Book Review: The Age of American Unreason; Jacoby

The Age of American Unreason; Susan Jacoby, 2008, Pantheon Books; 318 pages.

Jacoby is disgusted. On every page, really disgusted. She laments the ignorance and low brow attitudes of America. But more than that she laments the entire spectrum of American culture. And more than that she laments the causes for the degradation of, well, just everything.

If you don’t realize by the second page that she is an atheist, well, then she is talking about you. Actually she is talking about all of us Americans, with only a few exceptions. We all are the victims of “dumbing down”. Jacoby sets out to show how it happened.

In the first chapter, Jacoby condemns first the effects of the media – especially TV, and second, the rise of “fundamentalist religion”. These are the two sources of anti-intellectualism. It is often not clear whether she is fighting against the anti-intellectualists, or trying to support a return to Reason (capital R) of her own unstated definition. She never gets around to defining Reason, or logic, or rational thinking. It slowly becomes clear that Jacoby thinks that philosophical materialism is Reason. Anyone who is not for embryonic stem cell research is anti-intellectual in her view. Few outside herself know what the scientific method is; if they did they would be materialists like she is. She is for Darwinist evolution and against social Darwinism. For Jacoby, these are the things of intellectualism and Reason. But again, she never defines intellectualism or Reason, so we must take examples to show us.

Jacoby writes in angry sound (or word) bites, which leave the reader suspicious of the absent, full background, not covered, and the conclusions that are derived. In fairness, she attempts (in broad strokes) too much ground to actually fit into the space of one book. In so doing, she ignores certain influences that are actually pertinent, such as the influence of John Dewey (and through Dewey: Darwin) on the dumbing-down process.

In other cases she makes deductions that are patently false, such as assuming that all “fundamentalists” are in pursuit of no education outside the Bible, and are massively ignorant and happy that way. The facts are that home-schooled children do far better than government schooled children, including in math and science. Moreover they watch less TV. And this occurs frequently in “fundamentalist” homes that refuse to allow their children to be inadequately educated by the state. The fundamentalist attack is unnecessary and incorrect. One suspects that fundamentalists just hack Jacoby off.

Oddly it is the state-provided education that Jacoby abhors, and rightly so. In recent news releases it is shown that states have massively under-reported the failure to graduate 9th grade students. Real drop out rates are obscene, with only 60% to 70% of 9th graders making it to graduation. Those who do graduate typically don’t know much beyond taking the test.

Jacoby attacks the far left and the far right alike, leaving one to wonder who is left, since the middle ground is ignorant beyond repair. In fact her final conclusion is a statement of her disgust, now degraded into despair. After suggesting that intellectuals, parents, teachers and politicians step up to the plate, she concedes the following:

“None of these suggestions addresses the core problem created by the media – the pacifiers of the mind that permeate our homes, schools and politics. There is little evidence to indicate that Americans have either the desire or the will to lessen their dependency on the easy satisfactions held out by the video and digital world…”

“If there is to be an alternative to the culture of distraction, it can only be created one family at a time, by parents and citizens determined to preserve a saving remnant of those who prize memory and true learning above all else. Adult self-control, not digital parental controls, is the chief requirement for the transmission of individual and historical memory.”

Incredibly Jacoby takes the same attitude as home-schoolers, without acknowledging them in any way whatsoever.

From my perspective, Jacoby’s book amounts to a prolonged and detailed rant followed by little substance. The are few positive portraits; among them are those of Bill Moyers, from whom an attack on religion is quoted, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. from whom an anti-war lament is quoted, and Diane Ravitch who along with Schlesinger wrote a piece promoting history teaching. Jacoby, herself reflected in the words of her book, comes across as widely read, thoroughly disgusted, and somewhat depressed. Probably because she has no real answers.

Moreover she has totally ignored other dumbing-down assessments from books such as the massively documented “the deliberate dumbing down of America” by Iserbyt; “the Freefall of the American University”, by Black; and “Brainwashed”, by Shapiro. According to these, especially Iserbyt, there is far more to the issue than Jacoby has discovered.

All in all, not a pleasant read, not a satisfactory assessment, and without a satisfactory remedy.