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Empire Of Illusion: The End Of Literacy And The Triumph Of Spectacle (2009)

by Chris Hedges(Favorite Author)

3.92 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1568584377 (ISBN13: 9781568584379)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Nation Books

review 1: Author Chris Hedges, a combined social observer and investigative journalist, offers a sobering evaluation of American contemporary democracy and society in “Empire of Illusion.” Hedges assessment is not reassuring. The author’s diagnosis characterizes that American democracy is crumbling before our eyes. Disintegrating under the crushing weight of corporate oligarchs holding a captive collective government, enabled by an intellectually anesthetized citizenry, handicapped by illiteracy and a corporate media dedicated to the creation of diversionary illusion. Illusion created to promote a culture of “hero/celebrity” worship, where true American realities (crushing economic inequality, poverty, unending war, mounting unemployment, and ineffectual eunuch government)... more are dismissed and masked behind pseudo news events, anti-intellectualism, corporate entertainment, sports, religion and pornography. Education itself has been transformed by corporate influence; forcing universities from traditionally engaging in open intellectual dialect and discovery through classical humanities curriculums, to business vocational centers, where only corporate goals are center place. Students are groomed only to serve and promote the corporate profit agenda. The author’s grim descriptions harken to Orwellian “double speak”, transforming war to peace, safety from danger and violence to love. Where the final American societal destination will be in the rise of totalitarianism, followed closely by penultimate economic collapse. The author’s assertions and observations regarding the state of American democracy and culture do ring true, as any news consumer can attest. However his arguments are by no means unique, and are in fact extrapolations deeply seated within the tenants of Marxism. Allow me to connect the dots with Karl. Hedges core disputes are not solely targeted at America per se; his railings against the corporation and its minions are essentially arguments against capitalism, as an economic infrastructure. Closer examination of Marx philosophy will bear this out. The following is a broad overview of Marxian principles and criticism of capitalism, that when applied to the template of the Hedges book, becomes clearly evident. 1. Marx viewed his own society as profoundly corrupt, arguing that the social institutions of modern society alienated man from other men and from himself. 2. According to Marx, capitalism alienates men from themselves and from each other.3. Capitalism—and ultimately private property—perverts human values, as human beings come to value things over each other. It encourages avarice, competition, and inequality. The cash nexus becomes the criterion of all value. 4. Capitalism enforces patriarchy and exploits and subordinates women. It encourages domination and inequality, thereby subverting natural human relationships (e.g., of love). The author graphically illustrates this in his chapter on the perversion of love by pornographers.5. Greed and avarice encouraged by capitalism will undermine and inevitably destroy the regime of private property. A major tenant and prediction of the book. Additionally…6. Marx argues that capitalist society distorts men’s innate need to work by alienating them from their labor. Under capitalism, man denies rather than fulfills himself through his labor. His work becomes an imposition rather than a voluntary labor.In contemporary society, many people are alienated from their labor, which they perform only under compulsion. This assertion Hedges ties with the current state of economic inequality, where contemporary CEO’s earn 500x the wages of workers, and in themselves are sowing the seeds of economic ruin. The book does a good job of explaining the current ills facing the American societal landscape, my only argument with it is that it offers no solutions. If the author’s intent was to rake readers over the coals, leading to existential despair, it succeeds brilliantly. But once the author has lead us down that blind alley, cut off from any exit or hope, we are left without any option short of howling at the moon.
review 2: One of the most illuminating books that I have read. I hope I do not approach this book with an anti-corporation, negative presupposition that blinds me to the truth. Rather this book has taken a no-nonsense approach in critiquing the failing structure, ideologies and civilisation of America. What makes the book great is that it is not merely the personal rant of a discontented citizen. Hedges provides statistics, quotes other works of scholarship and illustrates with clear and truthful examples of each point he makes. Each paragraph, no - sentence is a voice crying out against the self-destruction of a once-great country. He shows how blind and self-deluded America - and I dare extrapolate and say the world - has become. We have traded truth for fiction, reality for illusion and hope for delusion. What caps the performance of the human race is our inability to resist or perhaps our stubbornness in believing in a crumbling order. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote that "the Western Man ... [has] educated himself to imbecility."Where are the thinkers of our age? Where are the men and women who see the brokenness of this world and realise that the solution to its woes do not lie in human institutions or ideologies? Hedges is one such thinker - a group of people whose warnings lie unheeded by a society absorb into its illusory world. Though one might disagree with the answers he proposes, (Certainly as a conservative Christian I disagree with his over-simplistic elevation and celebration of "love". Furthermore, his analysis of the dangers of the "Christian Right" is an unfair criticism against the true doctrines of Christianity), his message cannot be ignored. less

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