Be warned. This is long and I’m not sure it’s worth the reading, but I enjoyed writing it, so what the heck.
Most of the books I read concern events that happened a long long time ago, if not far away. Thus, they are not really appropriate for comment on this blog. The book I just finished, Idiot America, by Charles P. Pierce, as the name implies, is strictly concerned with current events. No one with an ounce of historical perspective could deny that while idiocy has always had a place in America, it has reached its apogee in the here and now.
So, one might argue that Pierce has an easy job-no barreled fish is easier to hit than an Idiot in America. They are, after all, everywhere. But Pierce makes reading about them a pleasure. This book is Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason, salted by the outrage and mockery that Gore could not have employed. It’s a fun read throughout.
You might say that this is a book length meditation on a concept that Stephen Colbert brilliantly reduced to a single word: truthiness.
Pierce is not the first person to notice that the the notion of truth has become a malleable concept in this country. The very people who otherwise think in absolutes are the most likely to treat truth as a relative term, determined not by resort to objective provable fact, but to belief. In this country, Pierce correctly asserts, a firmly held belief (provided, usually, that it is grounded in Christian doctrine or some other creed, such as capitalism, entitled to unquestioning respect) is accorded equal status with provable fact. Thus, creationism and evolutionary theory are entitled to equal credence and equal treatment, because creationists vociferously assert their belief, and therefore are entitled to respect. But it goes one step further. It isn’t really even necessary for one side to have a deeply felt belief; it is enough that they pretend to believe convincingly though cynically. Thus, we give credence to the absurd charge that Sadaam was in league with Osama, or to the assertion that the verdict is not in on global warming. It’s not that facts don’t matter, it’s just that facts are not entitled to any precedence. Moreover, as Pierce points out, the traditional American skepticism of experts and intellectuals has been put to good use by the idiots. The fact that one is an expert in a given field is now positive evidence that the opinion of that person should be ignored. Put another way, we have promoted anyone who speaks loudly and emphatically about a subject to the status of expert, on an equal par with someone who has actually spent a lifetime studying the subject. Thus, Sean Hannity can qualify as an expert on stem cell research, or anything else about which he chooses to pontificate. (Cue Gilbert & Sullivan: “If everyone is somebody , then no one’s anybody” ) Of more moment, self styled neocon “experts”, who had no real understanding of the mid-East situation, trumped the real experts who insisted that a Sadaam-Osama connection did not exist. Fervent belief, or fervent pretending trumped the facts, both within the Administration and within the punditry. According to Pierce, discussion of issues degenerates into something like team sports, with partisans on both sides taking positions based on faith.
The book is a polemic, so Pierce can be forgiven a little exaggeration, but I do think he does underestimate the intelligence of the American people. (Yes, I can hear P.T. Barnum laughing) A lot of them are idiots, but not as many as the folks who lead them are wont to believe. In his treatment of the Schiavo case, for instance, he neglects to point out that while the Democrats in Congress largely scurried to protect their right flanks, the American people, once aware of the situation, were immediately, forcefully, and overwhelmingly non-idiotic. It was the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency and Republican ascendance. Yes, we are often idiots, but we are not nearly as idiotic as the Democrats assume us to be, or the Republicans want us to be.
Pierce is particularly effective when he writes about the victims of idiot America: the Native American inhabitants of the Alaskan town of Shishmaref, situated on a barrier reef island slowly being destroyed as a consequence of global warming, whose governor does not believe it is happening; or the employees of the hospice in which Terry Schiavo died, who were subjected to harassment ranging from the absurd-a subpoena from Congress to produce the brain dead Schiavo so she could testify about her wish to live- to the terrifying-death threats and other abuse. Of course, in a larger sense we are all victims. For example, if the Republicans have their way they will kill heath care legislation once again by endlessly repeating talking points that will be exceeding truthy, and exceedingly untrue. If history repeats itself, and it will, the truthy and the true will be given equal standing in the national debate, with a tie going once again to the truthy.
At times Pierce asserts that this is a game both sides play-and no doubt there have been folks on the left that have dabbled in truthiness- but in fact at the present time the willingness to cater to, and act like, idiots is a right wing phenomenon. At worst, the Democrats meekly cower in fear at the prospect of the idiot masses (who are still, when all is said, a minority among us). The true idiots, as Pierce demonstrates, are the members of the various groups that form the Republican base and a goodly share of the Republicans in Congress.
Pierce argues for an American exceptionalism-there are idiots elsewhere, but nowhere else are they treated with such deference and respect. I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Any culture in which “faith” is put on a par with fact will exhibit similar patterns of behavior. Europe is less idiotic now because Europe has, at least for the moment, lost faith in faith. But where faith is strong, similar forces will be at play. In today’s Times, for instance, we learn that neither side in Iran is concerned with facts any longer. They believe what they believe, evidence be damned and their positions are hardening. As in America, the two sides are losing their ability to talk to each other.
The book is an indictment. Other than a call for a return to reason, interwoven with a well deserved tribute to that most reasonable of the Founders, James Madison, Pierce offers no prescription. It’s not clear that there is one. Obama actually appears to be a guy who is more or less determined to act in a rational manner, idiots be damned. We’ll see how it works out.
As a sidenote, this book seems to embody a trend I’ve noticed lately-bad editing. Maybe it’s an over reliance on computers-spell check, etc. I know from experience that after I’ve worked on something for awhile I start seeing what I think I wrote, rather than what I did write. I have my secretary read my legal briefs so she can catch that sort of stuff. In Idiot America there are words misplaced, or misused (“literal” instead of “literally”) and sadly, for a book arguing for reliance on fact, glaring factual errors. For instance, the date Joe Wilson wrote his column in the Times is off by a year, and the date Andrew Bacevich, Jr. died in Iraq is off by five. These are obvious typos, but isn’t that what editors are for?
UPDATE: Corrected the name of Al Gore’s book. Sorry about that.
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