The Dumbing-Down of Political Language - Susan Jacoby

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/04/24/Susan_Jacoby_on_The_Age_of_American_Unreason

Author Susan Jacoby criticizes the degeneration of language within politics and the use of "folks" in the 2008 United States primary debates.

------

Writer and scholar Susan Jacoby is sure to raise some hackles with The Age of American Unreason - an unsparing jeremiad that attacks the dumbing-down of the American public. Jacoby's area of study is US intellectual history, though she worries that the field is becoming a moot point in the face of our country's pervasive "infotainment" complex.

As politics get folded into entertainment, she argues, so too does morality become indistinguishable from consumerism. Though hardly the first to bemoan the pitfalls of mass culture, Jacoby's portrait of American anti-intellectualism is especially germane in the middle of an election year - Booksmith

Susan Jacoby is the author of The Age of American Unreason. She began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post, and has been a contributor to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers for more than 25 years on topics including law, religion, medicine, aging, women's rights, political dissent in the Soviet Union and Russian literature.

Jacoby has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Jacoby's other books include Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (2004); Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 2008
• presidential
• campaign
• primaries
• candidates
• political
• language
• public
• speech
• intelligence
• mass
• culture
• foratv
• fora.tv
• fora
• tv

[Moionfire]

Intellectualism and "elitism" are not the same thing...

What we need is intellectualism-those who like to think and are logical/rational...

We do not need "elitist" are basically people who want to keep the general public unaware from information, wealth, capital and culture...

[mavaddat]

It's true. The largest part of American voters (though not the majority!) are complete idiots.

[sanchopanza123]

I wonder if she ever got laid?

[sleepcity]

@darkmiles22 It depends on the context in which you use the word "elite". If you mean the economically elite, sure, I would agree with you. But what about elite doctors? Elite astronauts? Elite biologists? Surely those people are the ones worth listening to. Of course it depends on context.

[sleepcity]

The vast majority of those who comment here on YouTube are the lowest-common-denominator types who she is referring to in this book. Like a pond, the scum rise to the top here.

[Leobons]

wow she's beautiful!

[majesticrecords]

shes sexy

[darkmiles22]

Agreed, Moionfire. Intellectualism is being smart, and elitism is keeping the working class ignorant and poor in order to benefit the rich. Just one more sad irony of life in America is that Republicans are elitist in tax policies and in media muddling of the facts, all while Republican media constantly calls Democrats elitist.

[cecilbdml]

Too bad this woman left out the president previous to Reagan, as HE was the first president to use the term. And we all know what a success HE was...those of us who suffered under him, anyway...

Reagan was considered many things, but 'anti-intellectual' was not among them. Unfortunately, people such as this woman didn't like him because, in the arena of ideas, hers suck.

The main complaint these people have is not that discourse has coarsened...it's that there is one in the first place.

[ZhangtheGreat]

I've read her new book, and she's very analytical. She cautions the country that both the left and right have worked nonstop to divide it, appealing to people's emotions and drowning out their practical senses.

America beware: knee-jerk responses and misinterpretations of opinions for personal attacks are only going to lead to divisiveness and intolerance! Sit down and listen to what the other side is saying WITHOUT jumping to the conclusion that they're not worth your time!