullible people who trust "talking heads" with hidden agendas. We need to develop a healthy skepticism of self-proclaimed experts who close their eyes to everything that doesn't fit their politically correct ideology. Any book that keys us to the practices that mislead us is worth our time. There is too much at stake for us to ignore the beguiling voices that conceal the truth about the evil in our world.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful By Lester M. Stacey on February 10, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Chapter 9 of this book is titled: "The Need for Ideology" and it explains why humans pursue ideology so passionately.

A human is after a feeling of understanding the situation it finds itself in. Ideology gives the illusion of providing exactly this kind of understandinding. So much so that the participant in ideology will deny aspects of reality that fail to support the feeling of understanding.

Ideology also provides an enemy one can commit to defeating. This gives one the illusion of participating in a kind of militant competition. It's exciting at times.

However, as soon as one perceives the illusory quality of ideology, one will work to struggle free of it.

One then considers alternatives to ideology. This introduces the need for a good, sound, comprehensive system of philosophy.

The Brain and the Meaning of Life and Foundations of Biophilosophy offer constructive alternatives to ideology.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful By Domingo Soria Martin on July 24, 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I first read this book in the Spanish version, under the title "El Conocimiento Inutil" (The Useless Knowledge) and reread it again in English. Both times, I was amazed by the wisdom, clarity of mind and excellent writing of the author. According to Revel, we live in the age of information: never before, humanity has had such easy access to so much information. But quantity and quality are two different things. We are so buried in data, that most of the time we don't bother to check its validity. And, what is even worse: we frequently dismiss true knowledge available to us and prefer to base our beliefs and actions on false information. Twenty four years after the publication of the original version of this book, in French, Revel's quote is even more relevant and true: "The most powerful force in the world is lying".
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