The age of American unreason

In this book, Susan Jacoby presents an overview of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism in American society. She has some very harsh things to say about modern American politics, and a few harsher things to say about pseudoscience, both of which I believe are fully justified. She also traces

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the political and religious roots of anti-intellectualism in the past, with a special emphasis on the sixties, and those chapters for the most part strike me as interesting, thoughtful, and fair. Unfortunately, I can't say as much for her discussions of modern media and pop culture, as she all too often wavers from what should be a reasonable examination of the mixed blessings of the Information Age into an only slightly more sophisticated version of, "Stupid rotten-brained kids today with the video games and the YouTube and the inexcusable lack of interest in classical music or listening to me talk about Russian poetry!" I have very little patience with that kind of attitude, and I'm afraid that my annoyance with it colors the entire book in an unfortunate negative light. After all, sometimes "anti-elitism" is a foolish and dangerous belief that just because other people might know more about something than you do, that doesn't make what they have to say about the subject any more valid than your own ignorant opinion. And sometimes, it's a perfectly justifiable dislike of people like Jacoby telling you that if you don't read the same books they do, it means you're stupid. Those two things desperately need to be separated, not conflated more than they already are, and Jacoby is really not helping on that score.

Despite my mixed feelings, I do think this is worth reading. But I recommend doing so with a bit of a critical eye.

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The Age of American Unreason is about the dumbing down of the United States in many areas: belief in creationism and in biblical inerrancy, the inability of students to locate countries on a map, widespread innumeracy, civic illiteracy, and the media's promotion of junk science, to name but a few

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examples. She lays the blame on the video revolution, on the ascendancy of cultural studies in universities, and of course on the religious right.

She laments the passing of middlebrow culture, which encouraged non-academics to better themselves with good reading. As a librarian, I'm also sad to see the end of that era, and to see how uninterested the library community is in preserving it. These days, the public library culture is mostly about mass-marketing and giving 'em (the presumably stupid public) what they want, meaning what the publishers tell them to want. Read your James Patterson and like it, you dumb slob, because the library is going to buy 20 copies. Meanwhile, we're discarding our Michener books (Jacoby looks fondly on those fat middlebrow tomes) because they don't circulate enough.

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A very weak effort by Susan Jacoby author of the excellent Freethinkers. While her mission and her quest are worthwhile, she relies on anecdotes instead of scientifically gathered information to make her case. Her selection bias is huge, eg she pits a young 21st plagiarist author against a 60's

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philosopher friend of hers. Her rant against all things modern (video games, TV, cell phones, iPods, rap, blogs, ...) and her abhorrence against changes in grammar and use both obscure the real issue and reveal an unfortunate crazy cat-lady streak. In her youth ... Jacoby is her own worst enemy in getting her message across. She practices exactly what she deplores as junk science and junk reporting.

Similar to Al Gore's The Assault on Reason and Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal in intent and approach, a severe case of nostalgia blunt the book's impact and case. The first half of the book continues the theme of the great freethinkers of the 19th century and the countervailing development of fundamentalist religion in the United States. The second half of the book treats the rise of fundamentalism and the erosion of a knowledge culture in the 20th century. But is this really true? Were earlier US generations less religious and more open to science? Was Camelot an age of reason? I don't think so, bur would love to see some data (which Jacoby does not present). In my opinion, she compares the elite of her generation to the current average - which is a mistake.

Knowledge has always offered and still offers less prestige in the US than wealth. What you own is more important than what you know. Education in the US is often not a goal in itself but a step in improving marketability (starting salary). The failure of the US education system is amply documented elsewhere. I would categorize US educational failure in three types: Ghetto, Kentucky and Agrestic. The simplest case are inner-city poverty and educational failure (Ghetto), which requires a New Deal package of economic investment, institution building and support. The backwardness of isolated and economically deprived regions (Kentucky, Afghanistan) is probably incurable and only solvable by the demographic flight of the young. As the number of people involved is quite small, it does not merit attention.

The most puzzling case is the suburban one (Agrestic), as their knowledge low-balling is not based on economic deprivation but a displacement of conspicuous consumption from education to consumer goods: A beautiful house instead of a beautiful mind. The US is one of few countries where severe lapses of knowledge (Austria/Australia, Shia/Sunni, evolution) are common and do not assign the speaker to the fool's corner. Functional specialization has made it possible to lead successful lives without interacting with the wider world (a return to a medieval pattern), which causes grave problems when politicians have to solve global problems.

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Susan Jacoby gives us a good, clear-eyed view of American intellectual history; particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century. It's not an exhaustive or definitive history, but it neatly contextualizes the current tendency of media (and political partisans) to misunderstand the pedigree

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of modern political thought. However, in many respects, it's not unlike Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" and many other self-righteous polemics. Jacoby is at her best when she's exposing the manner by which society's manipulators and profiteers exploit dangerous cultural trends to their own advantage; she's at her worst when she becomes a misanthropic scold willfully ignoring the psychological pathologies that make average citizens vulnerable to the machinations of the market. (Additionally, the stories of her personal literary life are maddeningly self-aggrandizing.)

Finally, the book falls apart in the final chapters. Here we are assaulted with the usual parade of statistics meant to convince us of the decline of American education. In addition, she takes wild, generalized swings at the Bush administration without taking the time to contextualize or justify them. While there is undoubtedly truth in her conclusions about the Bush administration, she undercuts her credibility by not taking the time to provide comprehensive explanations of how she arrived at them (and by confusing anecdotes with evidence). Consequently, the last few chapters abandon a scholarly tone and sound more like hyperventilated screaming.

It's a decent book, but be prepared to suffer a little.

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Although an interesting work, Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason seems to lack a coherent focus, which is only further marred by the essentially liberal slant. Although I am more liberal leaning myself, I had expected a less political work; in the end, however, Jacoby seems to rail more against

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the Right and religious fundamentalists than against a sense of unreason and irrationality per se. Although she will sometimes mention the irrational aspects of the left, this a rare occurrence.

At times, the book also tends to drag. Perhaps, I am one of Jacoby's generation of video-game playing ADHD types, but I still believe that a book should be able to hold a reader's attention. I generally enjoyed the work, but it was plodding and repetitive at times.

Finally, she tends to make sweeping generalizations at times. For example, she rails against the video game industry and the use of electronic media without really considering that these are tools that can also offer other functions. With regard to video games, myself and countless others I know have been inspired by the games we play to learn more about the settings. As an example, playing Age of Empires inspired me to read more about medieval history, while the more recent Assassin's Creed led me to pick up Reston's Warriors of God. And, with regard to the iPod, I have used it frequently to listen to books from Audible.com and from iTunes.

So, though she certainly makes valid points, there are times when her generalizations are far to broad.

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Not bad read, but most of it not too surprising. Unfortunately, most people aren't listening, so things won't change (only get worse).

An entertaining book both erudite and accessible, which today are seldom the same & in fact is the point of the author. She shows how the tendencies of both the left and the right have contributed toward an exaltation of willful ignorance in the US. Be prepared to be angry when you read this book.

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As it points out all of the things you have been tolerating, you will find your ability to "be reasonable" deteriorating. Stand up for reason.

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I had watched Susan Jacoby on a couple of shows promoting this book and have been anxious to read it since, though it wasn't what I was expecting - it was something better. I had expected to be a collection of stories about the decline of knowledge in the country and a plea for change, and it is.

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By saying that it is something even better, I mean that she gives the reader the context of the current poor state of civic understanding and discourse. Part of the book is an intellectual history of anti-intellectualism in America (neat trick, that) as well as the history of intellectualism, and even of the place the two met for a while, the middlebrow culture of the Book of the Month Club and the Great Books of the Western World series.

Not surprisingly, Jacoby sees the key points in the decline of knowledge and understanding to be the decline in reading and in conversation, mostly attributable to the culture of infotainment which began with TV.

She explains herself much better than I can, so here is a pretty extensive quote from p. 297:

"Liberals have tended to blame the Bush administration as the problem and the source of all that has gone wrong during the past eight years and to see an outraged citizenry, ready to throw the bums out, as the solution. While an angry public may be the short-term solution, an ignorant public is the long-term problem in American public life. Like many Democratic politicians, left-of-center intellectuals have focused on the right-wing deceptions employed to sell the war in Iraq rather than on the ignorance and erosion of historical memory that make serious deceptions possible and plausible - not only about Iraq but about a vast array of domestic and international issues.

The general decline in American civic, cultural, and scientific literacy has encouraged political polarization because the field of debate is left to those who care most intensely - with an out-of-the-mainstream passion - about a specific political and cultural agenda. Every shortcoming of American governance, in foreign relations and domestic affairs, is related in some fashion to the knowledge deficit of the American public..."

I've believed critical thinking was the answer, but she points out that thinking critically requires some knowledge as well as the habits of rational thought.

She does stimulate some curiosity when she talks about that other industrialized cultures don't seem to suffer quite as badly. One assumes it is the educational system that works better, but it would be nice to know if, for example, other countries have lower statistics on amount of television watched. Dare I say it? She needs a blog to answer such questions, a suggestion she would not thank me for.

Please read it. Think about it. Discuss it with others. For these things Jacoby would thank you.

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Ah, a left-wing version of Alan Bloom's 'Closing of the American Mind.' Just what we need.
There are good things about this book, specifically, the history of the early and mid-twentieth century. The opening chapters and the closing chapters, however, are mind-boggling. If one takes it upon oneself

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to defend 'reason', it is best to be rational in the task. Jacoby can't do it. I'm glad she pointed out that the worst instance of irrationality is our general inability to distinguish between causation and correlation. Just because x and y go together doesn't mean one caused the other, and it certainly doesn't mean you can decide which is the cause and which the effect. But instead of taking her own advice, Jacoby argues that stupidity is caused by 'screen media.'
Of course there can be no evidence for this causation, only a correlation. I'm not surprised that people who watch more television do worse on tests of intelligence. I am surprised that one would conclude from this that television causes low intelligence. Had Jacoby thought a little more before launching onto her Jeremiad, she might have considered the following:

* that the Emersonian individualism she preaches is itself a cause for irrationalism. It implies that each person should find their own way. The problem is that nobody can ever 'find their own way.' At best, they can get thrown onto a path, and much later learn to view it dispassionately. But if you assume that everyone can, by virtue of being a 'unit, one character,' a picker of peculiar fruit, you block off this possibility. And you assume that the path you're on was freely chosen, unlike 'the gross, the hundred or the thousand.' Unlike everyone else.

* that this individualism fits nicely with the doctrines of 'responsible journalism,' which mandate that both sides of a story be told even when there is only one side. 'Responsible journalism' has left American blissfully free of truth in reporting. Jacoby and her ilk believe that long form reporting is what we're missing. Not so. What's missing is a belief that journalism involves more than facts; it involves opinions.

* Jacoby argues against all social theory, most of the social sciences, philosophy, theology... in short, anything which isn't based on physical scientific facts. This fits in nicely with the about 'responsible journalism.' The question arises, then, what Jacoby's own work is? It's certainly social science in some guise or another, with a hefty dose of philosophy (Enlightenment humanism, more or less). So the book is self-refuting. More importantly, if all knowledge is scientific fact, then the 'rational' among us have nothing to say to those we think of as 'irrational'. Facts are neither reasonable nor unreasonable. Only their interpretations are reasonable or unreasonable. And unfortunately, Jacoby's interpretation is unreasonable: there is a correlation between screen media use and intellectual ability, not a direct causal relationship.

* Her belief that this is a causal relationship means Jacoby doesn't look a little deeper to find the reason so many people spend all their time watching TV, despite knowing that a game/a concert/a dinner with friends is more fulfilling: most of us are simply too frigging tired to make the effort. And we're too tired because our work-hours have increased, the intellectual requirements of our work have increased, and our holiday time has decreased. Had Jacoby done a bit more reading of the classics, and a bit less time reading I. F. Stone's idiotic conversations about those classics, she would know that 'negotiation' means, more or less, 'not leisure.' And that it was precisely leisure that made all the deep thinking of the classic authors possible - the free time that was more available in the 'fifties and 'sixties, and which has now disappeared.

You can't just tell people to read more if they're too tired to read. Better to spend your time fighting for reasonable labor laws. But I think we know how unlikely that is. It wouldn't sell at all.

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I found her examination of anti-intellectualism in America informative and persuasive, but she is preaching to the choir. Her overuse of the term "middlebrow" comes off as snobbish, and her indictment of electronic media is light on fact and heavy on personal grievance. These chapters are heavy

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slogging. The explosion of e-book reading shortly after publication dents her thesis.

Another contrary data point: I am told that one of my first spoken words was "Mo", referring to then-ubiquitous TV personality Garry Moore. So you know that I watched beaucoup TV during my childhood. Today, I do a website about local TV. Yet, I have read a huge number of books in my lifetime, including this one.

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I was quite excited to read this book, as I've been a fan of Jacoby's writing in the past, and find the topic to be timely and important. The discussions about elitism, intellectuals, and class divisions that were prominent over the past year in the political landscape made me consider the book

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with a hopeful perspective - while Obama was widely criticized for his intellectualism, we did, as a people united, elect him into office.

Unfortunately, I found one aspect of the book to be quite disappointing. While I think that she made a number of important points, I found her arguments undermined by a broad, un-nuanced generalization of the conservative intellectual establishment. Her unwillingness to engage in a straightforward discussion of how the conservative and liberal groups actually pursue and promote intellectualism made it difficult for me to take some of her arguments seriously. An excerpt provides an example of how she engaged this topic:

"By 1980 popular identification of intellectualism with the left was such that the right-wing intellectuals who provided much of the ideology for the Reagan administration were able to advance the fiction - so important first o Reagan and....to the election of Bush the younger - that the so-called elites consist entirely of liberals opposed to old-fashioned American values of traditional religion, unquestioning patriotism, and pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps. Conservative intellectuals mastered an art that liberals never did : they somehow managed to present themselves as an aggrieved minority even while feasting, as liberals had during the Kennedy administration, at the government trough."

I find this to be an inaccurate, and a gross exaggeration. I don't believe that anyone could actually make the argument that The Heritage Foundation, or the American Enterprise Institute, are not obviously intellectually comparatives to the Brookings Institution. She consistently used aggressive language that did not, in my mind, present a fair characterization of both sides of the intellectual/political divide.

However, in her discussion of politics and intellectualism, I do think that she makes an important point. Leaving aside the intelligence of President George W. Bush, as I don't wish to engage on that topic here, I'd like to include the entire quote here:

"If Bush's election was not a measure of conscious anti-intellectualism on the part of voters, it was certainly a measure of the public's indifference to demonstrable mental acuity and knowledge as standards for the presidency. In this context, it is important to note that most members of the media rarely raise questions, even in a roundabout way, about the intellect of a major party presidential candidate - much less about a man who actually occupies the Oval Office. A president may be described as stubborn, or as impatient, or as a sexual libertine - even, on rare occasions, as a liar - but it would be unthinkable for "objective" reporters, in print or on television, to bluntly raise the question: 'Is this man smart enough to be in charge of the country?' It is a question that ought to be asked openly about every man and woman who seeks high office...This is not to say that the smartest boy or girl in the class would necessarily make the best president, but that there ought to be a higher threshold of intellect, as well as a higher standard of cultural and scientific literacy, than that currently required for political candidates." (Jacoby, p. 285-286).

Two items stand out for me: first, that the American people can be described as indifferent to the capabilities and qualities of their primary leader and representative; and secondly, that the presidency demands not only intelligence, but cultural and scientific literacy. To ground this discussion in a timely issue, let us consider the debate between evolution and creationism.

A scientifically literate President could be expected to be familiar with the underpinnings of the scientific argument (evolution) - to understand the fundamentals of the theory, how it has been developed, a general sense of the current state of related research, and the overall scientific background to be able to engage with the topic in a meaningful way.

On the other hand, a culturally literate President could be expected to have studied the history of the debate; to know about the Scopes trial, its main participants, and its outcome(s); to understand the importance of creationism to those who accept it as a primary explanation for their world; and to see how this fits into the cultural landscape of America - both for those who support teaching evolution and creationism side by side, and for the individuals who adamantly oppose such a structure.

Finally, we could expect our President to understand how any action, promotion, or legislation regarding this issue could impact our global relationships and the future of our society. Do we think it is too much to ask this type of literacy from our selected leader? Jacoby seems to argue that, compared to our parents and grandparents, we do - and instead of aspiring to the best, we aim for the "lowest common denominator".

Aside from the political discussion, I found that Jacoby provided a solid history of intellectualism in America over the past century - from the development of a "middlebrow culture" which made fine art, literature, and music accessible to a greater part of the American population; to the impact of television and the internet on our attention spans and communities. It makes me sad to learn, as she states, that 40% of Americans do not read books; parents only read to their children an average of 40 minutes a day; that Americans have such poor esteem for geography, foreign languages, and global news; etc. I was also fascinated to read all of the negative studies on the "Baby Einstein" and other such products (obviously I'm not a parent yet).

I don't think that I would recommend this highly for the general reader. Much of what she says seems fairly self-evident, and I particularly find that she does not contribute much that is new to the discussion of technological advances and how these engage the intellect. In fact, I find her negative perception of technology a weak component of her entire argument, as I believe that it indicates an incomplete understanding of the web-based world. She argues early on that in the first half of the 20th century, Americans aspired to a higher standard, wishing to imitate and bring to a more accessible level those intellectual luxuries formerly enjoyed by the rich: fine art, music, literature, etc. How is the use of the internet as a delivery mechanism different than the Book of the Month Club that first launched literature into the homes of many middle-class Americans? If I am able, via the internet, to listen to a podcast or view a video of a performance that I would otherwise not have access to, how then can we throw the baby out with the bathwater and proclaim that technology is leading to the destruction of intellectual engagement?

3/5 stars for a solid read, but not highly recommended.

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This was a book I basically enjoyed. While I agree with her premise, I found at times that I wanted more citations in support of some of her assertions. Without them, her arguments were less convincing.

A friend recommended this book, and I both enjoyed it and also got upset by it. Comforting to know that anti-intellectualism is not a new trend, but something that has been going on in this country since the beginning. I just wish there were ideas for how we combat the problem, especially as

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related to politics and picking politicians we would "like to have a beer with" over people with great minds and ideas. How many people who talk about what the Constitution says or what the Bible says really know those documents? We seem to be a soundbite nation, in which uninformed opinions are ok, especially if based on some kernel of truth. A good read, and I learned some things I definitely missed in my hears of history classes.

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The author is a journalist, and writes very well. She contends that the American public is becoming increasingly unwilling to apply reason to public affairs, and increasingly becoming hostile to experts, scientists and data. She locates most of the fault on the rise of fundamentalist religions in

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the past 30 years, although also targets diversity programs in colleges, sixties radicalism, the rise of visual media, and the decline of reading. She does review some of the history of a strain of anti-intellectualism in American thought, supposing herself a heir to Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Thought, published in 1963. It seems her main concern is the rise of fundamentalism and the problems of the Bush administration

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Preliminary review: Initial chapters a bit heavy on the media criticism - asserts that television and Internet are contributing to American unreason - my question is if that's the case, how come other nations have TV and net but still remain intellectual?

I'm trying to figure out how anyone who didn't already agree with Jacoby's central premise - that the level of discourse in this country has degenerated to anti-elitism, ad hominem attacks and name calling - would have any inclination to pick up this book whatsoever. She lays out a good argument,

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but it's presented with such a coating of smug self-righteousness, that you realize that this anti-elitism might be completely justified.

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My brother doesn't believe the what, ( 98% of all Scientists?) who've made these studies their life work, about global warming. But he DOES believe what George Carlin, a comedian, says about it. ....... so yes, I think she has something here. The anti-intellectualism mindset in this country is

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nuts. In this area where I now live, the vast majority of the people are PROUD to be ignorant.

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This books is a survey of anti-intellectualism in America. Jacoby traces the roots of this aspect of American culture and illustrates how it continues. It is especially frightening that ignorance, illogic and emotionalism have managed to be elevated to virtues in popular culture. Effective

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self-governance in a democracy depends on an educated population capable of making logical decisions based on dispassionate evaluations of evidence, so the anti-rational trends Jacoby describes threaten the basic foundations of a participatory democracy.

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A very intelligent book about cultural and intellectual decay in contemporary America. One suspects she is correct about the decay caused by such readily available video entertainment and "infotainment". She has not given us the last word on decay of the public schools, but her comments and

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implications on that subject are worthwhile. Be sure to read all the way through to the end. I found the last chapter and conclusion especially valuable.

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This book is a very good entry into the critical thinking genre, looking specifically at America and the current anti-intellectual currents that reject logic and reason in favor of emotionally charged, fuzzy, feel good argumentation. This book should be in every library around the country.

I don't disagree with the author on most issues but she wrote this in a such a tedious way that I often lost track of the point she was trying to make.

A scathing and all too accurate look at the culture of anti-intellectualism that abounds in contemporary America.

This is possibly the best book I've read this year. If you're at all shocked at the pride people seem to take in their ignorance, you must read this book. Jacoby has put together a chronicle of American history both showing past desires of the public to be educated, while another portion was

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content to take part in whatever current trend in anti-intellectualism was in vogue. Where once the public was impressed with a president who put overtly intelligent men in places of influence, now the public seems enamored of candidates who could not even tell you what was in the first amendment of the constitution or locate countries on the map where we are fighting wars.

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She makes a lot of excellent points, but that almost doesn't overcome the dryness of the writing.