Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The Age Of American Unreason

... I can't believe I'm doing this either... But it's happening...

Trying to make a video,


2nd try, (I still don't know how to invert the image to have the book show properly.)


Would you believe that only "26% of American adults accept Darwin's theory of evolution?" Or that "1 in 4 public school biology teachers believe that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth simultaneously?" This is fucking ridiculous and altogether embarrassing. Why are we in the midst of such an intellectual depression and how did we get here?

I'm only a couple of chapters into Susan Jacoby's "The Age Of American Unreason" and the theories she's putting forth are already pouring in, bright as day. All while hitting all sorts of personal notes with me. Growing up in the 80's and 90's, video culture dominated my experiences and shaped my attention span. (Which would later be diagnosed as at a deficit, A.D.D., like a lot of children.) And, without having to read anything really longer than 15 pages, with the exception of a few Goosebumps books early on, and half of Wuthering Heights in high school. I found it a breeze to get through Philadelphia's public school system. These, just two of the issues Jacoby picks up while examining the rise of anti-intellectualism and unreason in America. With a quick wit, some damning criticisms and a powerful juxtaposition between America today and that of the newly born America our founder's lived, Jacoby kicks you in the ass from the first page of the book, a quote by Thomas Jefferson...

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Fuck all those days you spent hours gazing at a box, missing life, missing opportunities, and missing knowledge. 

Read This Book! (And buy it from a independent bookstore.)


Words and video by Conrad, some excerpts from "The Age Of American Unreason."

2 comments:

shaikens said...

hey boo, your video is hilarious. we should make our own show, seriously. i think we would do great things.

Anonymous said...

Conrad it such a loser. Can you believe he goes on mother-vlogging air with no makeup? I mean...come on. Also, did I miss a synopsis somewhere in that "book review?" He mentioned something about the human race being stupid, then muttered incoherent babble about the back of the book being blank. Promise me you'll vlog, or blog, again when you have finished the book and can give us a coherent recapitulation.