The culture wars are over and the idiots have won. This is a veteran journalist's caustically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.
The three Great Premises of Idiot America:
– Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units. – Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough. – Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.
Charles Pierce has led a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, and now it's time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed. With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.
With Idiot America, Pierce's thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that, somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Track Info. Dedication. Quote (Chris Whitley. INTRODUCTION Dinosaurs with Saddles (August 2005)
PART I. THE AMERICAN WAY OF IDIOCY. Chapter 1. The Prince of Cranks
Chapter 2.The War on Expertise
Chapter 3. Beyond Atlantis
Chapter 4. The Templars in Town
PART II. TRUTH. Chapter 5. Radio Nowhere
Chapter 6. God and Judge Jones
PART III. CONSEQUENCES Chapter 7. A Woman Dies on Beech Street
Chapter 8. How We Look at the Sea
Chapter 9. The Principles of Automatic Pilot
PART IV. MR. MADISON'S LIBRARY. Chapter 10. Torture in New Hampshire
Chapter 11. Mr. Madison's Library
Afterword to the Anchor Books Edition
"A raucous rant against the armies of the Right…Pierce is at his scathing, insightful best."
"A lively and, dare I say, intelligent study of the ongoing assault on gray matter."
"[A] witty and pointed indictment of our nation's disturbing ability to vilify smart people and elevate chowderheads to positions of power and influence."
"There is only one Charles Pierce, and while that may be a good thing, it is also a damn good thing we have his unique combination of gonzo, erudition, fearlessness, and eloquence to help us make sense of a senseless world. I stand in awe, and appreciation."
"Pierce penetrates, and the world feels less idiotic already."
"There's a guy down at the end of the bar who's furiously angry, hilariously funny, and has an Irish poet's talent for language. He's been traveling the country, and he's been alternately appalled and moved by what he's found there, and, lucky you, he wants to tell you all about it. Listen."
"Charles Pierce takes us on a brilliant and hilarious tour of the back roads of American idiotocracy through history-skewering Atlantis-seekers, evolution deniers, jackasses, nincompoops, and right-wing know-it-alls with his trademark sledgehammer wit. Reading Pierce's Idiot America, I laughed myself stupid."
"Engaging…Pierce delivers a rapier-sharp rant on how the America of Franklin and Edison, Fulton and Ford has devolved into America the Uninformed."
"For a good (if painful) laugh about creationism and other bits of American lunacy, try Charles Pierce's Idiot America. It's a funny, sly version of an argument made recently by Al Gore in The Assault on Reason, and by the brilliant Susan Jacoby in The Age of American Unreason."
