edited<<because we never bothered to ask for anything more enlightened then 'lower my taxes'>> The mindset of spoildom screaming "I want my Cake and to Eat it too".
i recommend to you GST , if you haven't already, read Chris Hedges slashing lenghthy essay of a book called "The Empire of Illusion and The End of Literacy and The Triumph of Spectacle"
In ultra brevity he brings out the U.S. has lost both it Soul and its ability to think and makes he makes argument to establish that view--it does at end say there is and always will be a minority that is separate from the majority via heart,reason and literacy such as denoted in Truffault's movie "Fahrenheit 451"(Based on a literary work by Ray Bradbury).
i suggest we will always be a minority as the the illusion of Progress slowly reveals it was always just a slow motion train wreck of human egoism, man progresses in technology, but, as a majority, never within its heart.Max
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a solid review follows:
256 of 264 people found the following review helpful:
An anguished, angry cry of outraged reason, July 16, 2009
By William Timothy Lukeman
"Chris Hedges' newest book may be a screed, but it's an uncomfortably accurate one, delving into the addictive, corrupting hold of comforting & distracting illusion over too many Americans. From the even vaster wasteland of TV, brought to us by endless channels, to the drug of sensation at its lowest common denominator from the porn industry, to the "think happy thoughts" snake oil of both New Age & fundamentalist belief systems --
But you have to stop & catch your breath, or else be swept away by the torrent of mediocrity & cheerfully willful ignorance that passes for contemporary culture & thought. Once you're aware of how thoroughly blanderized & infantilized our culture has become, it's all too easy to succumb to despair or cynicism. And with good cause!
Hedges wisely selects just a few specific examples as indicators of something far more pervasive & widespread. Particularly disturbing is the chapter on the so-called "adult" entertainment industry, which is anything but adult. The graphic description of the ways in which women are used & discarded as commodities is sickening, yet we're clearly just getting the tip of a very slimy iceberg.
And Hedges connects this aspect of dehumanization to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, showing how sexuality & torture intertwine. Most disturbing of all is how accepted & mainstream this sort of "entertainment" has become -- we're not talking about erotica or old-fashioned porn, which at least portrayed sex as mutually enjoyable for men & women; what we see now is humiliation, suffering, pain, almost all of it inflicted on women for the pleasure of emotionally stunted men.
More than that, though, Hedges explores the ways in which reason & literacy -- the humanities -- are shunted to the margins in favor of a utilitarian mindset, one that boils down to, "What's in it for me, right now, and how can I get the most of it as quickly as possible?" And that "most" is wealth, status, power, and the illusion of importance -- a humanity measured in things, rather than in being.
From that point, we're shown how these personal illusions contribute to & help sustain a national, even global, illusion of power, self-righteousness, corruption & control. It's bread & circuses for the masses, with digital soma mainlined at every waking moment. Meanwhile, the real elites, the corporate masters of our world, do whatever their insatiable appetites demand. This invariably requires bloodshed & suffering inflicted upon those least able to resist it. .
Is Hedges overwrought? Is he exaggerating the crisis at hand? If so, it's not by very much. As a war correspondent of some 20 years, he's seen the brutal results of illusionary thinking first-hand. This book is born of bitter experience, as Hedges bears witness to the ongoing destruction of the human soul, which is lost in a world of glittering superficiality which can't conceal its innate cruelty, ugliness & emptiness.
Not a reassuring book by any means, but certainly an eye-opening one -- most highly recommended!"
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BTW, any book written by Rush Limbaugh, or Sarah Palin, or Barack Obama or or Bill O'Riley,or Oprah Winfrey, or Henry Kissinger etcetera etcetera would sell much better.
Also Books like mega bestsellers such as the reeking idiocy of the book "The Secret"
This Hedges book did hit 1,000 rank on Amazon, but has fallen into the 2000s ranked area now, and will continue to drop over time--the subject matter not for thinking minds seeking fellow thinkers.Max |
