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Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Chris Hedges. New York: Nation Books, 2009.
This book is an attack on the "culture of illusion" and also an attack against ignorance, which certainly is not bliss in this context, but simply gross and repulsive. How repulsive? Early on, Chris Hedges uses the World Wrestling Foundation to represent "the undiluted narcissism of a society in precipitous decline" (11), then later moves into the excesses of pornography in order to discuss "The Illusion of Love" (Chapter 2). Although no one probably wants to admit it, America is currently in a state of cultural as well as economic decline. This book documents the declination and is surely intended as a warning. One hopes that Hedges may be heard and will not be simply ignored and dismissed as a modern Cassandra. The results of the election of 2008 would suggest that much of America knows that we are treading a dangerous and destructive path. We have had to resort to desperate corporate bailouts that have dispensed little or no justice but, instead, may have rewarded the peccant. Ralph Nader tells the author that even General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was given a golden parachute worth $21 million (187). Democracy seems to have transformed itself into...