![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slowfoxAs I mentioned earlier, this is a hard slog of a book, and ultimately not that rewarding for your effort. Jacoby makes some plausible points as to the origins of the perceived anti-rational/anti-intellectualism in US society, but also manages to come across as someone wailing 'stop the world, please, I want to get off...'
It's quite dense reading, full of dates and stats and observations about what is, to me, a foreign culture, so I found it hard to get into. That said, some of it was good: she opens with a discussion about the use of the word 'folks' in political speech, rather than 'people'. The contribution of fundamentalist religion to the rise of anti-intellectualism, the dumbing down of the media and these sorts of things.
On the other hand, other parts of it read very much as though she wishes she could turn back time to, I suspect, an era where intellectuals such as she were accorded the respect that they were due.
Ultimately, one can't help but suspect that the narrator isn't a wholly disinterested party in the analysis.
It's quite dense reading, full of dates and stats and observations about what is, to me, a foreign culture, so I found it hard to get into. That said, some of it was good: she opens with a discussion about the use of the word 'folks' in political speech, rather than 'people'. The contribution of fundamentalist religion to the rise of anti-intellectualism, the dumbing down of the media and these sorts of things.
On the other hand, other parts of it read very much as though she wishes she could turn back time to, I suspect, an era where intellectuals such as she were accorded the respect that they were due.
Ultimately, one can't help but suspect that the narrator isn't a wholly disinterested party in the analysis.
