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.