The Age of American Unreason

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Feb 12, 2008 - Political Science - 384 pages

A 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

Selected pages

Contents

Just Us Folks
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
Selected Bibliography
329
Index
335
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 19 - And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power : and it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
Page 10 - We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will -we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Page 19 - And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth : and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Page 318 - Is it not the chief disgrace in the world not to be a unit, not to be reckoned one character, not to yield that peculiar fruit; which each man was created to bear; but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south?
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 279 - What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
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.
Page 147 - I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America?
Page 73 - The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused.
Page 33 - God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. The study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of joy around all.

About the author (2008)

SUSAN JACOBY is the author of eleven previous books, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion. Her articles have appeared frequently in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and in forums that include The American Prospect, Dissent,and The Daily Beast. She lives in New York City. For more information, visit www.susanjacoby.com.

Bibliographic information