Morris Berman: Grim View of a Nation at the End of Days
This is the sort of book that gives the Left a bad name.
In "Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire," the cultural historian Morris Berman delivers a vituperative, Spenglerian screed that makes Michael Moore seem like a rah-rah American cheerleader: a screed that describes this country as "a cultural and emotional wasteland," suffering from "spiritual death" and intent on exporting its false values around the world at the point of a gun; a republic-turned-empire that has entered a new Dark Age and that is on the verge of collapsing like Rome.
Mr. Berman argues that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 "were the tragic but inevitable outcome of our foreign policy," and refers to them as "the so-called attack on civilization," asking whether America is "really the standard bearer of a genuine civilization that it was, say, only 60 years ago." He goes on to suggest that the American people are stupid, ignorant, violent and greedy, and that they "get the government they deserve." A sequel of sorts to Mr. Berman's 2000 book, "The Twilight of American Culture" — which described the country as a highly dysfunctional society afflicted with apathy, cynicism, alienation and rabid consumerism — "Dark Ages America" begins as a grim prophecy of decline and fall, citing four traits shared, he says, by the late Roman Empire and the United States today, namely, "the triumph of religion over reason," "the breakdown of education and critical thinking," the "legalization of torture" and declining respect and financial power on the world stage.
Instead of explicating this theme with carefully reasoned analysis, Mr. Berman allows his narrative to devolve into an all-purpose rant against virtually everything American, from the country's foreign policy to its embrace of cars, fast food, television, cellphones and shopping malls; from President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq to the nation's celebration of individualism and free enterprise. "Dark Ages" turns out to be less of an original (and coherent) argument than a compendium of complaints — some well grounded, others petty and disingenuous — harvested from a wide array of scholars and writers. ...
Read entire article at Michiko Kakutani in the course of a review in the NYT of Mr. Berman's Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire (Norton, 2006)
In "Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire," the cultural historian Morris Berman delivers a vituperative, Spenglerian screed that makes Michael Moore seem like a rah-rah American cheerleader: a screed that describes this country as "a cultural and emotional wasteland," suffering from "spiritual death" and intent on exporting its false values around the world at the point of a gun; a republic-turned-empire that has entered a new Dark Age and that is on the verge of collapsing like Rome.
Mr. Berman argues that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 "were the tragic but inevitable outcome of our foreign policy," and refers to them as "the so-called attack on civilization," asking whether America is "really the standard bearer of a genuine civilization that it was, say, only 60 years ago." He goes on to suggest that the American people are stupid, ignorant, violent and greedy, and that they "get the government they deserve." A sequel of sorts to Mr. Berman's 2000 book, "The Twilight of American Culture" — which described the country as a highly dysfunctional society afflicted with apathy, cynicism, alienation and rabid consumerism — "Dark Ages America" begins as a grim prophecy of decline and fall, citing four traits shared, he says, by the late Roman Empire and the United States today, namely, "the triumph of religion over reason," "the breakdown of education and critical thinking," the "legalization of torture" and declining respect and financial power on the world stage.
Instead of explicating this theme with carefully reasoned analysis, Mr. Berman allows his narrative to devolve into an all-purpose rant against virtually everything American, from the country's foreign policy to its embrace of cars, fast food, television, cellphones and shopping malls; from President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq to the nation's celebration of individualism and free enterprise. "Dark Ages" turns out to be less of an original (and coherent) argument than a compendium of complaints — some well grounded, others petty and disingenuous — harvested from a wide array of scholars and writers. ...