Age of American Unreason: Dumbing Down and the Future of Dem
by Susan Jacoby
- Used
- Good
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Good
- ISBN 10
- 1905847661
- ISBN 13
- 9781905847662
- Seller
-
Newport Coast, California, United States
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About This Item
Synopsis
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public.Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment--from television to the Web--and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion.At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.From the Hardcover edition.
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Details
- Seller
- Bonita (US)
- Seller's Inventory #
- 1905847661.G
- Title
- Age of American Unreason: Dumbing Down and the Future of Dem
- Author
- Susan Jacoby
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- ISBN 10
- 1905847661
- ISBN 13
- 9781905847662
- Publisher
- Pantheon Bks.,2008
- Place of Publication
- London, United Kingdom
- This edition first published
- 2008