The Age of American UnreasonA cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces—usually treated as separate entities—that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of “junk thought” that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion. |
From inside the book
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Page xii
... conservative , because that term , hijacked by the religious right and propagated by the media , is customarily used to describe a person preoccupied with such matters as the preservation of the phrase " under God " in the Pledge of ...
... conservative , because that term , hijacked by the religious right and propagated by the media , is customarily used to describe a person preoccupied with such matters as the preservation of the phrase " under God " in the Pledge of ...
Page xvii
... conservative manner , trumped everything else . But the con- ventional wisdom did an instant about - face , as it so often does , after Democrats many combining an image of cultural traditionalism with opposition to the war in Iraq ...
... conservative manner , trumped everything else . But the con- ventional wisdom did an instant about - face , as it so often does , after Democrats many combining an image of cultural traditionalism with opposition to the war in Iraq ...
Page xix
... conservatives report exactly the same experience on the lecture circuit . The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints , or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent ...
... conservatives report exactly the same experience on the lecture circuit . The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints , or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent ...
Page 7
... conservatives — although I share the conservatives' belief that public schools ought to concentrate on teaching standard English. But the standard of standard American English, and the ways in which private speech now mirrors the public ...
... conservatives — although I share the conservatives' belief that public schools ought to concentrate on teaching standard English. But the standard of standard American English, and the ways in which private speech now mirrors the public ...
Page 4
... conservative Republican household in an upper - middle - class suburb of Chicago , utters the word " folks , " she sounds like a hovering parent trying to ingratiate herself with her children's friends by using teenage slang . The ...
... conservative Republican household in an upper - middle - class suburb of Chicago , utters the word " folks , " she sounds like a hovering parent trying to ingratiate herself with her children's friends by using teenage slang . The ...
Contents
| 3 | |
Intellect and Ignorance | 31 |
THREE Social Pseudoscience in the Morning | 61 |
FOUR Reds Pinkos Fellow Travelers | 82 |
Youth Culture and Celebrity Culture | 163 |
EIGHT The New OldTime Religion | 183 |
NINE Junk Thought | 210 |
Defining Dumbness Downward | 279 |
CONCLUSION Cultural Conservation | 307 |
Notes | 319 |
| 329 | |
| 335 | |
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The Age of American Unreason: Dumbing Down and the Future of Democracy Susan Jacoby No preview available - 2009 |
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academic adults American intellectual anti anti-intellectualism anti-rationalism autism baby Baby Einstein Baptist Beatles believe Bible biblical biblical literalism blogs boys brain Bush campuses Catholic chick lit Christian church civilization Communist conservative critical decades early elite Emerson evangelical evolution faith fifties freethought fundamentalism fundamentalist girls high school highbrow historians human idea ignorance important infotainment institutions intellec intelligent design John junk science junk thought Kennedy Kristol learning lectuals less literal lives magazines majority ment middlebrow middlebrow culture movement nation neoconservative never newspapers nineteenth century Nixon novels parents past percent political politicians popular president Protestant pseudoscience public schools religion religious Review right-wing scientific scientists secular social Darwinism social Darwinists society Soviet Union speech studies Susan Jacoby talking teaching television theory tion United University video games women writing York young
Popular passages
Page 9 - Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on. "I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least— at least I mean what I say — that's the same thing, you know." "Not the same thing a bit,
Page 6 - A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.