The Age of American Unreason

By: Susan Jacoby

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

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, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist 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 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.

©2008 Susan Jacoby (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Smart, well researched, and frequently cogent." ( The New York Times)
"Electric with fearless interpretation and fueled by passionate concern...brilliant, incendiary, and, one hopes, corrective." ( Booklist)

Terrible Narrator

This book isn't bad, though it's marred by factual errors (John Paul II succeeding Paul VI, for example). But the narrator is awful. Anyone who narrates a book largely about intellectual concepts ought to learn how to pronounce them. Among the atrocities were "Aesthetic Communism" and "Cell Stem Research."

Kind of a scatter shot writing technique

The book was an interesting listen because the lady puts out some interesting ideas, plus it is sort of nostalgic listening to a book that was delivered in the waning days of the G.W. Bush presidency, the end of an era so to speak, but the problem is that it is so scatter shot and non-coherent. If she could have stuck to an issue such as neo-conservative right wing religiosity of the last 25 years and the detriment it has caused to our democracy, wrote about it and then moved on to classical liberalism and the great thinkers and books that Americans used to read, and then moved on to how Americans have shortened attention spans. At any rate the book could have been better organized that it was. There is a lot here and there were some good ideas that were touched on, but the lady never goes beyond the surface of what subject she is talking on and then she attempts to loosely tie the subjects together. Honestly she needs to learn how to write books in the popular non-fiction genre. She needs to learn how to organize her books.

A bit preachy, but accurate

An accurate indictment of our seemingly willing slide toward greater stupidity. Wish it was wrong.

This book is a whiny, unscholarly rant.

I shan't take it upon myself to literally disagree with Susan Jacoby on any substantive issue she brings up, but I have serious problems with her style.

While the more fundamentalistic or conservative Americans might dislike the book because it occasionally has a good point about their particular world views, this is by far the least of the criticism that should be levied against this book.

In short, it teaches you nothing. If Susan Jacoby has some kind of scholarly field, it does not appear to coincide with the topics discussed in the book. I was disappointed to discover that Susan Jacoby doesn't make all that many arguments or bring up much evidence in favour of her positions.

Between taking well-deserved stabs against those who are proud of being ignorant and copying the Wikipedia pages of historical figures, Susan Jacoby regales us with purposeless rants against anything and everything she doesn't personally appreciate. No evidence needed.

If you are buying this book for any reason other than to improve upon the personal wealth of Susan Jacoby, I suggest you turn your attention to an author who actually has a point. Or listen to any of a variety of podcasts that cover similar subjects much more effectively, and usually in a more entertaining fashion.

Interesting, but explanation by redescription

So, what did I learn from this book?

1) A lot of facts about stuff that has happened in America. Interesting enough.

2) I have heard a defense of middle-brow morals from the late 50s and early 60s which was pretty compelling (although, it is not coincidental these are the morals with which Jacoby was raised).

3) That the Beatles aren't as good as Chopin (for which there is never a cogent argument besides that "it's obvious" or "Paul Simon doesn't think he's a poet").

4) And that TV is evil and has ruined our society (maybe to some extent, but is that really explaining anything? The question is why has it made us anti-intellectual vs. the Europeans).

I would have to say the anti-Beatles argument really sums up the weak points of this book. While its strengths are in its recitation of the intellectual history of America, its weaknesses are that it usually just hinges on, "well, come on, the Beatles are pop music, not as good as classical, come on!" It's not particularly moving as an argument, frankly.

That Jacoby can never separate her own personal tastes for the intellectual life (NPR, Russian Literature and wine and cheese) from her story about why America has been dumbed down to an almost comical level is a true shame. Because even though the topic could be a fascinating explanation of what's gone wrong with American minds, the book reads more like a personal indictment of things Jacoby doesn't like. Right-wing neocons? Yup she doesn't like 'em. Academic politics? She doesn't like 'em (and boy does she go on about it!). Pop culture? She doesn't like it.

In sum, it's very well read and very interesting, but never goes beneath a surface level of vitriol against the intellectual life to which Jacoby clearly aspires.

Assault by Narrator

This is a brilliant book, written by a knowledgeable and truly educated author. However, the intellectual poverty of the narrator ,Casssandra Campbell, makes the point of the book only too apparent. She is not qualified to read anything beyond the young adult level, because she is totally ignorant of literature. I cringed many times while listening to her displaying her talents. The best example was her murder of Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol by pronouncing it “the ballad of reeding gole.” If you’re able to tolerate this and you’re truly interested in what has happened to our country, this is a book not to be missed.

Uneven

Any additional comments?

This book is uneven in that it often hits the mark but is sometimes wildly off target. For example, I am puzzled by the author's impassioned denunciation of e-books as a symptom of intellectual decay.

The reader was reasonably good but made at least a dozen slips of the tongue that should have been corrected in the production process. For example she said, "FARMERS of the Constitution" instead of "FRAMERS of the Constitution." This type of error is especially notable in an audiobook lamenting a loss of rigor in public discourse.

A Very Thoughtful Discourse Regarding American Anti Intellectualism

I liked this work a good deal. I learned a lot and received a lot of specific ideas for further study. The narrative is relatively straightforward and made a good candidate for an audiobook. I do wish to stress that I did need to relisten to several sections regarding some complicated ideas. I am very glad that I listened to this audiobook. Thank You..,

Great book; poor reader

This is a wonderful book about American anti-intellectualism, but as often seems to be the case, the reader is a problem. Particularly for a book about the decline of learning and respect for erudition in America, it is important that the reader make the effort to learn unfamiliar words in preparation for recording. The sort of person likely to read this book is also likely to be jarred by the many mispronunciations: William Shirer's last name contains a long "I," Lord Elgin's a hard "g," Alfred Kazin's is pronounced "KAY-zin," not "kazz'n," there is no "n" in the final syllable of "pundit," and Oscar Wilde wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," which is not, in fact, a misprint for "goal." These are but a few of the errors I have heard without yet completing the first half of the audiobook. There is a certain irony in a book by the brilliant Susan Jacoby being butchered thus, more or less making the very point of which she writes.

Essential for the nation

Every citizen should read this book. Certainly all those who are or may become parents need to think seriously about the consequences of our choices regarding the consequences of our entertainment culture on developing brains.