THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON BY SUSAN JACOBY
Review of Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason"
http://www.susanjacoby.com
http://www.salvationscience.com

This impassioned, tough-minded work of contemporary history paints a
disturbing portrait of a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-
rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the
past four decades and now threatens the future of American
democracy. Combining historical analysis with contemporary
observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with America's
heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern knowledge and
science. With mordant wit, the author offers an unsparing indictment
of the ways in which dumbness has been defined downward throughout
American society—on the political right and the left. America's
endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been exacerbated by a new
species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by a
popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no
room for contemplation or logic.

The book surveys an anti-rational landscape extending from reality
TV and "infantainment" videos for babies to a pseudo-intellectual
universe of "junk thought." This vast kingdom of junk thought
reaches from semiliterate blogs of all political persuasions to
institutions of so-called higher education that offer courses
in "fat studies" and horror films but do not require students to
obtain a thorough grounding in American and world history, science,
and literature. Throughout our culture, disdain for logic and
evidence is fostered by the infotainment media from television to
the Web; aggressive anti-rational religious fundamentalism; poor
public education; the intense politicization of intellectuals
themselves; and—above all—a lazy and credulous public increasingly
unwilling or unable to distinguish between fact and opinion.

Finally, the author argues that anti-rational government is not the
product of a Machiavellian plot by "Washington" but is the
inevitable result of "an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge"
that has left many ordinary citizens and their elected
representatives without the intellectual tools needed for sound
public decision-making. The real question is not why politicians
have lied to the public but why the public was so receptive and so
passive when it heard the lies. At this crucial political juncture,
The Age of American Unreason challenges Americans to face the
painful truth about what our descent into intellectual laziness and
our flight from reason have cost us as individuals and as a nation.
-----------------------------
Susan Jacoby is the author of eight books, a frequent contributor to
national magazines and newspapers, and the recipient of numerous
awards, including a 2001 appointment as a fellow of the New York
Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers. She is a panelist
for On Faith, a blog published by The Washington Post and Newsweek.
Jacoby is also program director of the Center for Inquiry-New York
City, a rationalist think tank with offices in Lower Manhattan.
"The Age of American Unreason picks up where Richard Hofstadter left
off. With analytic verve and deep historical knowledge, Susan Jacoby
documents the dumbing down of our culture like a maestro. Make no
mistake about it, this is an important book."

—Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley

http://www.susanjacoby.com
http://www.salvationscience.com