Book Review: The Age of American Unreason
True! American intellectual culture is even more depleted than the elusive, Iraqi uranium stockpiles that apparently have been depleted into non-existence. Susan Jacoby makes that point come across clearly and quite eloquently. Filled with interesting details and plenty of harsh criticism, Jacoby has written an interesting tome on, among other things, why Americans are so obsessed with folksy people (George W. Bush, anyone?), and why so many Americans fear “intellectual elitists” (Obama, anyone?).
The book starts out as a tour de force, and a celebration of middlebrow and highbrow culture. Jacoby is not afraid to point fingers at those who caused the downfall of American intellectualism. Where once the country was founded and shaped by highly esteemed intellectuals, the unholy trinity of religion, politics and the entertainment industry handed the power over to the lowest common denominators. However, famous US intellectuals do not get off that easily themselves in The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby points out how American intellectuals themselves were often guilty of crimes against reason — from 19th century conservatives rubbing shoulders with Social Darwinism, to 20th century crackpot academics.
American education is another target of Jacoby’s verbal punches, and she’s not holding back. Not surprising, and warranted, knowing that Carnegie Mellon gives a course titled ‘American Golf: Aristocratic Pastime or the People’s Game?’, and that you are even able to study ‘Philosophy and Star Trek’ at Georgetown! Jacoby makes one pretty big mistake by using Europe as a shining example of how culturally sophisticated the public ought to be: she seems to be unaware of Europe’s descent into pseudoscience, religious fundamentalism, and anti-intellectualism.
Although I agree with the premise of The Age of American Unreason, the book did make me cringe on several occasions. Jacoby has the tendency to deride personal tastes, such as modern music, or anything she does not consider to be literature. Is she ridiculing me for preferring a novel by Neil Gaiman above a truly boring tome by Emely Brontë, or some bluesy rock by Greg Dulli above a classical symphony? Jacoby comes across as quite conceited. You don’t like what she likes? Well, that’s just because you are an unsophisticated Neanderthal! Still, her point is taken: the average Joe’s exposure to a diverse culture is very limited. The TV rules our thoughts in all its mediocre, simplified, biased glory.
Using a scalpel of wit, Jacoby seems to get it right for most of the book. At least right until the end, when she starts trailing off and, as a true luddite, starts blaming technology for all the woes of modern culture. A few chapters earlier she — in my opinion correctly — blamed religious literalism, sleazy politicians, and the lowered standards of the educational system, but suddenly all the problems are caused by technology. True, l33tspeak and Youtube are not exactly beacons of sophistication, but is technology inherently bad, or is it the way we use it?
Especially her rant against iPods and the internet were ironic: I was using my iPod to listen to the audiobook version I downloaded from Audible.com. The intellectual horror! I guess Susan Jacoby would argue that I should actually be reading the dead tree version of her book, but she never explains where I should find the time to sit down and read. Maybe I should use the time it took me to write this, since she does regard self-expression on the web as highly, highly lowbrow.
While The Age of American Unreason could have been a fantastic treatise on the merit of proper education and cultural diversification, Jacoby’s inconsistent ramblings at the end pull the book down to three stars, out of five. The book is a good read, however, and I do recommend it, preferably in the form of an audiobook played on an iPod, just to compensate for a bit too much zealous luddism.