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Oct 15, 2011

Bill rated it:

Charlie Pierce loves cranks, whom he views as distinctively American types who stay true to their convictions and, in the process, help keep us all intellectually honest. He doesn't even mind it when individual cranks sell out and become charlatans, as cranks will no doubt do upon occasion, but when our contemporary cranks--particularly anti-science right wing fundamentalist cranks--become commodified and exhibited by the 24 hour news cycle as if they were mainstream voices, and then are More...

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Dec 26, 2009

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio marked it as to-read

The title's a bit, um, idiotic, but provocative enough to get people reading and thinking, hopefully. The following is from PZ Myers somewhat (in)famous blog, Pharyngula:

Idiot America, new and expanded
Category: Books • Creationism • Kooks • Politics • Religion
Posted on: May 11, 2009 2:43 PM, by PZ Myers

Charles Pierce has expanded an essay into a full blown book on Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, soon available in fine bo More...

6 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 25, 2011

Esteban rated it:

Facts are a matter of opinion and opinion is shaped by the most adept, if cracked, demagogues. Still, hasn't it always been thus?

"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about." -- Mark Twain

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 13, 2011

Adrian rated it:

This turned out to be one of the most partisan books I've read in years, but was still helpful in putting words to the climate of Idiocracy that's risen to prominence in the US, and to some extent Canada. The book lays much of the blame at the feet of conservatives and religious extremists (i.e. evangelical christians, right-to-lifers, etc), but there's plenty of blame to go around.

Most worrying is the trend toward "gut feeling" (later called "truthiness" by Step More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2011

Tom rated it:

Wow - this book is enlightening, maddening, frustrating and heartbreaking all at the same time. Enlightening because Pierce gives a very sound theory of how science and intellectualism went from being praised and admirable to being scorned and looked upon with suspicion. Maddening because this country could be so much further advanced that it is now, if not for those who think their opinions deserve equal ground despite being no more sound than a street corner preacher's. Frustrating, as you rea More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2012

Jean rated it:

A very funny and very angry book about an idea that I have had for some time now, but have never heard articulated until this caustic book.

Idiot America is not about the "dumbing down of America". It doesn't rail against how modern society is slowly turning our collective brains to mush. America is better educated with more information than ever before.

Charlie Pierce has a finer point to make. Idiot America is about the intellectual bankruptcy that is currently More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2009

Lori rated it:

Granted, I'm no intellectual giant. I'm just an average right brainer trying to hack it on these mean tech savvy streets. Who am I to call somebody else an idiot? To label our larger society as thus? But just look around you these days. Isn't it scary sometimes? Do you ever get the feeling you are playing a bit part in a George A. Romero feature?

I came up in the 1970s and 80s..."Good Times!", "Happy Days", "Keep Looking Out for Number One" and " More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2009

Ed rated it:

Is the wholesale dumbing-down of our "culture" a myth, like the clubbing of the dodos, or a reality, like Jon & Kate + 8 and their apparent train-wreck of familial verisimilitude. I watched the show a total of once, for a total of maybe 20 minutes, and discovered two things. One, it was like a train wreck that you can't stop looking at although your scruples urge you otherwise. Two, Kate is decidedly strident; a phrasing I've chosen because this is a family site. Anywho, if this books More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 27, 2011

Tippy rated it:

If you're interested in this book because it sounded like it might be funny, don't bother. All of the humor is in the book jacket. Dinosaur with a saddle-ha! But that's it. Nor are his arguments, true or not, presented in full-that is he presents a conclusion but no discussion or argument. He just runs on and on, one example after another, but doesn't bother to explain why the example is relevant or give us even a teensy bit of analysis. I like his idea of "cranks" and how they are More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 09, 2011

Hillery rated it:

Raises a lot of valid, and scary, issues with respect to the apparent war on anything intellectual in our country. An educated citizenry is vital to the survival of our democracy, not to mention our place in the increasingly competitive global economy. However, the three premises of Idiot America seem to have taken hold. 1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, drives up TV ratings, etc. 2) Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough. 3) Fact is what enough people believe. The e More...

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Feb 16, 2011

Sheila rated it:

Author Charles Pierce has a piercing sense of humor, a fine ear for the absurd, and an honest intellect engaged in research. His book, Idiot America, How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, is deservedly a national bestseller. It’s also a curious mix of slow well-argued positioning, historically well-researched references, and scathingly hilarious comments.
An English teacher once told me it was easy to make readers cry but much harder to make them laugh. Pierce’s book does bo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Michel rated it:

Three things happened to me on this day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.
I read this book, on the subway and on the ferry, I went to visit Ms Liberty and Ellis Island ("Give me your poor, your downtrodden, your disenfranchised" - very moving on election day - who are those people, immigration descendants, who are against immigration???) and I had my second worst election night (topdog is of course W2K, remember Flori-duh?).
Which brings me back to this b More...

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Mar 16, 2010

Dan rated it:

I love Charlie Pierce. I mean, when I wake up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning (yeah, I'm one of those nuts), I immediately flip on "Only a Game" on our NPR station to hear Charlie's hilarious take on sports. And the speed of his wit on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" is dazzling. So, it was with great gusto that I seized "Idiot America" off the library shelves.

Disappointing? Well, maybe just a little. Charlie is a funny/angry man who can laugh/rail/bemoan the s More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2009

Al rated it:

Charles Pierce sets out in pursuit of cranks and fools in Idiot America after establishing his three great premises:
1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherwise moves units.
(2) Any thing can be true if someone says it loudly enough.
(3) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.
I was sold in the bookstore when I read his description of the dinosaur with the saddle in the Creation Museum, but t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2009

Judy rated it:

My advice is don't read this book in public--depending on your political orientation, you will either continually burst out laughing or ask people around you for matches so that you can set it on fire. I'm in the first group and so I enjoyed this rant against the anti-intellectualism of contemporary America quite a bit. Charles Pierce identifies three great truths about the current political climate in the United States. First, any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherw More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2009

Travis rated it:

A funny, intelligent and quite frightening look at how the people that used to be called cranks and crackpots are now running the country and setting up the rules for how we deal with and talk about issues.

Pierce shows how the cranks used to dwell on the fringes and were entertaining and occasionally got us to rethink our ideas, are now driving the bus and somehow being willfully ignorant has become seen as a positive trait and people who have actually studied a subject and deal in More...

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Jul 26, 2009

Andrea rated it:

Pierce is concerned with the growing contempt for knowledge in our culture, which he feels has wide relevance for our political, economic and social future. The material he covers will seem fairly self-evident to many i.e., the equating of religious belief with scientific theory, the growth in influence of talk radio hucksters as opposed to the informed experts, the mainstreaming of "crank" conspiracy theories. What makes this book refreshing is Pierce's wit and bravery. He makes th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2009

David rated it:

If you've ever felt like picking up the entire country, shaking it, and yelling "What is wrong with you?!", this may be the book for you. Pierce gives a more reflective and erudite version of that, but leaves the vitriol intact.

Pierce's basic thesis is that cranks are all well and good, and America has always been relatively hospitable to cranks, but they need to occupy the fringe. They help drive new ideas, either to refute them or to support them, but the cranks themselve More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2009

Steven rated it:

This is a book of juxtapositions--cranks who produce goofy ideas, but are--in essence--harmless versus idiots who are ignorant and try to impose their ignorance on others. Example: a crank, Ignatius Donnelly who argued that he had discovered Atlantis, versus advocates of the Creation Museum in Kentucky (an example of Idiot America), whose fellow travelers try to get evolution out of the classroom or intelligent design in. A second juxtaposition--faith in reason and human development, associated More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Evan rated it:

The debate between three and four stars was tricky. I read the preface to this book a couple of years ago and have always intended to read it, figuring I'd know, at long last, why we're all so damned stupid. However, Idiot America isn't that. It's not a polemical akin to Robert Bork's insipid Slouching Towards Gomorrah in which the author merely uses subjective cultural markers to bemoan the world going to hell in a handbasket. What Idiot America actually focuses on is less a cultural shift (tho More...

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May 24, 2010

Charles Dee rated it:

I had wondered if I could make it through this. Would it be too infuriating, or too much a case of preaching to the converted? Well, parts are infuriating, as they should be, and it is unlikely that its readership will include many of those whom Pierce would make citizens of Idiot America. But his portraits of James Madison, the smartest guy at the Continental Congress, and that classic nut-job Ignatius Donnelly, the man whose book on Atlantis set the pattern for psuedo-science bestsellers tha More...

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Dec 05, 2011

Bart rated it:

This is a well-written rebuttal to what the author sees as the stupidity of the Bush presidency and a time when "Idiot America" took over the reigns of power in the United States.

This is not a joyous book. Its humor, when humor is allowed, is sneering and immodest. The author is smarter than the subjects he pans, knows he's smarter and often cannot help himself; it is essential that his readers know how much smarter he is. In many ways, this book is a return to the years o More...

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Sep 08, 2011

Dave rated it:

Yes, this book is extremely partisan. The author notes early in the book that Democrats are also guilty in some instances of what he is accusing the Conservative movement of, but there aren't any examples given. This can might be excused as the best (or rather, worst) examples of "Idiot America" do come from the far right, but the nutballs on the left do get off easy in this piece. There are problems on both sides of the fence, but this book keeps its eye on the right side.

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Mar 30, 2011

Sharon rated it:

About halfway through this book, I thought "This is the kind of book that will never be read by the people most in need of its content."

Why? Because journalist Charles Pierce is skewering America's anti-intellectuals with flawless research, brilliant examples -- and their won words. For example, when Pastor Mummert (major proponent of the Dover School District intelligent design fiasco) says "We're under attack by the intelligent, educated part of society" and p More...

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Jun 12, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This is a pretty decent little polemic with a fairly irrefutable premise: there are a lot of idiots on television and in positions of power in America. It’s not a dense or difficult book, and it was clearly written with a healthy mixture of anger, disgust and bemused humor. I enjoyed reading it and even learned a thing or two, but wouldn’t recommend spending full price for a new hardback copy. I read it on my Kindle, but it would be an ideal purchase if you’re only paying a couple of bucks fo More...

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May 24, 2011

Bill rated it:

Have you ever opened a book to the first chapter and just knew you were going to love the entire thing? This book starts out with "Dinosaurs With Saddles", and I was hooked from then on by Pierce's funny and incisive commentary on how "stupidity became a virtue in the Land of the Free". It is endlessly quotable, which I shall now do liberally:

"The America of Franklin and Edison, of Fulton and Ford, or the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program, the America of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2009

Grace rated it:

Charles P. Pierce's book "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" is an insightful and intelligently written book that cites several examples (some more well known than others) of America's slide into stupidity. Examples are compared to the prolific writings of Constitutional Convention power house and U.S. President James Madison, which outline his visions of government and this nation.

He covers everything from a museum where dinosaurs wear s More...

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Jul 09, 2009

Richard rated it:

I'm about halfway through this book, and I'm a bit disappointed with it. I'm sympathetic to the topic, but the book seems unfocused and poorly organized at times.

The author does make some good points, particularly how our idea of national debate has devolved into national argument. He also notes that cable news channels don't really focus on providing information as much as providing "infotainment."

None of this is new or particularly insightful, although he doe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2010

Anthony rated it:

An inflammatory title, but an important homage to the timeless American Crank which helps to understand today's politics: The Three Great Premises -- anything could be true as long as you say it loudly enough, you appear to believe it, and enough people believe it fervently. We only get in trouble when the American Crank is elected to high office, or given a sales platform to market bunkum to believers en masse. To quote from the book:

"Idiot America is the development of the More...

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Jul 31, 2009

Dnelson rated it:

In this critique of contemporary American civic culture, Pierce's point is not so much that Americans are literally stupid (despite the undiplomatic title) as that we have spurned legitimate expertise based on knowledge and fact as "elitist" in favor of a culture that favors the loudest, most fervently believed opinions proceeding from "the gut." Conspiracy theorists, neoconservatism, intelligent design anti-evolutionists, climate change deniers, right-wing talk radio and ca More...

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