Are You Stupid?: A Second Revolution Might Save America From Herself - Softcover

Nadin, Mihai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1490525653 ISBN 13: 9781490525655

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

Synopsis

In the most dynamic and prosperous country on Earth—the USA—stupidity overshadows the intellectual and technical accomplishments that other nations envy. If Americans continue to delude themselves about their country, the USA will end up like the USSR: imploding from within. This work analyzes the systemic aspects of America’s current condition: across-the-board-dumbing down through media and in education; growing dependence on and demand for entitlements; corruption in the private and political domains; chronic cronyism; the opportunistic engineering of reality. Consequently, individual and collective stupidity not only leads to crises, it renders the USA impotent in dealing with the challenges of the fast dynamics characteristic of our time of post-industrial capitalism oriented towards consumption. The causes for this state of stupidity are examined: the people’s willful ignorance of the nation’s true history and development; an economic system that does not foster a sense of citizenry; cultivated mediocrity in education and entertainment; corruption of justice; rampant consumerism; a state of prosperity that lulls the people into complacency. Taking the rewards of change for granted, Americans no longer understand what change entails. Gazing into the rear-view mirror of history in search of answers, they forget that the USA was founded in a world more similar to the 1st century than the 21st. Americans will have to start fighting their own stupidity instead of further exhausting the country’s (and the world’s) resources in wars and entitlement measures. America has to “reset” herself, within an authentic democratic process, on a foundation appropriate to the integrated world of the global information age.

About this title

About the Author

Mihai Nadin has authored over 35 books, both non-fiction and fiction, some translated into Spanish, German, French, Romanian, Korean, and Arabic. His book, The Civilization of Illiteracy (praised by E.D. Hirsch and Umberto Eco among others) is focused on what makes the change from a civilization dominated by literacy to a new civilization, of many literacies involved in unprecedented forms of human activity. Nadin experienced several political and cultural environments: communism in his native Romania; Germany’s social capitalism; and America’s multi-cultural, capitalist democracy. He was shaped in science as well as in the humanities and contributed well respected original ideas. This gives the author a unique perspective from which he articulated a provocative world view. Nadin is currently an endowed professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he directs the Institute for Research in Anticipatory Systems. (See also www.nadin.ws)

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1490525653
• ISBN 13: 9781490525655
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 390