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 enlarge | Author: Dick Meyer
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.85
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New (36) Used (7) from $14.84
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 18748
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307406628
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.93
EAN: 9780307406620
ASIN: 0307406628
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Why I hate people like Meyer October 15, 2008
4 out of 17 found this review helpful
The book does not really tell you anything that most people do not already know. In one chapter Meyer also made it a point in the book to say that anyone who does not believe in man made global warming has somehow invented his own truth or "truthiness". Personally I do not believe Dick Meyer is qualified to make that judgement. Why is he even bringing this up in a social science book I would like to know. He should put that in his follow up book a reason I hate people is because they point out that others are lying to themselves even if they are qualified scientists and the author is not.
 Lots of questions. Few Answers October 15, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Half-way through this book, I realized it wasn't going anywhere. It was a good journalist's approach, but lacking depth and precision. Meyers was very good in reviewing all the works of others about America's ennui, but made few critical remarks about them.
In reviewing America's bad manners and belligerence, the works he cites never go back very far in history. Americans have always been a contentious and litigious lot. We used to have a lot more riots, demonstrations, public fights and brawls than we do now. We have always had bitter rivalries between various classes. We used to have slavery, remember?
During WWII cold war, we seemed to have hunkered down and behaved better. That sense of conformity broke down with the Vietnam war, which we entered without much unity or enthusiasm, always a mistake.
Meyers seems to be uncomfortable with the fact that we are all postmoderns now. Truth is relative. We all have to create our own values (which we always do by selecting those communities we identify with). Meyer misses entirely the point made by modern philosophy and science that the ego itself is an illusion, a construct of ideas we get from those around us. Whatever "identities" there are available to us are available in society.
Enormous numbers of people are not happy with their lives. People are working harder and longer in the U.S. with less to show for it. A little more attention to the inequality in our lives would have given this book more grounding and substance.
 Dysfunctional culture likely to remain so, despite vague discontent (3.25 *s) August 30, 2008
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
The author makes clear that the modern social world is characterized by isolationism of its members and "meism." The fact that such a society does not function harmoniously or that many are upset by those developments is hardly surprising. The author, in a work that draws upon Putnam's "Bowling Alone," but more personally and anecdotally, recounts an entire litany of socially dysfunctional behaviors: boorishness, indifference, phoniness, etc. Face-to-face communities that once perpetuated shared values and some degree of tolerance have largely disappeared. The vast majority of us are ensconced in manicured suburbia surrounded by a plethora of personal electronic devices: computers, cell phones, iPods, PDAs, DVDs, etc. With the prevalence of these devices, few are inclined to interact with a neighbor, let alone a community. Even if there is the desire, town centers and the corner bar are constructions of the past. These developments have had profound consequences for our society.
According to the author, "OmniMedia" and "OmniMarketing" are all pervasive in our culture with relentless impact on our traditions. There are so many media options that viewers and users, using cable and online sources, can tailor their selection of information and concepts that they wish to be true. Truth has been transformed into self-selected "truthiness." In addition, the entertainment industry and media have completely undermined conventional mores with salacious and provocative content.
Advertising and marketing have been driving our consumption oriented economy for almost a century. Now, that shaping of minds has seeped its way down as a tool for individuals. Creating a marketable "you," replete with images and the right credentials, is part of what the author calls "selfism." The well-rounded citizen is a person of the past. The author notes that marketing and self-promotion often slip into phoniness and deliberate misinformation.
With the pervasiveness of truthiness and selfism, it's hardly surprising that American is depicted as being polarized. The news media is a large proponent of that notion, though the author insists that view is more superficial than real.
Much of the author's description of our culture is inarguable. Loutishness, indifference, phoniness, and political screamers are everywhere for the seeing. However, the author's claim that we hate our culture is quite vague. Does a political ideologue hate the fact that he or she is an ideologue or that others do not agree. Does a marketer hate his own slippery advertising as much as he does the next guy's? Does outrage at the depiction of women as fast and loose stop the purchasing of goods or buying tickets to entertainment? Should we be concerned with the hate of convenience?
The author's ideas for reclaiming our culture from its current state of affairs seem most inadequate. The notion that a few random individuals that choose to operate with integrity and the highest moral purpose will put in a dent in modern trends seems disingenuous. It is a fact that corporate values dominate our society. People are no longer primarily citizens; we've all become consumers and commodities. We operate according to self interest. We seek to buy cheap to the disadvantage of our fellow men if need be, but to sell ourselves high to the exclusion of others. Where is the concern for downsizing and off shoring and the devastation to families and communities, beyond those directly affected? Do we hate that?
Yes, much about our culture is dysfunctional. There may be vague dissatisfaction in some circles, but hate of our culture is doubtful. The ability of corporations to drive our culture and to subtly persuade us to like it is increasing every day. The citizens of the US are largely unequipped with either the tools or the knowledge to fully understand our culture, let alone repair it.
The book is a nice overview of our culture for those unable to understand what they see. Absolutely nothing new about our culture is presented; the observant person has seen all that the author has, and more. And the book is somewhat repetitious and tedious to read. One suspects that we are a lot further away from righting our culture than the author suggests. The forces of hate or discontent are hardly significant enough or rational enough to drive changes in a direction that would be beneficial to the society as a whole.
 Thank you Mr Meyer. August 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Thank you Mr. Meyer, for writing a book that was equally entertaining and enlightening; sarcastic and funny but also deeply thoughtful, historically supported and without bias, arrogance or condescendence.
Your book highlights the very things that are turning our society into one without a soul. On all levels of society we are distancing ourselves from each other, individually and collectively. You illustrate how the little things that really bug us need to be given more attention than just a complaint to a companion or a roll of the eyes. You give examples of the every day absurdities that we may notice, or may be completely oblivious to, that are not so insignificant and why we need to open our eyes and our minds to how those things are really effecting us. You explain with great insight how and why we are the society that we are today and why change is necessary for the true happiness of tomorrow.
What I love about Mr Meyers book is how he explains that it isn't just socially or morally better to be kind, to use proper manners, to take time to really know our families and the people in our lives, or to question and have the confidence to say "enough is enough" or the word "no". He gently, but effectively, points out that it is crucial to the success of our future society that we do all those things and more. Mr Meyer reminds us that the power is within each individual to effect others and that it can grow to effect all of us.
This book should be on every college campus in America. Mr Meyer makes us realize that we have a responsibility to ourselves and those who come after us to be a little less selfish and really consider that what we do and say has consequences that effect more than just us and why that matters. This book makes us realize that we (individuals, families, communities, companies and everyone in between) should all make a commitment to recognize the need for and create more, in Robert Putnam's words, "social capital".
Journalist and Author Dick Meyer Sees Us as a Country That Has Succumbed to Learned Helplessness August 25, 2008
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Writing with thoughtful intelligence and keen insight, Dick Meyer, author of Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium, is sincerely haunted by several questions regarding our country's current malaise: Why are so many of us lonely? Why are so many of us depressed and angry? Why are so many of us defensive and paranoid? Why are so many of us distrustful of everyone? Why are we so willing to accept phoniness and ineptness from others, including our government? Why have so many of us surrendered to a condition of learned helplessness and apathy in which not only do we not know what questions we should be asking to solve our depression, we don't even have anyone to confide in should we know the questions we should be asking.
To answer these questions about our country's collective low-self-esteem and paralyzing depression, Meyer tells us a story about ourselves. The story is about a country that has lost common, shared values and virtues, a country that having lost community has replaced communal bonds with fierce tribes and clans that aggrandize themselves while demonizing their "opponents."
The beginning of this story is for Meyer, "Phase One," the Aquarian Promise of Free Love during the 1960s in which there were no boundaries to the freedom, the ego, the sense of self. This Unlimited freedom without a moral roadmap resulted in hedonism, egotism, and ultimately narcissism.
Instead of maturing into responsible adults who give and take from a healthy community and family, we become a bunch of whining, materialistic egotists, our inflated expectations of "selfhood" inevitably being dashed and resulting in greater and greater discontent, bitterness, and resentment.
The 1960s was the beginning of "The Great Me Project," which resulted in little islands competing against each other rather than a healthy community, which could provide the only source of our sanity--"social capital"--the sense of belonging, intimacy, and authenticity that healthy communities provide.
Absent this belonging, intimacy, and authenticity, we fear we are battling against forces by ourselves and we must also be on guard, living defensively against predators, market scams, phony politicians, and the slew of B.S. that has become so ubiquitous.
To compound our disaffected, isolated selves, our brains have become overwhelmed in the face of "Phase Two," the Technology Revolution that dizzies us with so many contraptions and messages that we have lost our grounding, our core, our focus. We don't know if we're coming or going and we feel we're about to explode.
His call for community, less materialism, and more courageous standards for moral absolutes might be too late, but at least he is still kicking and fighting.
While much of the material was familiar to me from other books, including the terse, more focused Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld by Thomas S. Hibbs and while he tries to cover too much ground as Meyer issues a diatribe about a "big menu of creepy irritations," Meyer succeeds at telling us a cohesive narrative about our popular culture to show us the trajectory leading to our current condition of learned helplessness, loneliness, partisan humbug, and mistrust.
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