MADreads

But the term “Idiot” sounds so judgmental

July 24th, 2009 Dennis - Central

“Dinosaurs with saddles” was the three-line pitch used to get the go-ahead for an article he was proposing for Esquire magazine.  It was about the Creation Museum in Hebron, Kentucky which includes, yes, a model dinosaur with an English-riding saddle on it’s back.  That story appears as an introductory offering in Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce along with eleven other articles/features that tackle American foolishness from it’s founding through the present.

Since someone once added up the passage of time as it appears to have been laid out in the Bible, it’s been argued that all of creation has been in existence for only about six thousand years, not the billions of years that scientists have determined have passed since the Big Bang.  So it seems only natural that dinosaurs and humans must have coexisted in history.  Naturally, some intrepid caveman would have saddled one up.  It stands to reason, right?

This was a pretty disquieting read, taking incidents from our country’s past and examining them in the harsh light of hindsight, and from a secularist point-of-view.  Events such as the legal battle over the life and death of Terry Schiavo, the trial over the teaching of Intelligent Design in the schools of Dover, Pennsylvania, the justification of the use of torture by candidates for the leadership of the free world, the rise of conservative talk radio in the aftermath of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, the rush to war in Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11, and global warming are all presented in such a way as to demonstrate that there is no longer viable and credible debate amongst the majority of the populace.  We’re left with just an orchestrated process that will appeal to the emotions of the group (let’s be honest, the Christian Right) who are being somewhat blatantly manipulated while anyone with expertise on the issues being debated are marginalized simply because they are “so-called experts” who don’t reside in the same world that “real Americans”  live in.

The troubling part is, the strategy of appealing to emotions seems to have been effective.  It’s also upsetting because there seems to be no middle ground anymore.  The people who don’t hold the same beliefs as one group does are simply wrong and it’s somehow okay to refer to them as idiots.  And those people being called idiots feel just as contemptuous about the people calling them idiots.

I really do think this was a well-done book.  The people Pierce interviews and the stories he tells are well-researched and thought-provoking and sometimes uplifting.  But, occasionally, they are crushingly bleak in their portrayal of our society, or at least in the portrayal of the deep divisions within it.  So even if you’re not part of the idiot America that Pierce refers to in the title of this book, I think you’ll have a hard time reading through this text without feeling emotionally drained.  That’s the feeling I frequently had anyway.

Something of a saving grace was his use of founding father and president James Madison as a point of reference, presenting Madison’s views about the struggles that he foresaw for his newly formed nation, and also his hopes as well.  Ironically, it appears that author Pierce has made an error in the spelling of interviewee and Madison biographer Ralph Ketcham’s name. It’s spelled “Ketchum” throughout Pierce’s text.  Perhaps we should be a little more careful whom we’re calling idiots…

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction