Idiot Proof: A Short History Of Modern Delusions (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Although 1979 may not have the same historical resonance as 1789, 1848, or 1917, it too marks a moment when the world was jolted by..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Wall Street, Margaret Thatcher (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British columnist and satirist Wheen presents an exhaustive but ultimately exhausting full-frontal assault on the past 25 years of "Counter-Enlightenment idiocy." His fencing dummies include Margaret Thatcher, Reaganomics, the Iranian Revolution, the Christian Coalition, Deepak Chopra, post-modernism, Francis Fukuyama, creationism, conspiracy theorists, people who believe in UFOs, astrology, the military-industrial complex, Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton's fondness for New Age philosophy, Noam Chomsky, Enron, suicide bombers and much, much more. Wheen skewers his targets with the kind of rapier-like wit the world has come to expect and enjoy from British masters of the vituperative arts. But there's an awful lot of bloodletting here, and much of it is directed at bestselling authors, whose sales numbers Wheen bitterly notes as a way to quantitatively measure the reading public's stupidity. Worse, he burdens his book, which is best read as a series of essays, with a to-hell-in-a-handbasket hypothesis that the level of attack on Enlightenment rationality has increased dramatically in recent years, going so far as to assign a date to the inflection point: 1979, when Thatcher and the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power. Some readers may bristle at Wheen's idea that right-wing economic policy is inextricably tied to anti-rational, religious fundamentalism, and the author's increasingly stretched attempts to prove this relationship begin to slip into the same realm of conspiracy theorizing he mocks in others. As an exercise in knocking down sacred cows left, right and center, this book proves that at the end of the satirical road lies nihilism.
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From The New Yorker

Looking back on the last quarter-century, Wheen, a British journalist, sees a disturbing recrudescence of irrationalists, including "holy warriors, antiscientific relativists, economic fundamentalists, radical postmodernists, New Age mystics." American politicians routinely resort to "intense sentimentality" to sway voters; C.E.O.s lure investors with talk of "faith" in place of assets; Christian evangelists opine that September 11th is "probably what we deserve" for allowing feminists and the A.C.L.U. to flourish. In perhaps the silliest example, a consultant advises British civil servants to wear different colored hats for different tasks: red for developing hunches, yellow for cheering, black for questioning. It's hard to quarrel with the foolishness of some of Wheen's targets. But his larger thesis—that Ayatollah Khomeini and Margaret Thatcher spearheaded a retreat from the values of the Enlightenment back toward those of the Middle Ages—is so thinly reasoned as to seem to warrant its own entry in Wheen's encyclopedia absurdica.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1ST edition (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586482475
• ISBN-13: 978-1586482473
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #131,982 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The return of enlightenment, June 7, 2004

By	Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As a society have we completely lost touch with the reason and enlightenment that brought us out of the dark ages and into modern science? If so have we become so confused that we are headed back to a time when reason is thrown away in favor of what can only be called superstitious belief? Author Francis Wheen examines our world today and how cults, superstition, and the desire to want to believe have caused a veritable epidemic of foolishness often passing as science. In his book "Idiot Proof" he takes on several people who are veritable icons of contemporary society - people like Nancy Reagan, Deepak Chopra, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, and many others. In addition to people he takes on various subjects like UFOs, crystals, psychics, and astrology. This is a book about how people are lead like sheep to the slaughter merrily bleating along the way totally unaware of their folly. While you may not agree with all the assessments, they are logically founded and well argued.

While I enjoyed the book and Mr. Wheen's commentary, I don't personally agree with everything in the book. Still, I recognize the importance of having people like Mr. Wheen occasionally point out the contrasting side of a belief. The way we grow and refine our beliefs requires that we keep an open mind and examine all sides. Mr. Wheen serves this purpose of presenting the opposing viewpoint very well. Then again, if we have learned anything from history it is that science can lead us down the wrong path just as easily as any superstition. There was a time when doctors lost their jobs and were subject to ridicule if they believed in germs. The whole concept was nonsense and against logic and current knowledge.

With plenty of notes and cross-references at the end of the book, "Idiot Proof" is a recommended read and sure to be enlightening to everyone on at least a few fronts.

35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The sleep of reason brings forth monsters", September 20, 2004

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I've read a number of books* exposing quackery, fake science, business and political fraud, deluded celebrities, lying politicians, the gullible and superstitious public, and the like, and I've enjoyed almost all of them. What sets this book by Francis Wheen, who is a columnist for the London Guardian, apart from the others is the literary quality of his writing and his sharp cultural insight. Wheen knows how to turn a phrase, he knows how to be expressive in an effective manner and he knows how to delight the reader with exactly the right barb delivered at exactly the right target with panache and style. For example:

Commenting on a satire of self-help books (especially Deepak Chopra's) by comic writers Christopher Buckley and John Tierney ("If God phones, take the call"; "Money is God's way of saying 'Thanks'!"), Wheen observes that their satires "serve only to confirm that the genre is beyond parody..." He goes on to say that their second satirical law, "God loves the poor, but that doesn't mean He wants you to fly coach" is not more "hilariously absurd" than Chopra's "People with wealth consciousness settle only for the best. This is also called the principle of highest first. Go first-class all the way and the universe will respond by giving you the best." (p. 47)

Reacting to "post-modern anti-scientific relativism," Wheen apprehends that "For those who regard rationality itself as a form of oppression...there is no reason why scientific theories and hypotheses should be 'privileged' over alternative interpretations of reality such as religion or astrology." (p. 98) Later he refers to "the enfeebling legacy of post-modernism--a paralysis of reason, a refusal to observe any qualitative difference between reasonable hypotheses and swirling hogwash." (p. 111) This is similar to Bertrand Russell's observation, "Science is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific" (as quoted on page 98).

If only this truth could be more universally realized!

On the newfangled terminology of the creationists, Wheen notes that they have "adopted a more scientific-sounding phraseology--'abrupt appearance theory,' 'intelligent-design theory'--to disguise the fact that their only textbook was the Old Testament." (p. 100)

Incidentally the quote in my subject line ("The sleep of reason brings forth monsters") is from page seven where Wheen identifies the monsters as both "manifestly sinister" (try Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and other fundamentalists) and "merely comical" (e.g., Nancy and Ronald Reagan and their reliance on astrology). By the way, I lump Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden together because of this pronouncement from the TV evangelists just two days after 9/11: "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." So spoke Rev. Falwell. He attributed the mass murders to God's wrath at "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians...the ACLU, People for the American Way, all...who try to secularize America." Rev. Robertson responded with a forthright, "I totally concur." (p. 177, and widely reported in the media).

Wheen's point is that as rationality goes out the window--and there is increasing evidence, a lot of it presented here, that much of the world has indeed abandoned reason in favor of unreason and religious superstition--monstrous ideas and personages come flying in. It is ironic in an almost cosmic sense that in the modern world, a world equipped with the stupendous tools of science and technology, most people still follow Bronze Age gods and think like the uneducated followers of warlords and tribal chieftains.

A nice way to sum up Wheen's thesis is this quote from Salman Rushdie: "In one pan of the scales we now have General Relativity, the Hubble Telescope and all the imperfect but painstakingly accumulated learning of the human race, and, in the other, the Book of Genesis." (p. 101)

Needless to say this book will not sit well with a lot of people. Wheen not only slaughters sacred cows, but attacks the bozos on both sides of the political aisle. His critique of idiocy in the Bush and Blair administrations (in addition to his frequent recall of the voodoo delusions of Maggie Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan) is to be expected of course, but his devastating devaluation of Bill Clinton comes as something of a surprise. Here he is on the man who would redefine the meaning of "is": "...a man of no discernible moral scruples who in 1992 interrupted his primary campaign and hastened back to Arkansas to execute a brain-damaged black man, Rickey Ray Rector, solely to forestall any suspicion that he was soft." (p. 191)

Add this to the delight that Wheen takes in going after beloved cultural icons like Princess Diana and one sees why some reviewers do not like this book. Ignore them. True, Wheen wanders about in idiot land indiscriminately at times, and indeed has pasted together his anti-enthusiasms in places like a patchwork quilt; but his keen lambasting of the spouters of what Bob Dylan called "the idiot wind" is well worth the price. Bottom line: this book is a lot of fun to read.

(...)

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guided Tour of Post-Enlightenment Foolishness, May 31, 2004

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Do you ever find yourself flagging in enthusiasm for the Enlightenment? The Enlightenment of the 18th century, I mean. As Francis Wheen puts it, do you miss values such as insisting on intellectual autonomy, rejecting tradition and authority as the infallible sources of truth, loathing for bigotry and persecution, committing to free inquiry? As you might expect, Wheen's enthusiasm for such ideals is not flagging, nor is his indignation that the ideals are not being upheld in our time. In _Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power Brokers, Media Morons, and the Erosion of Common Sense_ (PublicAffairs), Wheen whines at length about contemporary preposterousness in many forms. The values of the Enlightenment are being betrayed every day, he demonstrates, and he does so with a fiery keyboard, an infectious sardonic laugh, and a huge command of examples.

In fact, the examples often seem so bizarre that they ought to be mere fiction. Mawkish advice from management gurus like "When opportunity knocks, the entrepreneur is always home" or "Remember to expect miracles... because you are one" may be found in volumes insisting that they were conveying management principles from Moses, Aristotle, Elizabeth I, Gandhi, or Star Fleet. Deepak Chopra (a frequent target here) has intoned the Principle of Highest First: "Go first class all the way and the universe will respond by giving you the best." Wheen's book was first issued where he writes, in England (as _How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World_), and has an Anglo bent, but Americans will find much about their own leaders here. President Clinton sought advice from a Hollywood mystic and a "sacred psychologist" who helped Hillary Clinton talk to Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary's "spiritual archetype." The current president Bush was put into office largely by those who agree with his close alliance with Israel, because according to fundamentalists, maintaining the nation of Israel is a necessary condition for the second coming of Jesus (they usually do not emphasize that the nation has to convert to Christianity, too). Anyone expecting Wheen to skewer only one political philosophy, to let the liberals go while blasting conservatives, has only to read a few more pages on. Noam Chomsky, Jerry Falwell, and the Ayatollah all get their turn.

It is all right that Wheen is over and over again just shooting fish in a barrel. These are fish that deserve extinction. Nostradamus, creationism, newspaper horoscopes, Enron, and new age trendies are all here, as is the teaching of the postmodernist Luce Irigaray that E = mc^2 is egregiously a "sexed equation" since it "privileges the speed of light over other less masculine speeds." The Cult of Diana is remembered with acerbity; one of London's airports risked being renamed Diana Airport, for "The People's Princess" and devotee of colonic irrigation. A feng-shui consultant hired by the labor government to improve housing estates gave the invaluable lesson that red and orange flowers would reduce crime, "...and introducing a water feature would reduce poverty." Teachers have noticed that students cite "The X-Files" as a factual source; reminded that it was fiction, they counter that it was _based_ on fact. Wheen knows that the Enlightenment ideals are not perfect. Science only gives partial truths and must always be checked for its own prejudices or adherence to tradition. But it gives a lot better answers than are being dished out by his targets here. Wheen's book is hilarious, but it is the hilarity of a thoughtful man indignantly enjoying the foolishness of his fellows, and enjoying bursting them for the benefit of an audience. Let us hope that the audience is a huge one.