Attack on Al Gore's Assault on Reason

I was recently scanning the internet for entries on Al Gore's book, Assault on Reason, and was surprised to see so many people criticize the book before they had actually read it. Some of these people did not plan on reading it at all but offered some strong opinions. For example, Robert Tracinski on a site called Real Clear Politics said, “Based on excerpts of Gore's book published in TIME, his not-so-subtle theme is that reason is being "assaulted" by a free and unfettered debate in the media. . .” Actually his argument centers around his thesis that there is not a free and unfettered debate in the media, though a person is free to disagree with this thesis and the reasoning that leads to it.

Josh Hammond on the site Best of the Blogs stated, “If you thought Al Gore was arrogant, condescending, and a know-it-all before (none who read these entries probably do), then Al removes all doubt in his latest broadside on the Bush administration.” And he adds although he has not read the book that,

“Maureen Dowd gets it right when she calls Gore’s book a “high-minded scold”. Gore’s primary “research” is selective newspaper articles, selective Congressional testimony, selective commission reports. . .”

He says that because of all this he doesn't intend on reading it at all, “because the last thing I need is a condescending politician lecturing me about how life is. . . I have read a variety of book reviews about the book and that is good enough for me.” Yet I would push the question: why do you blog about a book you have not even read? Or if you do, why charge with confidence that he has used “selective quotes,” etc., when your sources are themselves merely a selection of book reviews? One can simply not be unaware that using substandard rhetoric to attack a book with the title “Assault on Reason,” will leave one open to the charge of being ironic.

Personally I have so far read the majority of the book and can say, based on that portion, I didn’t find the book at all “arrogant” or “condescending.” I was surprised that it was as balanced and reasonable as it was; I was really expecting a partisan polemic. What I found in its pages was a largely detached, critical examination of contemporary communications theory.

One of the things he writes about here is exactly the nature of the some of the criticism this book is getting: the person who writes it is scrutinized while the “ideas” within the book are marginalized by selective quotation, omission, or pre-judged sentiment. The book does lack eloquence at times. It does have an agenda. There is much Gore's book that is not new, but it does seem to try to present information an honestly way and to lead the reader with logic more than bluster, or clever verbal jabs. It's a good read.

Smarter than a 5th Grader

Living from one break bell to another

The teacher writes a lagging rhyme upon

Yet another student’s pleasant failure:

“Let failure upon failure be our bond”;

‘Till longed for 3 PM has come and gone,

Then if the lagging poem be thrown away—

And to toss the scrapes one is often fond,

Will yield an unacceptable delay;

For the life is short and the work day, long;

The hallow’d ring around the temple grays;

The papers are counted, ink is measured;

American life leaves no time for play—

Efficiency makes our bombs work better.

structured Sentences will soon be given

Useless teachers by judicious villans.

Because I Do Not Turn. . .

It occurred to Cecilia on day that she had never looked upon the backs of the pictures on her wall. That this would have occurred to her at all was only further sign that her eccentricity was still intact and an active part of her waking life. But, still, these pictures that had been her constant companions for decades, whose images—cubist renderings of Parisian café scenes painted by her mother and father before the war—were as familiar to her as the mole on the side of her neck. It was their countenance that had remained with her after the death of her parents and her advancement into middle age, the after-image a youth spent in the shadow of two brighter suns. As she sat looking at the frozen image of that plump waiter moving carefully through that café crowd, and the improbably angular couple kissing on the street corner, there was one aspect of these familiar old friends that remained a mystery to her. Their backs. It suddenly seemed indecent to her that she should have spent her entire life among the pictures but have never known what lay on the other side of them.
So Cecilia walked over to the living room wall and, standing on a sofa, lifted one picture off the nails that had been holding it fast for a nearly a lifetime. She gently laid it down on the sofa and began to turn it over. She saw taped to the back of the picture frame . . . an envelope. Upon the envelope, written on a handwriting she knew well—her mother's. It was strange to read,

“Open the envelope, Cecie, this is important.”

MY DAY IN TRAFFIC COURT:

My appearance in traffic court today began with an encounter with two underlings who seemed to share one brain. Left hemisphere was handing out papers for us violators to sign with information about our right to an attorney. I thought I must be in the wrong place because one doesn't usually get an attorney for traffic court, so as the people were grabbing pens and so on, I started to ask Lefty if maybe I was in the wrong place.Excuse me but — "Wait!" She pointed an erect finger at me.After she handed out pens and paper, it was my turn. It's just that I'm here for a traffic ticket. . . "Yea?" Well, it says that I've been informed about my right to have an attorney; I don't really understand. . . "Hold on," again with the excited finger. She indicated a bench for me to sit on. I sat on it. after a few minutes, I was called over by the sister sphere.

Sister told me that I could get an attorney but I had to sign the paper . . . Well what I was concerned about. . . "Just a minute," she was terse. "It's our policy for you to sign now. You can make arrangements for a lawyer . . ." I must have looked like I was about to say something, "Let me finish!" I didn't say anything. "You have to go ahead and sign it now." I told her that she must be used to speaking to very angry people. "It's our policy," she responded.

I told her I had no problem signing the paper, but If the court was going to appoint an attorney for me, then I was going to wait to be represented. She seemed to relax only after I signed the paper. By the way, to say 'it's just our policy' is the last refuge of the moron, I wanted to say. The prosecutor called me over after a while and I spoke with her. She was a nice young woman whom I had actually known some years ago. I explained my confusion. She said that,that clause should not have been on that paper. I pleaded "no contest with a statement." Then I sat down and wrote some haikus.

What follows is the statement and some of the haikus:

Haiku #1

Stood in a poor line

Bureaucratic snaps conveyed

my message poorly.

Haiku #2

Made to sit and wait

This month the money is gone

Can't pay Sallie Mae.

Haiku #3 "On recognizing Old Friends in the Court Room."

I've known her for years

once we watched the sun come up

she thought I forgot.

Haiku #4: "Upon Rising."

Next to an ex-con

sincerely made my statement

Portly judge listened.

...My Statement:

"First, I have no hard feelings against the policeman who ticketed me; he was as nice as a person who tickets you can be.

Judge, in a municipality that was half-way enlightened, the need for revenue would generate progressive taxes that would be both share and predictable. As it is, penalties levied against citizens in the form of traffic fines represent on of the most regressive forms of indirect taxation imaginable. These have the effect of penalizing the poor in our community dis proportionally. A person of limited means can expect to pay 100 percent of his traffic fine in necessary funds, not discretionary. (In my case, my student loans may be late this month.) It is the regressive nature that makes the proliferation of traffic and speeding tickets in the way that they are proportioned, the amount of the penalty, and the impact that they have on poor families, regressive, and, in my opinion, immoral. Having said this, I leave it to your honor."