Can I read Bad or, The dumbing down of America on EtoBox?

Bad or, The dumbing down of America by Paul Fussell is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Bad or, The dumbing down of America about?

This book contains enough good points and valuable criticism of modern American culture that it's a shame that it's value is marred by flaws and excessive generalizing. Paul Fussell also wrote Class, a very funny and witty analysis of the supposedly nonexistent American class structure. In Bad, Fussell invents a whole new category: "BAD" --all capitals-- is distinguished from the merely "bad." In the latter category are things from which we don't expect much. BAD, on the other hand, applies to people, objects, ideas and actions that are phony and pretentious.Many of Fussell's points are well taken and hard to argue with. The focus of modern "higher" education on athletics at the expense of academics; the silly pretensions of "gourmet" restaurants; the lack of intelligence displayed in blockbuster movies; the incoherent babble of much contemporary language...there is a lot to recommend here. The problem is, Fussell gets carried away and ends up undermining his own argument by equating BAD with whatever doesn't conform to his own tastes and idiosyncrasies. In the chapter on architecture, for example, he is contemptuous of almost anything built in the last fifty years without any real

Who reads Bad or, The dumbing down of America?

Author

Paul Fussell

Publisher

Summit Books

Published

1991

Language

EN

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Sociology, Social_sciences