The Assault on Reason by Al Gore Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Assault on Reason
Book Review: Way Better Than I Expected
Summary: 5 Stars
Al Gore, the man elected President in 2000, has written a more satisfactory non-campaign book than any of the three current candidates to replace the usurper Bush - more forthright than Clinton's, deeper than Obama's, and a hundred times less self-serving than McCain's. What a president he might have made after all! though I wasn't an enthusiastic supporter of his in 2000! I snatched up this book to read on a long airplane flight, thinking that if I fell asleep it wouldn't be a great loss. I intended to leave it on the plane. But it's a solid piece of work - not a literary triumph, not witty or stylish, a tad repetitive, but powerfully insightful into the mess that American public life has become.
It's a sermon, this book of Gore's, a "Jeremiad", the kind of sermon preached in times of cultural crisis. That America is in crisis seems self-evident, with some huge percentage of polled citizens declaring that "we" are going in the wrong direction. Gore's central observation is that political discourse, in the broadest sense, has degenerated since 1980, and that the degeneration may well become more drastic. Fear-mongering and deception have replaced the reasoned give-and-take of American tradition. "The surprising recent dominance of American politics by right-wing politicians," he writes, "whose core values are usually wildly at odds with the opinions of the majority of Americans is one that resulted from a careful building of a coalition of interest groups that have little in common with one another.... This coalition of supporters includes both right-wing religious extremists and exceptionally greedy economic special interests..." and, as he explains in careful detail, extreme ideologues who reject the whole concept of the commons, of "public interest" in favor of unshackled trickle-down capitalism tinged with imperialism. That, friends, is undeniably so.
The "Assault on Reason" has been made possible, according to Gore, by the slow and steady elimination of the vigorous two-way public forum based on access to information, which characterized American democracy in the past. That forum was based on reading, on the participation of many people in the relatively cheap and open-to-all print medium that was the original stimulus of the rise of democratic institutions and their revolutionary overthrow of aristocratic government. As radio and then TV have replaced reading, Gore says, access to information has been re-consolidated in the hands of an oligarchy of wealth, and the flow of debate has become one-way, nothing but "marketing" of ideas, AKA propaganda. In his first chapter, Gore posits that reading, in itself, helps to shape in the human mind the faculty of "reason", which is the essential ingredient of popular sovereignty. Gore is no scientist, although he is fond of scientific metaphors and of seeking scientific explanations for political phenomena. That fondness has opened him to attacks from his deniers, but I have to say that Gore's science is stronger than I expected. I've recently spent some time with my good friend Dr. Joshua Sanes, the head of the Institute for the Study of the Brain at Harvard University. Josh declares that Gore's simple explications of mental processes and development are essentially sound and up-to-date. Anyone who wishes to quibble might be wise to compare Gore's notions with the essay "Toward Basic Principles for Emotional Processing" by Jean-Marc Fellous and Joseph Ledoux, reprinted in the book Who Needs Emotions.
Gore also casts his net of argument to include apt correlations with the ideas of thinkers of the past, from Aristotle to Adam Smith and beyond. In several ways, Gore is the mirror image of the "screaming heads" who serve as the storm troopers of the right - Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly inter alia - whose broadsides are never historically contexted. Gore is moderate, dispassionate even when most impassioned, and careful to offer analysis rather than mere slogans, war cries and insults. It's easy to see why the most vocal ideologues of the right choose him as their bete noir. It must be infuriating to see him succeed in making sense to a lot of people.
It's not just the devolution of reading and reasoning habits that is responsible for the current squalor of public discourse, however. There are culprits, the assailants in this assault on reason, and the chief culprit is George W Bush. Gore writes: "I know President Bush is plenty smart, and I have no doubt that his religious belief is both genuine and an important motivation.... I'm convinced, however, that most of the president's frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with his right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible... Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice..." Much of Gore's book focuses on specific indictments of the Bush administration for deception, secrecy, disregard for law, tyrannous invasion of individual rights and disregard for the Constitution, and outright folly in the struggle against terror, the management of the economy, and the oversight of the environment. Gore never uses the word `impeachment' but it's clear that he regards Bush as guilty of impeachably grave high crimes and misdemeanors. So does this reviewer.
Lincoln said that a "house divided against itself" could not stand. Teddy Roosevelt once railed against the "malefactors of great wealth." Dwight Eisenhower warned us of the "military-industrial complex." Al Gore is not a maker of memorable phrases of their order, but his book is at least as powerful a warning to the American public as theirs. Things have to be fixed, friends, and the fixing begins with repudiating Bush and Bush's version of the Republican party.
Book Review: Five Enemies of Reason...
Summary: 1 Stars
Al Gore, in his new book, lists the "five enemies of reason" -- fear, superstition, ideology, deception and intolerance. And then he writes an entire book that uses fear, ideoloy, deception, and intolerance to make his "reasoned"(how could it not be, since he listed the five impediments of reason) opinion about reason, politics, change, etc.
This guy is the biggest charlatan and snake-oil salesman in the last 200 hundred years. You go, Al! Even after the Oscar, and even after the Nobel Peace Prize, Al is still upset that he didn't win the Presidency in 2000; and all he had to do was win his home state of Tennessee...tend to your own backyard, Mr. Gore. And stop telling us how to tend to ours.
Book Review: Excellent and insightful
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading this book and coming to realize what this country has gone through since the fiasco that resulted in Bush leading this country instead of Gore, I was really saddened. Before this read, I didn't know how insightful and deep Mr. Gore is and truly wish he was on the ballot this go round because someone of his stature is truly what we need at this point in our country's history. The book is fantastic. It is demonstrates how a tyrannical and corrupt administration has been allowed to sink our democracy to the lowest levels in history aided by an unthinking, unreasoning populace. Kudos! A wake up call for all.Book Review: An intelligent book by a polarizing figure.
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll keep this review short since many people have reviewed this book. It seems as though Americans are very polarized on the image of Al Gore. You either really respect him for what he stands for, or you hold him in disregard and consider him to be disingenuous. Most people in the latter group probably would dismiss this book out of hand. For the rest, this is an intelligent book that covers not only some dangers facing our society, but an optimistic appraisal of the opportunities we possess to change course for the better. Here and there, the book may be open to criticism of overreaching or generalization, but for the most part it is an honorable effort by man who should receive more respect than he often does. Book Review: Best yet!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the book for which Mr. Gore should be receiving all the awards and praise. Indeed, the best of his I've read and the best on this subject. This is a serious scholarly work, well researched, well documented and well worth your time. It's one of those books I've wanted to give to everyone I know. When done with this, go on to "The Upside of Down" by Thomas Homer-Dixon.
The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization