Why America Failed: Economic Liberalism, Free Markets, Finance (2011)
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Morris Berman (born 1944), is an American historian and social critic. He was born in Rochester, New York, going on to earn his BA in mathematics at Cornell University in 1966 and his Ph.D. in the history of science at The Johns Hopkins University in 1972. As an academic humanist cultural critic, Berman specializes in Western cultural and intellectual history. Despite his status as an academic, Berman has written several books for a general audience.[1] They deal with the state of Western civilization and with an ethical, historically responsible, or enlightened approach to living within it. His work emphasizes the legacies of the European Enlightenment and the historical place of present-day American culture. His books include Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline (Wiley, 2011), Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire (Norton, 2006), The Twilight of American Culture (Norton, 2000), Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality (State University of New York Press, 2000), Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West (1989), and The Reenchantment of the World (Cornell University Press, 1981). Berman has served on the faculties of a number of universities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and recently taught as a visiting scholar in the sociology department at The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.. Berman emigrated from the U.S. to Mexico in 2006, where he was a visiting professor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico City from 2008 to 2009. Also during this time he continued writing for various publications including Parteaguas, a quarterly magazine. In 1990, Morris Berman received the Governor’s Writers Award (Washington State) for his book Coming to Our Senses.[3] In 1992, he was the recipient of the first annual Rollo May Center Grant for Humanistic Studies. In 2000, Berman's book The Twilight of American Culture was named one of the ten most recommended books of the year by the Christian Science Monitor[4] and was named a “Notable Book” by The New York Times Book Review.[5] In 2013 he received the "Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity" from the Media Ecology Association. As of 2014 Berman continues to live in Mexico. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Berman
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America won WW2 because of mass production. The Sherman tank was a little piece of shit, but we had thousands of them.
The Depression trained people to be independent and work damn hard, which helped production efforts during the war.
America will suffer but this will teach people to be independent and work hard again. -
He is definitely not talking about anyone doing a engineering degree. He is talking about Liberal arts students.
He is a liberal arts major himself, I would think. -
Much truth here. sadly, truth is not a hot commodity in a collapsing empire.
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I've lived in Europe and visited a dozen countries. My experiences outside the US somewhat confirm Dr. Berman's assertions. Americans are culturally narcissistic by comparison. He may be generalizing a bit too much, but I've found plenty of Americans to fit the profile he reveals. I worked most of my career with other scientist & engineers who depend on critical thinking, so was largely sequestered from non-professionals; but now retired I'm running into many more Americans who vividly demonstrate the shocking lack of critical thinking skills and self-reflection to which Morris alludes. It's depressing.
Those of us concerned about the American trend to avoid a decent education, especially in critical thinking in K-12, should start looking for a new batch of politicians who oppose ignorance. The oligarchs who've hijacked the political process certainly don't want the populace to be informed, so we must rally for a revolutionary change of guard. Americans must stop voting against their own interests as working people, and start voting for rational representatives that are apart from the corrupt establishment. Successful democracy will die, otherwise.
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