The Twilight of American Culture

I know I've got a powerful work of non-fiction on my hands when I start writing down the names of other books the author refers-to. If you are a person who is captured by books, by ideas, and especially by their conjunction, you've probably noticed this same affinity for books that demonstrate the same pleasure in crediting their antecedents. My list for Berman's "The Twilight of American Culture" was a full page long!Let me say right off the bat, though - Berman is no William Bennett, muscling-in with his insistent, canonical listings or telling you precisely what your 6th grader needs to know (as a teacher I'm especially touchy about that one!). Berman does, in the end, articulate a powerful vision of the importance of being aware of some of the classic works of western culture. But along the way he takes a peek at everything from the movie "Blade Runner" to Don DeLillo's "White Noise" and Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz."Berman's claim boils down to "same old story" - civilizations, including ours, move toward decline. This is, itself, something that has been said many times before, back to Spengler and beyond, but Berman's telling is engaging in all sorts of ways. And his proposal for spanning the decline is unique.For one thing, Berman brings a clear-eyed directness to his extensive and eclectic description of the indicators of decline. He acknowledges the important efforts of many individuals to bring about change through personal transformation and grassroots activism, then replies "lets not kids ourselves: The ability of these sorts of approaches to significantly deflect the juggernaut of global corporate capitalism in a decade or two is non-existent."A central element of Berman's discussion is, indeed the role played by the corporatization of the planetary culture, the merging of corporate and adolescent ethics, the "culture of McWorld" as he and others have termed it. In this he differs from many on the political right who have called for a return to the traditional values of the "western canon" while shining the boots of corporate capitalism. Under this economic juggernaut Berman cites four factors that are present when a civilization collapses (a) accelerating social and economic inequality, (b) declining returns from investments in solutions, (c) dropping levels of literacy and general intellectual awareness and (d) spiritual death - packaging of cultural content in formulas, kitsch.Berman does not propose halting or reversing the decline he outlines, but he also does not propose despair. Instead he suggests that we learn from history that decline is sometimes followed by regrowth; that the pace of such rebirth has been hastened or delayed by the involvement of institutions that bridged the dark eras by carrying pieces of the old into the new. Berman proposes a similar "monastic" option with more than a casual nod to the uncertainty in either defining or accomplishing such an endeavor. If you've read lots of this sort of cultu

I don't want to duplicate what has already been said below, but I think it's important to point out one particularly valid idea in Dr. Berman's book: He debunks the commonly held myth that economic prosperity and intellectual excellence are corollated. So often we hear how American economic prosperity is evidence of our superior intellectual achievement. In fact, according to Dr. Berman, economic prosperity (a myth in itself) is a function of a techno-corporate conformity and mindless consumerism that together stifle the natural intellectual curiosity so important to a healthy and balanced human condition.

In "The Twilight of American Culture," Morris Berman tells his readers that America is like any other civilization and that it will decline. In fact, he writes, American civilization has been in a steady decline for some time now. So what do we do? "If the historical record is clear on this point, there is no way out. We might as well fiddle while New York and Los Angeles burn." But Berman has a better idea. He calls it the monastic option. Here, one gets the sense of a secret order of the enlightened whose members may know of each other, and even be friends but never gather as an order. There are no "membership cards and badges (whether real or metaphorical), avant-garde language and appropriate party line, organization and even visibility," writes Berman Instead, Berman envisions these "monks," men and women, going about their business of preserving bits and pieces of their culture, shunning any inclination or attempt to institutionalize their work, for to do so "would be the kiss of death." In our current situation which Berman highlights with terms like Starbuckized, Coca-colonization and Rambification, any endeavor toward the excellent is likely to be bought out and sold by entrepreneurs ready to market it. Once the excellent has been packaged for sale, it is doomed to join the rest of American culture mashed together in an indistinguishable mess of the good and bad, the excellent and execrable, the elite and the rabble. While this book is an important addition to any thinking person's library, it will have a particular appeal to educators who are well aware "that our entire consciousness, our intellectual-mental life, is being Starbuckized, condensed into a prefabricated designer look...." To know the truth of what Berman has to say and suggest, all educators have to do is remember they work with the understanding that students are their customers.

Morris Berman is to be commended for taking the insights of our principal contemporary novelists and essayists to heart and presenting decline as decline. His is not a vision that sells, but his may be the highest courage: to call things by their rightful names. Assuming that Don DeLillo, Thomas Frank, Lewis Lapham, and Mark Edmunson among others are to be taken seriously, he confirms the dumbing down that has occured under the influence of such current power brokers as airhead CEO's, media celebrities, and jackass college deans. At first reading, one might think Berman exaggerates our plight. But that is because he is what Flannery O'Connor called "a realist of distances." He views events and sees connections at a level deeper than those who are fully comfortable and at home in the world. His seeming "exaggerations" serve to make the obvious unavoidable to people whose hearing has been weakened and sight dimmed by media and information overload. If ours were a society that took its profounder critics seriously instead of ignoring them, Berman would doubtless be offered a cup of hemlock.

If I were to write a short list of contemporary authors who have most affected my thinking during the past two decades, Morris Berman would be at the top. His books "Coming to Our Senses" and "The Reenchantment of the World" not only gave me new insights into the notion of a more embodied existence, they also gave me a lasting epistemological appreciation of the kind of rigor necessary to bring light to any subject that one truly wants to learn more about. My views about the possibilities the future holds for humankind run hot and cold. I'm optimistic one day and pessimistic the next. But I've long held the position that while the mass of American culture seems to be, as Neil Postman observed, "drowning in a sea of amusements," individuals still have an opportunity to live as meaningful a life as is possible to live. Now Berman comes along with "The Twilight of American Culture," which captures this reality not only in a theoretical sense but also in a very practical way. Berman advocates creating "zones of intelligence" both public and private and says, "This is not about `fifty ways to save the earth,' `voluntary simplicity,' or some program of trendy ascetic activities. Nor does it involve anything showy and dramatic, and virtually anyone reading this book is capable of making an effort in this direction." "The Twilight of America Culture" is a rear-guard action for finding an oasis of meaning in an insane world. Highly recommended.