The Age of American Unreason

Today's Salon has a good review by Laura Miller about Susan Jacoby's book, The Age of American Unreason. The book has some flaws, according to Miller, one of which is that Jacoby doesn't seem to care about why people like unreasonable ways of thinking:

The missing factor in Jacoby's formula is just that: In addition to being capable of rationality, we also have to want to be rational.

and

It's hard to imagine what could be more central to Jacoby's subject than the motivations of those Americans who chose what she describes as "willed ignorance" over reason. Isn't it likely that the recent resurgence of that ignorance arises from similar needs and desires? If there were some other way to address those needs (or fears), perhaps fundamentalism would be less appealing, and perhaps reason could be made more so. However, that would require admitting that people who are capable of reason will nevertheless sometimes pick an irrational course of action or belief. Rational people do this all the time, of course -- even intellectuals. But rationality has its own ideology, and one of its tenets is the conviction that, if given a fair chance, reason must always carry the day.

This makes me think about Transcendentalism, which was a counterargument to the Age of Enlightenment. Wouldn't it be nice if today's counterargument to reason (I wish I could say "our contemporary age of reason" because we never had one) had the same substance, a more thoughtful contemplation of spirituality and nature through poetry? Or is that passé?

I know peer pressure has a lot to do with some people not wanting to act smart, which supposedly makes others feel inferior, but I also think that the way in which we're taught at school should take some of the blame for people not wanting to think. Rote learning is good for some things, but it really drains all the fun out of learning; which is, curiosity, discovery, and that little tingle and light bulb that turns on in your head when you "get it".