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The Age of American Unreason
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
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The Age of American Unreason
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Summary
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 antirationalism.
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.
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Critic reviews
"Electric with fearless interpretation and fueled by passionate concern...brilliant, incendiary, and, one hopes, corrective." ( Booklist)
What listeners say about The Age of American Unreason
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- James Uscroft
- 16-03-23
Bitter Old Journalist Shakes Her Fist At "Video."
"Is This Just A Rant About How 'Video' (The Internet & TV) Is Making Everyone Stupid?"
This was my first thought when I began listening to this audiobook. And while it was soon followed by the question of "Wasn't This Supposed To Be About Anti-Intellectualism/Anti-Rationalism?" as the author spent the next eight chapters rambling about whatever seemed to cross her mind, especially if it annoyed her, the 10th chapter then launches into a rant about the 'Murder' of reading, conversation and the art of letter writing by the vapid convenience of e-mail and iPhones.
In fact, only chapter 9 (the 15th chapter of the audiobook because the editing is a mess) actually addressed what I was expecting from this book; namely, a condemnation of pseudo-science, including the 'Anti-Vax' movement and the myth of the 'Gendered Brain.' But before that point though, far too much of this book was a barely connected auto-biography in which her bitterness as a journalist who can no longer sell long articles because "Nobody Reads Anymore" is almost palpable. And while the author does then swerve back in Chapter 10 from lamenting the death of conversation and letter writing to the terrifying problem of Americans condemning 'Elitist' politicians and perceiving stupidity as a virtue, it's all the same rehashed takes that have been reheated and served up for decades now! Whatever interesting insights the author has about the condemnation of Intellectuals as 'Reds' and the reality of 'The Sixties' appear to be little more than padding for what was originally an article reminding boomers of what (ironically) they were all saying about FaceBook before they finally figured out how to use it and fell down the rabbit hole of 'Doing Their Own Research' and becoming Anti-Vax Fascists. And if that's the case, then this condemnation of 'Re-Packaged Info-Tainment' which pretends to be educational while simply spoon feeding partisan consumers emotionally comforting remixes of what they've already heard because it's what they want to hear is doing exactly the same thing!
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