"Age of Unreason"?

Here is a good review of Susan Jacoby's "disappointing" "Age of American Unreason":

. . . This is disappointing, because "The Age of American Unreason" poses fascinating questions about the nature of American ignorance. Are we really getting more anti-intellectual, and if so, why? Why did presidential sound bites drop from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to 7.8 seconds in 2000? Why, if America is so religious, are the majority of citizens unable to name the Bible's first book? And is this surge in "unreason" a real change, or are the ignorant, previously rendered to the sidelines, simply getting more airtime?

The book's strongest point comes with Jacoby's analysis of recent technological advances. Video and the Internet, she points out, rose together with several important social developments, not all of them welcome: "resistance to the idea of aesthetic hierarchy," shortened attention spans, and the tendency "to tune out any voice that is not an echo." The last, seen prominently in today's blogging universe, leads to imaginary, isolated worlds where all agree--and where users can anonymously slander those who don't. "The unwillingness to give a hearing to contradictory viewpoints," Jacoby writes, correctly, "or to imagine that one might learn anything from an ideological or cultural opponent, represents a departure from the best side of American popular and elite intellectual traditions."

"The Age of American Unreason," ultimately, falls prey to this very vice. An initially promising book touching on compelling themes is consistently derailed by the author's ever-grinding ax: a real hostility to--and a significant misunderstanding of--American religion. That this is done while largely giving a pass to secular quasi-religions like communism further impairs the argument. Jacoby is indeed correct that a little bit of misinformation can be a dangerous thing. It certainly does its own share of damage to what could have been an intriguing, timely study of American intellectual life.