Adam Bellow - Böcker

New Threats to Freedom In the twentieth century, free people faced a number of mortal threats,ranging from despotism, fascism, and communism to the looming menace of global terrorism. While the struggle against some of these overt dangers continues, some insidious new threats seem to have slipped past our intellectual defenses. These often unchallenged threats are quietly eroding our hard-won freedoms and, in some cases, are widely accepted as beneficial. In New Threats to Freedom, editor and author Adam Bellow has assembled an all-star lineup of innovative thinkers to challenge these insidious new threats. Some leap into already raging debates on issues such as Sharia law in the West, the rise of transnationalism, and the regulatory state. Others turn their attention to less obvious threats, such as the dogma of fairness, the failed promises of the blogosphere, and the triumph of behavioral psychology. These threats are very real and very urgent, yet this collection avoids projecting an air of doom and gloom. Rather, it provides a blueprint for intellectual resistance so that modern defenders of liberty may better understand their enemies, more effectively fight to preserve the meaning of freedom, and more surely carry its light to a new generation. What are the new threats to freedom? when has authority not claimed, when imposing trammels and curbs on liberty, that it does so for a wider good and a greater happiness?” -Christopher Hitchens “The regulatory state amounts to a regressive tax that penalizes small independent producers and protectsthe status quo.” -Max Borders “Europe tends to favor stability over democracy, America democracy over stability.” -Daniel Hannan “The value of free expression is perceived to be at odds with goals that were considered ‘more important,’ like inclusiveness, diversity, nondiscrimination, and tolerance.” -Greg Lukianoff “The masses cannot ultimately be free: only the individual can be.” -Robert D. Kaplan “That old bugbear of postwar sociology-the mob-self-is now a reality. In a participatory/popularity culture, the freedom to think and act for ourselves becomes harder and harder to achieve.” -Lee Siegel “As traditional marriage declines, the ranks of single women are growing, and increasingly these women are substituting the security of a husband with the security of the state.” -Jessica Gavora “Ending the freedom to fail is a mean-spirited attack on the freedom to succeed.” -Michael Goodwin “The only solution to the new threats to American press freedom lies in organized resistance.” -Katherine Mangu-Ward “The new behaviorism isn’t interested in protecting people’s freedom to choose; on the contrary, its core principle is the idea that only by allowing an expert elite to limit choice can individuals learn to break their bad habits.” -Christine Rosen “There’s a world of Travis Bickles out there, and they’re not driving cabs. They’re reading blogs.” -Ron Rosenbaum “The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.” -David Mamet Join the conversation about these issues at www.newthreatstofreedom.com

In 1987, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind was published; a wildly popular book that drew attention to the shift in American culture away from the tenants that made America-and Americans-unique. Bloom focused on a breakdown in the American curriculum, but many sensed that the issue affected more than education. The very essence of what it meant to be an American was disappearing.  That was over twenty years ago. Since then, the United States has experienced unprecedented wealth, more youth enrolling in higher education than ever before, and technology advancements far beyond what many in the 1980s dreamed possible. And yet, the state of the American mind seems to have deteriorated further. Benjamin Franklin’s “self-made man” has become a man dependent on the state. Independence has turned into self-absorption. Liberty has been curtailed in the defense of multiculturalism.   In order to fully grasp the underpinnings of this shift away from the self-reliant, well-informed American, editors Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow have brought together a group of cultural and educational experts to discuss the root causes of the decline of the American mind.  The writers of these fifteen original essays include E. D. Hirsch, Nicholas Eberstadt, and Dennis Prager, as well as Daniel Dreisbach, Gerald Graff, Richard Arum, Robert Whitaker, David T. Z. Mindich, Maggie Jackson, Jean Twenge, Jonathan Kay, Ilya Somin, Steve Wasserman, Greg Lukianoff, and R. R. Reno. Their essays are compiled into three main categories:   States of Mind: Indicators of Intellectual and Cognitive DeclineThese essays broach specific mental deficiencies among the population, including lagging cultural IQ, low Biblical literacy, poor writing skills, and over-medication. Personal and Cognitive Habits/InterestsThese essays turn to specific mental behaviors and interests, including avoidance of the news, short attention spans, narcissism, and conspiracy obsessions. National ConsequencesThese essays examine broader trends affecting populations and institutions, including rates of entitlement claims, voting habits, and a low-performing higher education system. The State of the American Mind is both an assessment of our current state as well as a warning, foretelling what we may yet become. For anyone interested in the intellectual fate of America, The State of the American Mind offers an accessible and critical look at life in America and how our collective mind is faring.