Review: The Assault on Reason

Abstract

THE ASSAULT ON REASON Al Gore New York: Penguin Press, 2007. 308pp, $32.50 cloth (ISBN 978-1-5 9420-122-6)The Assault on Reason - is italicized for emphasis on front cover is a polemic masquerading as a thoughtful book. Al Gore effectively identifies many of threats to Americans' historic commitment to rational discourse. At his best, his wide-ranging, thought-provoking analysis updates and reinforces founding fathers' venerable works with cutting-edge neurological and psychological research. Unfortunately, embedded in this timely, important, substantive critique is a trendy, banal, and predictable attack on George W Bush's administration. One need not be a Bush apologist to be disappointed by this descent from a lofty philosophical and scientific plane to more pedestrian and personal political terrain.Our is in danger of being hollowed out, former vice president and recent Nobel peace prizewinner warns, in introduction to this short, crisp, well- organized book (10). Burnishing his credentials as ultimate Harvard man, Gore mixes worlds of scholarship and politics, theoretical and practical, explaining complicated intellectual ideas in easily digestible prose. His argument is accessible without being simplistic. He begins by looking at web of connections linking printed word, and democracy (11). Seeking philosophical and technological preconditions that created American politics, Gore proclaims, the age of print begat Age of Reason which begat age of democracy (12). As literacy spread, newspapers and pamphlets involved individuals intelligently in politics, developing a commitment to rational discourse. The resulting wellinformed citizenry created (12). In short, Gutenberg blazed a trail for Jefferson; great readers make for good citizens.Unfortunately, modern communications threaten democracy's mutuality and sense of community. Just as modern psychologists' attachment theory teaches that without two-way communication babies feel powerless, monolithic media makes modern citizens feel irrelevant. Meanwhile, neurologists warn against being overstimulated by kind of loud, colourful fare triggering sensory overload that dominates pop culture marketplace. In a haunting, eloquent passage, Gore describes one-way nature of communication he most blames on television revolution: Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They absorb, but they cannot share. They hear, but they do not speak. They see constant motion, but they do not move themselves. The 'well-informed citizenry' is in danger of becoming 'well-assumed authence' (16).Gore errs by overstating newspapers' responsiveness in 18th and 19th centuries. The American revolution began as an elites' rebellion. Only once British alienated homegrown American aristocrats with access to wealth, power, and newspaper columns, did movement for independence grow. And even after Jacksonian revolution created mass party politics, most Americans felt involved but not truly empowered to shape their nation's destiny. Still, modern media's narcotizing passivity has distracted and demoralized most American voters.Rather than fully developing these themes after introduction, Gore spends next five chapters critiquing Bush administration. These chapters are supposed to indict today's enemies of reason, yet somehow they keep returning to Bush's sins. …