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Rating: 
Summary: A Public Safety Announcement
Review: All citizens are advised to be on the lookout for sacred cows.These creatures must be considered "armed and dangerous", as they carry a virulent strain of mad cow disease proven to cause insanity in activists and politicians. Several of these sacred cows have been identified (thanks to information provided by left-wing professors who once kept them as pets): the concocted myth of a matriarchal communist "Golden Age", the romanticized (if not racist) portrayal of Native Americans as "Noble Savages", deceptive ecological euphemisms, and other diseased beasts whose only reason for existence is to spread or reinforce guilt. Be advised that these sacred cows are likely to be traveling under assumed names, such as "environmentalism", "multiculturalism", and "political correctness". Should you be approached by one of these creatures, make every effort to defend yourself. A simple edged weapon, such as Occam's razor, should be sufficient to dispatch the beast. For butchering instructions and helpful recipe tips, consult _Plagues of the Mind_ by Dr. Bruce S. Thornton.
Rating: 
Summary: Contagion of the Mind in the 21st Century
Review: Any book which explores "the new epidemic of false knowledge" reminds us that the human race has been afflicted with intellectual pestilence throughout its history. From my own perspective, there are at least three major reasons for false knowledge such as misinformation, half-truths, gratifying superstitions, and pleasant myths as well as outright lies: insufficient and/or incorrect information; man's inability and/or unwillingness to accept a reality which is redundantly verifiable; and third, it serves the self-interests of those who affirm it. In this volume, Thornton examines an "epidemic of false knowledge" which is potentially more destructive than any predecessors because of technology which makes it now possible to exchange more false knowledge faster and to a much greater extent than ever before. In the Preface, Thornton explains that his aim "is not so much to assert a positive, true doctrine that should replace the false one, but rather to incite the reader's own critical eye to examine more carefully the many received truths and elements of public wisdom circulating in our collective mind. If this means that my own ideas are subjected to the same scrutiny, then this book has achieved its aim." Following a brilliant Introduction, Thornton carefully organizes his material within Two Parts: Of the Causes of Error and Of Three Popular and Received Ideas. He then provides a Conclusion in which he correctly suggests that the threat of other plagues in years to come requires of all thoughtful persons that "with that ability to "detect and expose error and cant and [what Sir Thomas Browne once characterized as] `Prejudice and Prescription,' we will possess the most important freedom of all -- the freedom of our minds, out intellectual autonomy that allows us to confront the hard choices and make the hard decisions that are the responsibility of every citizen in a democracy." Thornton briefly examines many of the usual suspects (e.g. logical fallacies first identified by Aristotle, such as begging the question ) and then shifts his attention, in Part II, to what he calls "three versions of history as therapeutic drama." Romantic Environmentalism: Thornton asserts that "Humans, in sum, are not natural; nature is a necessary, but not sufficient, part of human identity. Nor is the natural world with which we are most intimate completely `natural." Thousands of years of human culture and agricultural technology have altered nature's raw material into an artificial `nature' more conducive to human survival." The White Man's Golden Age Red Man: Thornton observes that "The tragic view of history...with all its contradictions and failed good intentions and messy complexity, is anathema to the idealizer, who finds it easier (and more profitable) to pander to the gratifying preconceptions and cheap guilt and smug compassion of contemporary whites." The False Goddess and Her Lost Paradise: According to Thornton, "Goddess history offers a gratifying myth in the guise of empirical fact -- precisely the combination of scientism and debased Romanticism we have already repeatedly encountered. Indeed, the origins of Goddess religions can be found, not in the new discoveries of archeological science, but in the nineteenth-century's anti-Enlightenment pique." Romantic environmentalism, Noble Savage Indianism, and Goddess "religions" are but three of several dozen inherently false but remarkably durable "versions of history as therapeutic drama." No doubt many other new `versions" will be formulated, perhaps in strategic alliance with one or more predecessors. Some of their advocates will simply not be willing and/or able to subject them to requisite scrutiny; other advocates will exploit false knowledge to serve their own self-interests. It is probably impossible to eliminate man-made "epidemics" but Thornton believes, and I agree, that it is possible to limit their damage. As indicated earlier in this review, Thornton offers the reassurance that if all thoughtful persons respond "with that ability to "detect and expose error and cant and [what Sir Thomas Browne once characterized as] `Prejudice and Prescription,' we will possess the most important freedom of all -- the freedom of our minds, out intellectual autonomy that allows us to confront the hard choices and make the hard decisions that are the responsibility of every citizen in a democracy." Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Albert Borgmann's brilliant analysis of the nature of information, Holding On to Reality.
Rating: 
Summary: Huh?
Review: As much as I respect Bruce Thornton and his friend and colleague Victor Davis Hanson as the Classicists, as much I can't stand 'em as contemporary 'political thinkers.' Blame liberal professors for the 9/11? Oh, come on! By the same token, one can blame Hollywood for generating dosens of useful ideas for terrorists. What a baloney . . .
Rating: 
Summary: VERY AGREEABLE OPINIONS, BAD POLEMICS
Review: Firstly let me say that really like what this book deals with. The spread of false knowledge and the use of reason and scientism, when grounded in false precepts yeilds a plethora of monstrous, even abominable ideas. These self serving ideas born in the sleep of "reason" are really the fruit of false precepts; the three that he deals with are the noble savage, romantic nature myths and Goddess myths. Unfortunately agreeing with most of his conclusions does not mean that I agree with his methods: 1) His three myths are highly selective and he argues in a reductionist style: the Noble Savage Myth IS responsible for racical environmentalism and almost any other form of environmentalism from common sense saving energy to saving the Spotted Owl. He uses the myth to explain everything, and in the end undermines his own argument. Shades of Freud...? .... Marx..? 2) Moreover he could analyse all sorts of other "myths" as well: distrust of big government (a very American myth), say or, the "halcyon days myth" -- the myth that America (or any other country in the world) was once a peaceful, non-violent state of bliss that has been corrupted by modern man. These are certainly as responsible for as much false knowledge as anything Thornton cites. 3) Thornton has an annoying habit of drawing completely linear relationships of cause and effect from myths and the way people act or think today. So for example, he says that teenage pregnancy and reluctance of people to take sexual responsibility is a DIRECT result of the liberal democratic myth that knowledge will always ameliorate the condition of mankind. The sexual revolution of the 60s and the idea of knowledge liberating one from sexual mores is a common phenomomen. But the link, as any real thinking person knows, is far from linear -- there are many reasons for lack of sexual responsibility (the US Christian South has the highest by far, rates of teenage pregnancy), and this condition is far from new. Here Thornton falls victim to the conservative Halcyon Days Myth -- ie, there was a time when everyone was sexually responsible and children being born out of wedlock was not a problem. Thornton knows his history, so where in blazes does he draw such a warped opinion. 4) Thornton tars with the same brush a lot of people who really have not a lot in common, and whose opinions may not stem from faulty reasoning. Some people have always been strong environmentalists, but that has stemmed from the logical fact that there is so much to lose if science and man are wrong on a few vital questions of the environment --- human existance may end --- it has nothing to do with a pastoral concept of man in harmony with nature, but outright fear. 5) Some of the accepted empirical "facts" of Thornton's argument are not really "facts" but conjectural interpretation of the classics. As such, like all literary critisism, there is a lot of varience in interpretation. But this is great as an intellectual idea -- great food for thought --- but it is never be enough to "disprove" certain ideas of the present. His statement that Roman's and Greek held nature as foreign and evil is not a fact --- it is hotly debated. 6) In his critique of certain myths, Thornton attacks not only the myth, but the very virtue of reason! That very thing that he is trying to defend! This is a point that I found paradoxical and annoying all through the book. It almost verges on an anti-intellectual argument. 7) His statement that man is not improvable = evil, is also a value judgement. This is a big question itself and Thornton states "man is evil, merely because he can choose to be." I am not sure about this. I am sure that it is one of those questions that people have contemplated for a long time, it is self evident to me that some men are evil, but not that man is evil -- that is a value judgement, not entirely backed up by empirical events. Cooperation and trust are the hallmarks of not only the traditions of US and European liberal democracy, but they also ensure that my order from Amazon gets delivered on time to my door 99.99999999999% of the time and that no one runs off with money. 8) Thornton also falls into another myth, that of the myth that people are always 100% responsible for their actions because they know the consequences of those actions. The consequences of this myth have wreaked a horrible toll on the US with youths committed to jail for murders done as teenagers, and six and seven year olds going to councilling because they looked up their female classmate's dresses. Thornton raises an important issue that we need to teach in society, personal responsibility, but we also need the balance of knowing that, sometimes, we do not 100% know the consequences of our actions. One the other hand I really liked Thornton's honesty. He is probably most close to a traditional conservative (Edmund Burke form); he distrusts large corporations and their ability to manipulate the myths to get us to act out our narcisstic acts of rampant consumerism -- the ultimate act of self love and underfulfillment and the corporate dogma attached to the neccessary proliferation of information as detrimental to true learning. There is much that is contradictory in this book. As to his value judgements, yes I agree with Thornton -- we would be sharing sherries all night around the fire and agree with each other --- but the logic of this book could be a lot tighter. A much better read in this genre is Keith Windshuttle's "The Killing of History."
Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: Interesting book, but I won't buy.
Customer reviews are becoming increasingly annoying. Although the idea of customer reviews was at first an interesting novelty, the negative reviews are tiresome. There are a great many Know-it-alls out there that are more interested in showing their own superior knowledge through negative reviews, than offering helpful critiques. Negative reviews have kept
me from buying on numerous occasions. I suppose that the option of "adding your own review" brings more people to the Amazon site, but it surely curtails sales. If reviews are really
necessary, perhaps Amazon could restrict them to one or two paragraphs. The joy in coming here to buy books, for me at least, is dying. I'd rather go to a bookstore and not be distracted by 1 and 2 star reviews and pages of annoying disparaging remarks by want-to-be critics! There must be
many more potential book buyers out there that are equally disgusted but simply don't take the time to say it.
Rating:
Summary: "new" sciences peddlers and their naive customers...
Review: Now that we are full with "information" that far from helping to clarify the things, it spreads to confuse them. Now that the anxiety produced by the lack of sense of our lives, it makes us inclined to the gratifying therapy of hugging a new tendency, a book as this helps us as a vaccine against that whole false knowledge that is plentiful. Thousands of people live off by spreading false or not scientifically sustained theories. New Age, Orientalism, Deep Ecology, Echo-Feminism, and so on. And other millions have surrendered to these movements, feeling that the membership to these groups gives to their lives a sense (that is not real). Bruce Thornton, with a lot of preparation and an impressive documentation, shows us the methods that these salespersons of false hopes use to deceive us (and to make of this his form of life - of very good life). He exhibits them, it humiliates them in occasions, and with their own words they are delivered to the opinion of the reason. For that reason, it is natural that these so called "scientists" (salespersons in fact), or those that have surrendered to these false doctrines with their heart (not their mind), feel highly offended when seeing Thornton questioning their preachers. Then, we don't find strange the epithets "conservative", "insensitive", "capitalist", etc., with which these offended ones call him. Neither conservative, neither insensitive. He only applies to these fallacies the due scientific skepticism. He demands evidences, logic, empiricism, facts. And almost none of these new doctrines can support such filter. If we cannot still determine clearly what we are, or the sense of our existence, at least we will be able to identify what we are not and what is false. This book is a vaccine against the false knowledge, which, even it is gratifying, far from coming closer to answers, it takes us away from reality.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Vaccine
Review: Plagues of the Mind could be considered to be a successor to Bloom's very popular 'The Closing of the American Mind'. Indeed, Thornton targets specific examples of what he calls 'false knowledge' by exposing the the absurdity of what currently passes for wisdom in popular culture. Thornton is keen to de-mistify ideas about the Noble Savage and the, too often,unexamined, notions of amerindian cultures' supposed symbiotic and harmonious relationship with the environment. He also presents an overview of eco-feminist theories and the increasing popularity of such concepts as the pre Indo European cult of the Goddess. By analyzing these myths, Thornton shows the dangers of accepting these myths as knowledge, particularly as both have been receiving a dangerous amount of attention in academic and powerful circles. Thornton teaches comparative literature and his critiques are full of interesting references. His book is sometimes pedantic and sometimes funny (I appreciated someone finally attacking the myths implied in disney's Pocahontas and Lion King) but in the end it is a worthwhile read. i would have prefered less nalysis of the Goddess myth and more on other more pervasisve feminist and environmental fantasies. The book is ultimately a call for greater common sense and more critical analysis of received truths. It is well worth reading and you will enjoy it as a complement to books like Fashionable Nonsense and the Skeptical Environmentalist
Rating:
Summary: Well-reasoned literate defense of conservative mysterianism
Review: This is a well-written, literate manifesto that divides the world into good knowledge and bad knowledge and then tells us which is which. The most important conclusion is that human nature is and should remain a fundamental mystery, and that our pretense at explaining it scientifically leads more to abuses than to useful knowledge. While the tone and underlying values are strongly conservative, as befits a classical scholar, there is also an interesting blend of less conservative thinking when it comes to the consistent arguments against scientism applied to human beings. The author spends a lot of time praising and applying the powers of human reason while criticizing the proliferation of "false knowledge" and most significantly, telling us where reason simply can't go. All of psychology and social sciences in particular are on the bad list.
The "false knowledge" the author attacks isn't limited to the usual suspects parodied by the skeptics; alien abductions, recovered memories, pseudoscience and popular baseless myth of various sorts. It also includes any attempts to probe human nature using science and unravel the "fundamental mystery" of the human heart. As a scholar of classical studies, the author represents the received Christian wisdom of sacred mysterianism, or mystery regarding the human soul, and plays it off against the hubris of modern science in daring to try to understand human nature. He illustrates all sorts of foolish trends of thinking in modern culture that ignore the received wisdom a classicist is expected to respect. People instead rely on fads in poorly based scientific research and nonsense dressed in scientific garb. Unfortunately, though, the author so throughly debunks anything resembling scientific psychology that if we relied on this book we would simply assume that there was no way to use science to study human beings. As if we weren't part of nature at all. That's where the author's relentless logic begins to break down for me, and where he also breaks his rhythm and ironically pulls ideas from leftist critiques of science as well. The book is filled with good common sense and clear thinking, but its fundamental arguments about human beings as a mystery can be confusing to someone who doesn't follow the way the conservative mind works. In particular, the author is convinced that scientific research can't tell us much about human nature, but never explains why; other than that he says is must be "beyond the complexity horizon." However, he never demonstrates how and why that must be so, he assumes it and reviews cases where the ideal of simplifying our understanding of human nature has led to horrendous abuses. The argument falters here because we also see how simplifying our understanding of other aspects of nature have improved our lives dramatically through science. The dividing line at human beings appears arbitrary. For the author, science becomes scientism at times solely because it is science about human beings, rather than because it crosses some meaningful criterion in an accepted philosophy of science. To follow the author's argument, I think you either must share the author's respect for the traditional view of impenetrable human nature and free will or you must somehow draw the same conclusion based on how much foolishness has been perpetuated in the name of scientific study of human beings. It isn't that the author doesn't make the point well in this manner. He does, and I was persuaded to agree that scientific hubris is more prevalent in psychology and social science than is real knowledge. The problem I see with this is that it doesn't leave any room for a legitimate accumulation of scientific knowledge about human beings, the author assumes they will always be a mystery. I don't think that case has been made, and to me it goes against the spirit of scientific inquiry. In making his point about the mystery of human nature, the author cleverly and surprisingly shows intellectual flexibility and seems to pull a half a page from the less conservative philosophers and argues, in almost the manner of Stephen Jay Gould, for a pluralistic view of human nature, rather than a traditional conservative one. However, it is only human nature that is beyond science for some reason, and that seemingly as an irrevocable rule of life. He doesn't agree with the pluralists in other areas, only in trying to understand human beings. He may be right, of course, and he makes a good case for the dangerous foolishness that psychology and social sciences have often led us to. This reader was left with two strong impressions from the book. One impression is that modern psychology and social science have largely been based on ideals and trends rather than real accumulated knowledge. The other impression is that there must be some way of identifying real knowledge about human beings when we come upon it, rather than treating ourselves as a sacred mystery, and that there must be some intermediate position between the abuses of scientism and the author's human mysterianism.
Rating:
Summary: An Essential Read
Review: This meandering and convoluted litany of discontent is a good read for anyone feeling left behind by the pace of today's social change. For anyone else it's a glimpse into outdated and strictly confined mind-set. Thornton's subtitle is an unfulfilled promise. We never really find out what "false knowledge" means - other than the catalogue of the author's dislikes. Most of his attention is focussed on "revisionists" of one sort or another. A favourite target is academics who too easily disseminate "false knowledge." As a Classics professor, he has a strong background in social commentators through the ages. Thornton calls up nearly all of them, starting with 17th Century critic Thomas Browne, in his attempt to disparage nearly every social issue from the environment through native peoples to women's issues. It's a formidable arsenal, but of doubtful relevance in a modern environment. If you manage to plow through the opening chapter in which he establishes the superior values of the powers of Western knowledge, the remainder of the book is almost entertaining. He places terms like "scientist" and "knowledge" in scare quotes, alerting you to his disdain. Attributing many modern concepts to a holdover from the Romantic Era, Thornton finds critics of Western society as living self-indulgently in a mythical past. The obscurity of his sources suggest it would take another classical scholar to assess how well he's cited them. Their commonalty is their inappropriateness to bear witness on today's environment. Thornton notes how society has developed an "adversarial stance toward nature and a need to dominate and control its forces [although he exonerates Christianity for generating that attitude, blaming the small-farm society of ancient Greece instead]. The Romantic era regenerated a "nature-love," on a false foundation carried forward to today's environmental movement. He characterizes the "Deep Ecology movement," for example, as a "farrago of old myths" rife with the "rhetoric of New Age narcissism." While he deplores the human impact on our world [particularly his home in California's San Joaquin Valley], Thornton falls well short of offering meaningful solutions. His only cure for the pollution permeating his valley and the spread of urbanization is to call for "clear-headed discriminations between human needs and nature's" and to figure out "how we can rationally manage technology and growth." Hardly a novel idea, but Thornton fails to offer any specifics in fulfilling this ambition. One can only wonder why Thornton has never read E. O. Wilson [there's no mention of America's leading environmentalist in the book]. It would have meant an major rewrite of several segments of this wearying tome. After environmentalists, Thornton addresses the "Noble Savage" image in Native American writing and films. Later, it's the Goddess philosophy of Marija Gimbusta and her followers that he condemns. Gimbusta's contention that the Golden Age of the Mother Goddess was peaceful and bound by a reverence for "Mother Earth" isn't substantiated by any evidence. He shows how the mythical egalitarian societies envisioned by Gimbusta and her supporters is clearly unrealistic. An organized hunting community is prone to hierarchies almost by definition. To Thornton, the current widespread application of this "evidence by intuition" in university courses degrades scientific standards. Finally, he finds that "Multiculturism is perhaps the most dangerous false knowledge circulating among us." This section exposes the narrowness of Thornton's outlook. While praising Western technology throughout the book, he is apparently ignorant of the Eastern contributions to that technology. He castigates the hypocrisy of multiculturalism in its anti-Western manifestos, contending that the concepts of ethnic uniqueness are themselves a Western invention. Multiculturism, in his view, erodes the foundation of Western ethics and morality, although we aren't provided with much in the way of definition of these terms. In
his use of the terms, the strong emphasis is on "individualism" and "freedom." Thornton's response to social critics is to urge their emigration. It smacks of the favourite phrase of the Nixon era, "America, love it or leave it." Thornton's constant use of stock phrases: "empty rhetoric," "hysterical attack," "gratifying fantasy, "sentimentalized thinking" and other idioms belie his own rhetoric, hysteria and sentimental formulae. The book is a paean to fantasized cultural ideal that never existed and likely never will. The greatest surprise in this book is that after over 200 pages of lashing out at America's social critics we expect to find some realistic solutions to the issues he addresses. After disparaging the expressed opinions of those commentators seeking solutions to the problems of racism, environmental degradation and reaction to America's plan for globalization, Thornton simply throws up his hands in despair. He offers neither plans, campaigns or any means of addressing issues that confront us and our children. He can only deplore "retreating into obscurantism, mysticism or quietism." This inability to deal with society's problems at any level simply renders the whole exercise a telling example of "empty rhetoric," to use his own overworked phrase.
Rating:
Summary: A plethora of pet peeves
Review: This meandering and convoluted litany of discontent is a good read for anyone feeling left behind by the pace of today's social change. For anyone else it's a glimpse into outdated and strictly confined mind-set. Thornton's subtitle is an unfulfilled promise. We never really find out what "false knowledge" means - other than the catalogue of the author's dislikes. Most of his attention is focussed on "revisionists" of one sort or another. A favourite target is academics who too easily disseminate "false knowledge." As a Classics professor, he has a strong background in social commentators through the ages. Thornton calls up nearly all of them, starting with 17th Century critic Thomas Browne, in his attempt to disparage nearly every social issue from the environment through native peoples to women's issues. It's a formidable arsenal, but of doubtful relevance in a modern environment. If you manage to plow through the opening chapter in which he establishes the superior values of the powers of Western knowledge, the remainder of the book is almost entertaining. He places terms like "scientist" and "knowledge" in scare quotes, alerting you to his disdain. Attributing many modern concepts to a holdover from the Romantic Era, Thornton finds critics of Western society as living self-indulgently in a mythical past. The obscurity of his sources suggest it would take another classical scholar to assess how well he's cited them. Their commonalty is their inappropriateness to bear witness on today's environment. Thornton notes how society has developed an "adversarial stance toward nature and a need to dominate and control its forces [although he exonerates Christianity for generating that attitude, blaming the small-farm society of ancient Greece instead]. The Romantic era regenerated a "nature-love," on a false foundation carried forward to today's environmental movement. He characterizes the "Deep Ecology movement," for example, as a "farrago of old myths" rife with the "rhetoric of New Age narcissism." While he deplores the human impact on our world [particularly his home in California's San Joaquin Valley], Thornton falls well short of offering meaningful solutions. His only cure for the pollution permeating his valley and the spread of urbanization is to call for "clear-headed discriminations between human needs and nature's" and to figure out "how we can rationally manage technology and growth." Hardly a novel idea, but Thornton fails to offer any specifics in fulfilling this ambition. One can only wonder why Thornton has never read E. O. Wilson [there's no mention of America's leading environmentalist in the book]. It would have meant an major rewrite of several segments of this wearying tome. After environmentalists, Thornton addresses the "Noble Savage" image in Native American writing and films. Later, it's the Goddess philosophy of Marija Gimbusta and her followers that he condemns. Gimbusta's contention that the Golden Age of the Mother Goddess was peaceful and bound by a reverence for "Mother Earth" isn't substantiated by any evidence. He shows how the mythical egalitarian societies envisioned by Gimbusta and her supporters is clearly unrealistic. An organized hunting community is prone to hierarchies almost by definition. To Thornton, the current widespread application of this "evidence by intuition" in university courses degrades scientific standards. Finally, he finds that "Multiculturism is perhaps the most dangerous false knowledge circulating among us." This section exposes the narrowness of Thornton's outlook. While praising Western technology throughout the book, he is apparently ignorant of the Eastern contributions to that technology. He castigates the hypocrisy of multiculturalism in its anti-Western manifestos, contending that the concepts of ethnic uniqueness are themselves a Western invention. Multiculturism, in his view, erodes the foundation of Western ethics and morality, although we aren't provided with much in the way of definition of these terms. In
his use of the terms, the strong emphasis is on "individualism" and "freedom." Thornton's response to social critics is to urge their emigration. It smacks of the favourite phrase of the Nixon era, "America, love it or leave it." Thornton's constant use of stock phrases: "empty rhetoric," "hysterical attack," "gratifying fantasy, "sentimentalized thinking" and other idioms belie his own rhetoric, hysteria and sentimental formulae. The book is a paean to fantasized cultural ideal that never existed and likely never will. The greatest surprise in this book is that after over 200 pages of lashing out at America's social critics we expect to find some realistic solutions to the issues he addresses. After disparaging the expressed opinions of those commentators seeking solutions to the problems of racism, environmental degradation and reaction to America's plan for globalization, Thornton simply throws up his hands in despair. He offers neither plans, campaigns or any means of addressing issues that confront us and our children. He can only deplore "retreating into obscurantism, mysticism or quietism." This inability to deal with society's problems at any level simply renders the whole exercise a telling example of "empty rhetoric," to use his own overworked phrase.
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