The state of the American mind
Subtitle: 16 leading critics on the new anti-intellectualism
By: edited by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow
Publisher: Templeton Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9781599474588
Subjects: Social conditions; Intellectual life; American National characteristics
Description: "In 1987, Allan Bloom?s The Closing of the American Mind was published; a wildly popular book that drew attention to the shift in American culture away from the tenets that made America?and Americans?unique. Bloom focused on a breakdown in the American curriculum, but many sensed that the issue affected more than education. The very essence of what it meant to be an American was disappearing. That was over twenty years ago. Since then, the United States has experienced unprecedented wealth, more youth enrolling in higher education than ever before, and technology advancements far beyond what many in the 1980s dreamed possible. And yet, the state of the American mind seems to have deteriorated further. Benjamin Franklin?s “self-made man” has become a man dependent on the state. Independence has turned into self-absorption. Liberty has been curtailed in the defense of multiculturalism. In order to fully grasp the underpinnings of this shift away from the self-reliant, well-informed American, editors Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow have brought together a group of cultural and educational experts to discuss the root causes of the decline of the American mind." -- from publisher's website.
Notes: Subtitle from cover.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword; title: America: Are we losing our mind?  -- Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow -- Introduction; title: The knowledge requirement: what every American needs to know  -- E.D. Hirsch Jr. -- Part one; title: States of mind: indicators of intellectual and cognitive decline.; title: The troubling trend of cultural IQ  -- Marl Bauerlein; title: Biblical literacy matters  -- Daniel L. Dreisbach; title: Why Johnny and Joanie can't write, revisited  -- Gerald Graff; title: College graduates: satisfies, but adrift  -- Richard Arum; title: Anatomy of an epidemic  -- Robert Whitaker -- Part two; title: Personal and cognitive habits/interests.; title: A wired nation tunes out the news  -- David T.Z. Mindich; title: Catching our eye : the alluring fallacy of knowing at a glance  -- Maggie Jackson; title: The rise of the self and the decline of intellectual and civic interest  -- Jean M. Twenge; title: Has internet-fueled conspiracy-mongering crested?  -- Jonathan Kay -- Part three; title: National consequences.; title: Dependency in America: American exceptionalism and the entitlement state  -- Nicholas Eberstadt; title: Political ignorance in America  -- Ilya Somin; title: In defense of difficulty: how the decline of the ideal of seriousness has dulled democracy in the name of phony populism  -- Steve Wasserman; title: We live in the age of feelings  -- Dennis Prager; title: How colleges create the "expectation of confirmation"  -- Greg Lukianoff; title: The new antinomian attitude -- R.R. Reno.