Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Harvest Books (2008), Edition: 1, Paperback, 384 pages
Description
"The time: 2000 to 2005, the years of neoconservatism, terrorism, the twenty-four-hour news cycle, the ascension of Bush, Blair, and Berlusconi, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Umberto Eco's response is a series of essays - which originally appeared in the Italian newspapers La Repubblica and L'espresso - that leaves no slogan unexamined, no innovation unexposed. What led us into this age of hot wars and media populism, and how was it sold to us as progress? Eco discusses such topics as racism, mythology, the European Union, rhetoric, the Middle East, technology, September 11, medieval Latin, television ads, globalization, Harry Potter, anti-Semitism, logic, the Tower of Babel, intelligent design, Italian street demonstrations, fundamentalism, The Da Vinci Code, and magic and magical thinking."--Jacket.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
The Italian author Umberto Eco is an extremely prolific writer, who has published several novels, collections of essays and academic papers, particularly in the field of semiotics. This interest in semiotics, perhaps, leads to a tendency to look for meaning in places and events where others see no
Eco's massive output makes selective reading necessary. This collection of essays contains several short pieces of very temporary value, often very specifically related to Italian politics. While these pieces are related to the main theme of the book, they are hard to follow for readers at a greater distance.
"When people stop believing in God, as Chesterton used to say, it's not that they no longer believe in anything, it's that they believe in everything." (p. 301)
This sentence perhaps most clearly demonstrates the main idea of these essays. It is the expression of the shattered optimism that postmodernism has brought to the fore. While in the intellectual aftermath of the Second World War, writers gradually concluded the demise of the Age of Enlightenment, the emergence of postmodernism led to an increasingly depressing outlook on the world. Reason is seen to have failed, and rationalism has led to computationalism and mechanization, which has been seized upon by capitalism to take a squeeze hold on society. This is reflected in the emergence of conservative politicians in the United States and Europe, a trend which has become even more pronounced recently with the emergence of strong authoritarian leaders in various countries around the world.
This pull to the right means much of the optimism of the 60s and 70s has evaporated and much of the progress achieved in those decades is under threat. «Turning Back the Clock» .
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connection. Some of Eco's novels are suggestive of conspiracy or dark powers. However, Eco is much more sophisticated and much more careful than, for instance, Dan Brown (This book features an essay on The Da Vinci Code).Eco's massive output makes selective reading necessary. This collection of essays contains several short pieces of very temporary value, often very specifically related to Italian politics. While these pieces are related to the main theme of the book, they are hard to follow for readers at a greater distance.
"When people stop believing in God, as Chesterton used to say, it's not that they no longer believe in anything, it's that they believe in everything." (p. 301)
This sentence perhaps most clearly demonstrates the main idea of these essays. It is the expression of the shattered optimism that postmodernism has brought to the fore. While in the intellectual aftermath of the Second World War, writers gradually concluded the demise of the Age of Enlightenment, the emergence of postmodernism led to an increasingly depressing outlook on the world. Reason is seen to have failed, and rationalism has led to computationalism and mechanization, which has been seized upon by capitalism to take a squeeze hold on society. This is reflected in the emergence of conservative politicians in the United States and Europe, a trend which has become even more pronounced recently with the emergence of strong authoritarian leaders in various countries around the world.
This pull to the right means much of the optimism of the 60s and 70s has evaporated and much of the progress achieved in those decades is under threat. «Turning Back the Clock» .
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Much of this collection is dominated by the September 11 attacks, the response to such by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair. A nearly equal measure chronicles the political infamy enacted by Silvio Berlusconi. It easy to extrapolate such on to our geo-political present. I wasn’t in the mood
The final third of the essays were more compelling (though lacking the force of Eco's Travels in Hyper-Reality) stretching across myriad subjects such as anti-Semitism and the provenance of the quote, standing on the shoulders of giants. Interspersed is a delightful reading of the mass appeal of Harry Potter.
I applaud the maestro as always and will now make more of an effort to walk under ladders.
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for such.The final third of the essays were more compelling (though lacking the force of Eco's Travels in Hyper-Reality) stretching across myriad subjects such as anti-Semitism and the provenance of the quote, standing on the shoulders of giants. Interspersed is a delightful reading of the mass appeal of Harry Potter.
I applaud the maestro as always and will now make more of an effort to walk under ladders.
Show Less
LibraryThing member et.carole
Turning Back the Clock, a collection of speeches and columns from la Repubblica and other newspapers, serves as a snapshot of early 2000s culture. The scope of his targets shows the depth of knowledge from which Eco draws his observations. His views are shaped by the idea that the heart of history
The value of Eco’s short writing is his ability to define concepts, articulate conflicts, and come to a position that asserts its truth at the same time it clarifies complicated disputes. His distinction between neowar and paleowar is one of these clarifications: in neowars like the Gulf War and Kosovo, the enemy is uncertain, the war has no front, and the media puts the enemy behind the lines: possible in a globalized modern world. In paleowars, the enemy is distinguishable and the violence is literal. We are in a constant state of neowar, and paleo conflicts break out for various purposes: “to assuage immediately the feelings of the American public,” in the case of the war in Afghanistan after 9/11 (19, Some Reflections on War and Peace). This refinement of Orwell’s perpetual war as profitable conflict is immensely useful in considering how we valorize and criticize military action.
Eco’s statements on mass media populism are bitingly relevant, and though I am hardly the first to draw the parallel between Berlusconi and the current American administration, Eco’s observations provide needed sober analysis of the media game being played. “He makes promises that—good, bad, or indifferent as they may seem to his supporters—are a provocation to his critics. He comes up with a provocation a day, and if they are bizarre or outrageous, so much the better… The provocation must be calculated to ensure that the opposition cannot avoid picking up the gauntlet and reacting vigorously…Every form of nationalistic, populist exaltation cultivates a continuous state of frustration” (134-5, On Mass Media Populism). And Eco offers the only solution I have yet seen to this that seems both plausible and constructive: “the opposition must launch its own provocations… Coming up with plans for government on issues about which public opinion is sensitive, proposing ideas about the future organization of the country calculated to make the media devote at least as much attention to them as they do to Berlusconi’s provocations” (140). Further, he observes the difference between a populace created as prop audience for a populist leader and the actual and ideologically diverse populace of a country, and draws all this into the context of a country’s validity on an international scale. Not a direct parallel to the American problem, but a useful case study, maybe.
The final incredibly useful distinction that I will mention (although I found the book to be chock full of them) was between science, a slow truth-seeking institution, and technology, the often mechanical fruits of science, which we are addicted to as a modern manifestation of magic. Magic, Eco says, is “the assumption that it is possible to go from cause to effect without taking intermediate steps” (105, Science, Technology, and Magic). The human faith in magic was not obliterated by experimental science, but transferred from religion and the occult to technology, and continues to deliver “false promises and dashed hopes,” the only hope of recovery from this malady being education (110). From philanthropic activity solely by remote online donation to demands for instant news to expectation of instant performance from all internet-connected objects without consideration of ethical context, we can see this manifest everywhere in our lives. And the strength of this is the same as most of Eco’s other points—it helps us not only examine our position relative to the intellectual legacy left for us, but also aspire to be intelligent, compassionate people capable of shaping our systemically imperfect culture into something better.
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is cyclical, particularly obvious in his look at academia’s patricide in On the Shoulders of Giants and his contrasts between the political landscape of Italy when he was writing to the dominance of fascism earlier in his life and the ancient and medieval legacies. This awareness does not limit him to the pessimism of nothing being new under the sun, but instead makes a clearer contrast between cycles of human thought and truly new phenomena. The value of Eco’s short writing is his ability to define concepts, articulate conflicts, and come to a position that asserts its truth at the same time it clarifies complicated disputes. His distinction between neowar and paleowar is one of these clarifications: in neowars like the Gulf War and Kosovo, the enemy is uncertain, the war has no front, and the media puts the enemy behind the lines: possible in a globalized modern world. In paleowars, the enemy is distinguishable and the violence is literal. We are in a constant state of neowar, and paleo conflicts break out for various purposes: “to assuage immediately the feelings of the American public,” in the case of the war in Afghanistan after 9/11 (19, Some Reflections on War and Peace). This refinement of Orwell’s perpetual war as profitable conflict is immensely useful in considering how we valorize and criticize military action.
Eco’s statements on mass media populism are bitingly relevant, and though I am hardly the first to draw the parallel between Berlusconi and the current American administration, Eco’s observations provide needed sober analysis of the media game being played. “He makes promises that—good, bad, or indifferent as they may seem to his supporters—are a provocation to his critics. He comes up with a provocation a day, and if they are bizarre or outrageous, so much the better… The provocation must be calculated to ensure that the opposition cannot avoid picking up the gauntlet and reacting vigorously…Every form of nationalistic, populist exaltation cultivates a continuous state of frustration” (134-5, On Mass Media Populism). And Eco offers the only solution I have yet seen to this that seems both plausible and constructive: “the opposition must launch its own provocations… Coming up with plans for government on issues about which public opinion is sensitive, proposing ideas about the future organization of the country calculated to make the media devote at least as much attention to them as they do to Berlusconi’s provocations” (140). Further, he observes the difference between a populace created as prop audience for a populist leader and the actual and ideologically diverse populace of a country, and draws all this into the context of a country’s validity on an international scale. Not a direct parallel to the American problem, but a useful case study, maybe.
The final incredibly useful distinction that I will mention (although I found the book to be chock full of them) was between science, a slow truth-seeking institution, and technology, the often mechanical fruits of science, which we are addicted to as a modern manifestation of magic. Magic, Eco says, is “the assumption that it is possible to go from cause to effect without taking intermediate steps” (105, Science, Technology, and Magic). The human faith in magic was not obliterated by experimental science, but transferred from religion and the occult to technology, and continues to deliver “false promises and dashed hopes,” the only hope of recovery from this malady being education (110). From philanthropic activity solely by remote online donation to demands for instant news to expectation of instant performance from all internet-connected objects without consideration of ethical context, we can see this manifest everywhere in our lives. And the strength of this is the same as most of Eco’s other points—it helps us not only examine our position relative to the intellectual legacy left for us, but also aspire to be intelligent, compassionate people capable of shaping our systemically imperfect culture into something better.
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Awards
John Florio Prize for Italian Translation (Runner-Up — 2008)
Language
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
384 p.; 7.9 inches
ISBN
0156034212 / 9780156034210