The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search


The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk

1551643146.jpg
Buy The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Category: Politics and Society
Rating: 3/5
Reviewer: Magda Healey
Reviewed by Magda Healey
Summary: Furious and often florid, challenging and occasionally convoluted, a book about everything that's wrong with America today (and has been since the very beginning of the project). It mixes the scholarly and the journalistic, pretentious and the colloquial and yet it is capable of inspiring discussion, reflection and further exploration. For those who like big words and an intellectual challenge only.
Buy? No Borrow? Maybe
Pages: 340 Date: May 2008
Publisher: Black Rose Books
ISBN: 978-1551643144

Share on: Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn



They still live in suburbs (that is, those who don't live in third-world-like squalor of inner city ghettos), diet and workout obsessively (that is, those who don't stand in food bank queues), buy bigger and shinier objects that consume more and more energy, more interested in celebrity bra sizes and nipple flashes than in who rules the country and for whose benefit. Every so often, especially when the crisis looms, they vote for CHANGE (as they have done just now), but essentially, whether in the ranks of Christian Taliban of the red states, or among Starbucks slurping and therapy-addicted in-crowd of the blue states, Americans are living their lives in a state of deluded ignorance and bliss, while their country is literally falling to pieces around them.

From the sociological phenomena of suburban living and the phenomenal socio-marketing success of Starbucks, from the role of the Christian fundamentalists to the history of the labour movement, from the consistently pro-business stance of American establishment and middle classes to the obsession with sex, from a communication mode in which the personal becomes public and the public becomes unpronounceable, to the corruption and outright evil of the Bush years, James Polk examines what he perceives as the pathologies of American public life in an extensively researched, erudite and overflowing with ideas book that weaves a precarious path between a challenging, but still interesting to many an educated layman and a polemical and passionate, but overwhelmingly academic work.

For an educated reader familiar with the American social and political landscape and language, Polk stays on the right side of the readable most of the time, though his flamboyant yet scholarly prose dense with cultural references, digressions (and more digressions and bonus ideas in brackets) requires intense concentration from a non-specialist at least. Challenging material is a good thing, but so is simplicity and Polk's book would benefit from some ruthless editing.

As a wake up call for a society dozing in the miasmas of blissful ignorance and ignorant bliss, it is likely to be a classic case of preaching to the converted, even though he makes extremely valid, and mostly rather obvious points (their apparent obviousness doesn't prevent many Americans from completely ignoring or outright denying them).

Polk's work's main value was, for me, in the extensive and erudite support his fierce social critique of the current state of affairs receives from the background research. From philosophy to social history, sociology to literature, current media to investigative journalism, it's the background layer of The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss that I found particularly interesting.

I was, for example, at least vaguely aware of the more bizarre characteristics of American suburbia (including numerous tales, read and heard first hand of being stopped by police while attempting to walk), but Polk not only describes the suburban blissful hell, he also puts it in the historical context of the development of garden cities and generally, the influence of Romanticism in American culture; while making an interesting, if perhaps arguable, point that it's the influence of Romanticism that explains the Anglo-Saxon attraction to countryside living and persistent vilification of the city.

The picture of his fellow countrymen Polk paints is not a pretty one. I have to say it panders to my own somehow anti-American attitude (which reached its apogee round the time of the 2004 presidential election, when unbelievably, the People re-elected Bush the younger to the highest office).

In Polk's account the Republicans are the natural party of America, and he sees an occasional turning away from God's Own Party as an aberration in the US political landscape; and is rare among the social critics in seeing the recent excesses of public pathology as being naturally predicated on the essential values that the American republic project has at its very core: the rampant individualism, self reliance, pursuit of freedom and independence (including and perhaps even focusing on the economic sphere) that lead to creation of identity and social status dependent on and defined by material possessions and wealth.

Polk's account is a consistently pessimistic one, and the recent victory of Barack Obama would fill him with only limited joy: the forces that determine American politics will be quite happy to get along with such a nice, non-confrontational sunny boy - a nationally loved symbol of audaciously impotent hope and harmony that can continue to perpetuate the American illusion.

I do wonder.

Furious and often florid, challenging and occasionally convoluted, rambling and at times raving, Ignorance and Bliss is, in many ways, a terrible book, randomly ranting against all that's wrong with America today (and has been since the very beginning of the project). It incongruously mixes the scholarly and the journalistic, juxtaposing the intellectually pretentious and the colloquially crude within the space of the same paragraph if not the same sentence. Large portions are only loosely associated with and even less justified by the direction of the argument and the points being made.

And yet, I can't bring myself to wholeheartedly condemn Ignorance and Bliss, and not just because its message is close to my heart and ideological leanings.

There is real intellectual passion there, supported by in-depth and widely ranging research, and there is a passionate spirit of social critique, which occasionally lifts Ignorance and Bliss to the level of truly inspirational.

It covers many subjects from many angles and if read as a collection of essays with a loosely linking common message it may become a starting point for thinking about and further exploring each of the themes, not least thanks to excellent referencing and multitude of pointers to other important sources.

As a I read, my estimate of the final number of Bookbag stars I would award fluctuated wildly from seriously put off two to fascinated four. I will thus settle on three Bookbag stars and privately add an extra half for daring to mention class war in relation to American politics.

If you are not afraid of big ideas and even bigger words, it might be worth picking up - especially if you are American yourself.

The review copy was sent to the Bookbag by the author - thank you!

If you'd like to further your thinking on these matter we can recommend the work of Frank Furedi and John Pilger. You might also appreciate Radical Hope by Carolina de Robertis.

Please share on: Facebook Facebook, Follow us on Twitter Twitter and Follow us on Instagram Instagram

Buy The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America by James Polk at Amazon.com.

Comments

Like to comment on this review?

Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.