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The Age of American Unreason. [Soft cover]
by Susan Jacoby
384 pages, $26.00
ISBN-13: 978-1616877170
Nonfiction
Review by Steven King, MBA, MEd
Susan Jacoby starts with good intentions since her desire is to survey why America is branded as anti-intellectual. A cursory investigation of many segments of our culture indicates that a quest for reason is far from the minds of most people. America's ranking concerning education in the world would seem to indicate that introspective reasoning was truly a thing of the past.
Jacoby's mission is admirable even if her thesis is not.
When a secular atheist attempts to write a book about the unreasonableness of anything, it begs the question almost immediately: What is the source of reason? People ascribing to various faith beliefs will answer that question very differently than she did. Should one purporting to write from a totally secular stance be given greater latitude than one who would attempt the same premise but from religious grounds?
Instead of agreeing to disagree, which always seems to be a stretch for anyone purporting to be secular, Jacoby wastes no time earmarking religious fundamentalism as one of the main causes of anti-rationalism in America. In just the first 20 or so pages, she indicates that those who believe in a coming Messiah only have beliefs that are "...dangerous fallacies." Yet, in the same paragraph, she contends for the Constitutional rights that allow the religiously misguided to have their particular faith - a kind of intellectual snobbery, since in Jacoby's opinion, atheism is the only intelligent stance on faith.
The rest of the book weaves a strange amalgamation of blame. Jacoby gleefully wanders through a minefield to determine what is to blame for America's lack of reason. The reader will get the impression that she is pro-communism, pro-evolution, anti-technology, but pro-reading. Where she can, she'll conflate, a word she's particularly fond of, her current topic with an anti-religious sentiment.
The book is not completely without merit. Her chapter about infotainment hits the proverbial nail on the head about "why" America lacks reason. Collectively, we desire instant gratification without the cerebral task of working to understand something. Perhaps if our culture encouraged reading with the same enthusiasm it does of the latest technological release more rational thought would break forth.
Jacoby would have produced a masterpiece if she had not used her book to bash religiosity. Individuals do, and will continue to have, religious difference. A more poignant thesis might have been to have focused on "how" to encourage Americans to read.
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