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 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. 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |