A01=Eugene Halton
alienation
american culture
Author_Eugene Halton
Category=JBCC
civilization
communication
connections
democracy
discovery
distance
epiphany
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
inspiration
intellectual life
living
materialism
nation
national characteristics
political engagement
politics
popular ideas
pubic conceptions
realization
recognition
self-sufficiency
social conditions
society
sociological
sociologists
sociology
understanding
united states of america
usa
Product details
- ISBN 9780226314662
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2008
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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More and more information is pumped into our media-saturated world every day, yet Americans seem to know less and less. In a society where who you are is defined by what you buy, and where we prefer to experience reality by watching it on TV, Eugene Halton argues something has clearly gone wrong.Luckily Halton, with scalpel-sharp wit in one hand and the balm of wisdom in the other, is here to operate on the declining body politic. His initial diagnosis is bleak: fast food and too much time spent sitting, whether in our cars or on our couches, are ruining our bodies, while our minds are weakened by the proliferation of electronic devices - TVs, computers, cell phones, iPods, video games - and their alienating effects. If we are losing the battle between autonomy and automation, he asks, how can our culture regain self-sufficiency? Halton finds the answer in the inspiring visions - deeply rooted in American culture - of an organic and more spontaneous life at the heart of the work of master craftsman Wharton Esherick, legendary blues singer Muddy Waters, urban critic Lewis Mumford, and artist Maya Lin, among others.A scathing and original jeremiad against modern materialism, "The Great Brain Suck" is also a series of epiphanies of a simpler but more profound life.
Eugene Halton is professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame and the author of Meaning and Modernity: Social Theory in the Pragmatic Attitude and Bereft of Reason: On the Decline of Social Thought and Prospects for Its Renewal, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
