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Title: Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power Brokers, Media Morons, and the Erosion of Common Sense by Francis Wheen ISBN: 1-58648-247-5 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 01 June, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: No Proof in IDIOT PROOF
Comment: The dust jacket depicts cartoonish figures of Princess Diana, Deepak Chopra, Noam Chomsky, Hillary Clinton, Pat Buchanan, and Ayatollah Khomeini, accompanied by carnival-print phrases like "Deluded Celebrities" and "Media Morons." The back cover offers a testimonial that IDIOT PROOF is a companion to Michael Moore's STUPID WHITE MEN. Whatever this book is, it decidedly does not belong with anything by Michael Moore. Furthermore, the contents of this book are rather substantially different than the expose-style cover would suggest. Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and Francis Fukuyama, and Alan Sokal occupy far more of this book's content than Hillary Clinton and Pat Buchanan. The latter have clearly and misleadingly been pasted onto the cover to attract American buyers. Then again, how many Americans would buy this book if its cover was plastered with head shots of Diana, Tony, and Margaret surrounded by Immanuel Kant, Jacques Derrida, Noam Chomsky, Tom Friedman, and Jacques Lacan?
IDIOT PROOF is an extraordinarily difficult book to categorize, in part because it feels like it was written by an ADHD sufferer. The book skips wildly from philosophy to economics to pop culture to globalization to Marxism to Islamic fundamentalism to the dot.com bubble to the sins of left-wing liberalism and the IMF to Enron. In the end, it is difficult to know who the idiots are and what their delusions are, since the only common thread seems to arise out of a specious argument that Margaret Thatcher led a revolt against the rational principles of the Age of Enlightment. So Americans can apparently blame Dame Maggie for everything from irrational exuberance to Paris Hilton, from aromatherapy to UFO sightings at Area 51.
Following an opening discourse on Immanuel Kant, Chapter 1 traces the new Victorianism of Margaret Thatcher's ministry. The next chapter deals with the inflated importance of gurus from Tom Peters, Stephen Covey and Deepak Chopra to Anthony Robbins, John Gray, and Jeffrey Robbins, a subject that seems consistent with the book's title and cover depictions.
The next chapter jumps to a bizarre discourse on Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington, followed by a chapter on structuralism, deconstructionism and the post-modernist critics from Derrida to Lacan to Stanley Fish, wrapped up with a riff on creationism in Kansas.
Chapter 5 gets seemingly back on point with an amusing discussion of popular delusions and quackery, ranging from Nostradamus to homeopathy to UFO's and the Book of Revelation. Much of the remainder of the book wanders through religious fundamentalism, the military-industrial complex, Al Gore's tobacco farm, Lady Diana worship,Thomas Friedman, the East India Company, the World Bank, Enron, Islamic fundamentalism, and finally to Pol Pot and Noam Chomsky. The wrap-up says it all -- those who reject rationalism and the Enlightenment live in darkness and threaten to take the rest of us with them.
Individual chapters in IDIOT PROOF are generally interesting in themselves, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. In the end, this book lacks a strong enough connecting thread to tie together such wildly disparate topics and their odd juxtapositions. It hardly seems necessary to use 287 pages to make the point that rationalism is more rational than religious fundamentalism and New Age mumbo-jumbo, and in the end, there appears to little notion as to what to do about it. The author offers little hope, and the dust jacket lamely suggests that "we might just think a little more and believe a little less." Yeah, I guess that pretty well solves the problem, doesn't it?
IDIOT PROOF is less than its cover suggests, but also more than the puffery displayed in the cover design. Buy this book for its depth of thought on some complex intellectual topics and its deft puncturing of cults, spiritualism, self-help, and a host of left-wing shibboleths. But don't buy this book as a trashing of pop culture, and definitely don't buy it as a companion piece to Michael Moore.
Rating: 1
Summary: More whining all the time from frannie
Comment: I look forward to the day when Francis Wheen will use his considerable inteligence and talents towards saying something instead of just being, you know, clever.
Rating: 4
Summary: The return of enlightenment
Comment: As a society have we completely lost touch with the reason and enlightenment that brought us out of the dark ages and into modern science? If so have we become so confused that we are headed back to a time when reason is thrown away in favor of what can only be called superstitious belief? Author Francis Wheen examines our world today and how cults, superstition, and the desire to want to believe have caused a veritable epidemic of foolishness often passing as science. In his book "Idiot Proof" he takes on several people who are veritable icons of contemporary society - people like Nancy Reagan, Deepak Chopra, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, and many others. In addition to people he takes on various subjects like UFOs, crystals, psychics, and astrology. This is a book about how people are lead like sheep to the slaughter merrily bleating along the way totally unaware of their folly. While you may not agree with all the assessments, they are logically founded and well argued.
While I enjoyed the book and Mr. Wheen's commentary, I don't personally agree with everything in the book. Still, I recognize the importance of having people like Mr. Wheen occasionally point out the contrasting side of a belief. The way we grow and refine our beliefs requires that we keep an open mind and examine all sides. Mr. Wheen serves this purpose of presenting the opposing viewpoint very well. Then again, if we have learned anything from history it is that science can lead us down the wrong path just as easily as any superstition. There was a time when doctors lost their jobs and were subject to ridicule if they believed in germs. The whole concept was nonsense and against logic and current knowledge.
With plenty of notes and cross-references at the end of the book, "Idiot Proof" is a recommended read and sure to be enlightening to everyone on at least a few fronts.
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Title: New Religions: A Guide : New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities by Christopher Partridge ISBN: 0195220420 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love by Richard Dawkins ISBN: 0618335404 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Who Are We : The Challenges to America's National Identity by Samuel P. Huntington ISBN: 0684870533 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: May, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson ISBN: 0805070044 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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