I rarely write reviews of books I don't finish reading but I refuse to finish reading this one. Name-drops aplenty but entirely superficial. Doesn't answer its title; doesn't offer anything profound at all. Simply a hotch-potch of things in the last few decades which its author finds ridiculous, often unfairly and without context, and ends with a single paragraph summary that the Enlightenment offered a lot but people acting in bad faith frustrated its promise and that frustration may continue. A meaningless conclusion. Look elsewhere for commentary of significance. The question that leaps out at the reader, of course, is whether the Enlightenment itself was flawed, but that would require a depth of thought not evident here. Has made me distrustful of Wheen. Tabloid, albeit post-graduate. Next. ( )

A book reminiscent of the older work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The author traces the history of current trends in anti-critical thinking and embrace of delusion through the last couple of decades of the 20th century, though she does move backward to find the threads and traces that led to that point. She writes lucidly, selects quotes that are relevant, and at times delicious, and does her research well. It is easy to read, not bogged down in technical minutiae but not superficially fluffy, either. It would be interesting to see an updated version now that the problem has spread its tentacles even further. ( )

The author has a superficial look at the actions of world leaders and various other points of contention, such as medicine that doesn't work. He seems to take far too much at face value- for example he has not asked Tony and Cherie Blair why they had a mayan rebirthing ceremony- it may have been that they just wanted a sexy sauna. He also doesn't realise that a UFO is an Unidentified Flying Object - some of which are subsequently identified. This does not make them interplanetary travel devices. On the whole it is a journalist doing what they do best - sensationalise to sell papers, in this case a book. Far too superficial for me I was left thinking this is five hours of my life wasted. ( )

The quotation on the front of the book from Jeremy Paxman described it as 'hilarious' - obviously Mr Paxman and my ideas on humour differ greatly as this book didn't raise many laughs. Parts of it did raise a wry smile and it pointed the finger at many ludicrous things, but this book is not humour as I have seen it categoried - unless like Paxman your idea of fun is terrorism, Islam, Enron, New Labour and post-modernism then don't come here looking for laughs. Having said that, I did enjoyed most of this book. The most light-hearted that looked at the popularity of self-help books which just rehash platitudes. Some times, I was confused by how certain things were going to be connected (Iran and post-modernism for example) and I did wonder that in some cases if his connections and conclusions would really hold up to close scrutiny. That he pours similar scorn on people playing the lottery as terrorists misinterpreting the Koran seems a bit off at times. But overall an interesting book even if I didn't always agree totally with the author. And it made me relieved that I didn't always 'get' post-modernism. ( )

This one had me torn between agreeing with him and wanting to slap him for lumping all belief systems into the melange of stupidity.

However it is a book several people should read about how spin has blinded us to reality. ( )

Presents some of the absurdity of accepted wisdom of various classes of people. (I have no idea how to tag this.) ( )

Wheen throws a few well-aimed jabs at deserving subjects, but the book only sporadically becomes more than a meandering grumble about his pet hates. ( )

A brilliant and funny look at the mad beliefs the human species is so regrettably addicted to. Astrology, Nostrademus, all the various human invented crazy gods, magic crystals, preposterous gurus, along with frighteningly gullible world leaders, like Reagan, Thatcher, various crazed mad mullahs, and even the dim and witless George Carey, one time archbishop of Canterbury! A brilliant demolition of dousing, homeopathy, and dopey Prince Philip's alien visitors. Trouble is, you end the book feeling some despair at the gullibility of so many people. If you take the X Files seriously, don't read this refreshing book. ( )

(First reviewed in blog at http://www.sea-of-flowers.ca/weblog/sea/archives/2005/03/14/idiot-proof.php and Blogcritics at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/14/232900.php)

Francis Wheen, an English columnist and writer, wrote a book published in 2004 under two titles. In England it was "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions". In the US it was: "Idiot Proof". Tim Hall reviewed it once before for Blogcritics in November 2004 - I like his review but I have a few things to say about this book myself.

It's funny and fun to read. Wheen has taken a series of stories from business, economics, politics and popular culture and brought them together in a way that makes connections. His stories are about people who persuade other people to accept dubious truths, and people who let themselves be persuaded to make bad decisions, people who obey or enrich ruthless, greedy and grandiose people, people who are drawn into mass hysteria. Part of the value in the book is the collection of stories, and part of it is the sheer glee he takes in exposing the vanities and the gullibility of the rich and powerful.

Most of Chapter 4, "The Demolition Merchants of Reality", deals with the increasing popularity of post-modernism in academic settings. He discusses Sokal's hoax and various excesses of post-modernism. He explains the intellectual weaknesses of post-modernism and the inversion of post-modernism, which has turned from being a skeptical process to a set of arguments to support pluralism of theories in the sciences. He makes (as did Wendy Kaminer in her book "Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials") a reasonable point that post-modernism has become foundational to the claims of creationists to offer "alternative theories" of geology and biology in the public schools of America. However he ends with an anachronistic discussion of the Scopes trial in Tennessee as an example of post-modernist rationalization of religion against the facts.

He has a good chapter on the public response the death of Lady Diana and the contorted efforts of various intellectual feminists to recreate her as a metaphor of repressed femininity in modern society. In that chapter, he has some insights into the absence of great unifying social myths and rituals in modern society and the fascination with celebrities and other seemingly random transient mass events. He has good opening and closing chapters which address the way Thatcher and Reagan promoted their economic policies, by sheer persistence, repetition and power, and how the media were complicit in lulling the public into accepting the logic of dishonest arguments as if they were fundamental economic truths. There is another somber chapter on the way that globalization has become a an irrational rationale for letting global economic policy be driven by the capricious and irrational mass moods of the world capital markets, which is not especially good for global justice. Wheen is well-read in politics and business, and he brings his knowledge to bear, comparing the dot.com and Enron bubbles to the South Sea bubble and other manic swings of the capital markets.

His book is driven by a powerful moral sense of truth and justice, and sense of outrage at the exploitation of human frailty by charlatans and tricksters. He identifies people who avoid the truth and moral obligations in their work. Corporate ad men and executives artists hire entertainer-writers like Thomas Peters, Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra to facilitate corporate solidarity, sell products and raise capital. In fact these entertainers have become apologists for corporate values of consumption and self-gratification, and, like various sports and entertainment celebrities, minor deities in the pantheon of capitalism. Politicians, like corporations, dabble in the New Age and alternative practices to project an image of sensitivity and modernity - and some of them seem to let it influence policy (Nancy Reagan's astrologer, and assorted gurus tied to the Clintons and the Blairs). Advertising and entertainment are the art of illusion. Post-modernism and process philosophy have legitimized belief in improbable, artificial and illusory belief systems. People are gullible. People don't have time to learn the truth and need to defer to credible advice. People defer to authoritative stories and believe well-packaged stories that fit their feelings and preconceptions. People get caught up in mass movements. People are prone to believe myths and stories on slight evidence and to rationalize their irrational feelings.

He overreaches himself in one area. The book is about truth, bullshit, humbug, mumbo-jumbo and plain lies. He tries to discuss the problem in terms of rationality and his understanding of the central ideas of the European Enlightenment, which he describes as the revolution of reason against the repression of knowledge. He refers to a 1999 article by Roger Scruton published in City Journal for his central thesis that the Enlightenment and "our entire tradition of learning" are at risk in a counter-revolution by a coalition of post-modernists and primitivists, New Age and Old Testament. He claims reason, logic, empirical science, objective reality and a belief in moral truth as the property of the Enlightenment, and he dismisses all religious believers as irrationalists.

His thesis is pretentious and tendentious. To begin, he doesn't deal with the fact that most of the people he trashes are intelligent, rational people. The problem isn't that they are irrational. The problem is that they rationalize. In some areas they rationalize the unknowable, but in some areas they rationalize bullshit. Second, he dismisses all systems except (atheist) empiricism as a legitimate method of discerning truth and making rational moral choices. He ought to be more tolerant of other systems that value objective realism and truth over pure imagination. Third, his assessment of Romanticism as the mere emotional colour of the Enlightenment is way off. Romanticism is the moving force of the Enlightenment and the modern age. The myths of Romanticism - the noble savage, liberation from the restraints of culture and tradition, the truth of instinct and the heart, the will to power - are the central myths of modern popular culture.

He fails to address the Enlightenment's attack on authority and the Romantic movement's celebration of the irrational and the personal. The former underwrote the debasement of scientific and technical knowledge, and the latter is foundational to the erosion of reason, morality and ethics. He doesn't seem to understand that the Enlightenment has liberated the powerful, the persuasive and the dishonest from any standards of objective truth in their dealings with the public. He makes a connection between the Romantic movement and post-modernism and the New Age, but he doesn't want to see the New Age as a legitimate descendent of the Enlightenment.

It's a great entertaining book, and if read with an open mind about Wheen's flawed thesis, a useful one. ( )

About 70-80%. I don't agree with everything he says, he's awfully glib, and he makes a few logical leaps that are not really substantiated. At least he's neutral on the left-right continuum, equally critical of both sides. He's essentially a sort of intel

Francis Wheen is that curiously uncomfortable sort of liberal leftie: the sort who, possibly because it's part of the party line, agrees we are best served by a tolerant and pluralistic society, but in the same breath declares with startling certitude (if not good reason) in favour of hard-edged enlightenment values (in particular the primacy of science and logic over other modes of discourse), and who argues without apparent irony that the world would be better off without "mumbo jumbo" which, seeing as it encompasses not just astrologers, faith-healers, priests, and people who believe literally in science fiction, but also supply-side economists, Chomskyites, neo-liberals, neo-conservatives and post-modernists, appears to defy all categorisation other than "Things Francis Doesn't Like".

You can either take or leave his particular gripes: For example, it strikes me as a little arch to say the least for a devotee of Karl Marx to cast stones at other economists' glasshouses, and while one might not agree with Thomas (or Milton) Friedman's libertarian capitalism, it's difficult to see how it qualifies as "mumbo jumbo".

The pinch point with his argument is postmodernism, for it is the only philosophy which justifies the appeal to tolerance and pluralism he makes. As is customary a some relativistic straw-men are wheeled out and ridiculed (the Sokal Hoax makes yet another appearance as the sole evidence for the prosecution), but it doesn't alter the fact that tolerance and pluralism under Wheen's regime would surely be nothing more than the indulgence of the preternaturally dim: If there really is a Single Right Way To Do It, any temptation to stray from that path, however well-meaning, would be at best a wasteful distraction from the timely solution of the eternal verities. That is, Wheen ought to say there should be very little tolerance at all. But that wouldn't be very liberal: if Francis Wheen were serious about his programme (or at any rate consistent about it), he ought to be something more of an autocrat than he actually professes to be.

The postmodern view, on the other hand, is that a discourse need not be certified enlightenment-compliant for it to have value - value being, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. We all behold things differently, and thank heavens for that. What Wheen asks us to accept is the measure of beauty beheld by *his* eye. With respect, it really isn't all that beguiling.

In sum, what this book really doesn't do is what it says on the tin. It doesn't ever set out what it means by "mumbo jumbo" much less how, when, or in what way it "conquered the world" (I suppose Wheen thinks we have exited a golden age of some sort; I didn't notice anyone turning out the lights or closing any door). All this really adds up to is a Dawkins-like moan. If you fancy a grumpy old man blowing hard (and in places entertainingly, I grant you) against all the things he thinks are rubbish in the world, you'll find some value here. If you want a more thoughtful entry than that, look elsewhere. ( )

Francis Wheen hates the mumbo-jumbo that seems to dominate the world these days. In particular, he attacks "holy warriors, antiscientific relativists, economic fundamentalists, radical postmodernists, New Age mystics [and] latter-day Chicken Lickens" who oppose rationalism and reason.

Wheen's style is entertaining, especially if you agree with him. The book's a bit shallow, perhaps, some of the cases could use deeper discussion. While he hits the nail on the head many times, the book isn't quite brilliant - just good. Some people would benefit a lot from reading it, but of course it's one of those books that's mostly read by the people who already agree with it (Dawkins' The God Delusion is another example).

Sure, the book could be better, but it's a good starting point to discover all the mumbo-jumbo that's filling the world.

(Original review at my review blog) ( )

http://tristram.squarespace.com/home/2005/8/16/how-mumbo-jumbo-conquered-the-wor... ( )

Some interesting points, but not very well written. Sam Harris's "The End of Faith" is more focused and, as a result, much more readable. ( )

Francis Wheen is the enemy of unreason.

All believers in homoeopathic medicine, post modernism, creationism, crystals, horoscopes, management gurus, Boo.com (or ANY company or market that has the words New Paradigm associated with it) prepare to be sneered at, not only that, but sneered at with footnotes and suggested reading.

He divides his book into various targets and dissects the absurdity of this post-enlightenment age. On post-modern anti-scientific relativism he points out that a fact, once asserted to be a fact, remains a fact. The result of this 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' philosophy is that it remains a FACT that the earth is the centre of the universe until Copernicus, only post-Copernicus is it a fact that the earth rotates around the sun.

On the the new liberation-through-celebration-of-victim-hood culture he quotes Linda Holt, "That Diana's therapist victim-speak could turn her into a feminist role model is a bad joke..." and then goes on to lay waste to Elton John, Tony Blair, William Hague and all the others joining in the nauseating outbreak of fawning sycophancy over a "simpering Bambi narcissist". How I cheered, what a perfect summation of Diana "simpering Bambi narcissist" is. A little known fact is that, in the days after the crash the BBC switchboard was overwhelmed with calls from people demanding less coverage, but the media feeding frenzy had begun and this wasn't anything anyone in the media wanted to hear.

I also really enjoyed the chapter Old Snake-Oil, New Bottles. I suffer from guru management overload myself, and this, from an enquiry into the prison service, struck a chord:

"Any organisation which boasts one Statement of Purpose, one Vision, five Values, six Goals, seven Strategic Priorities and eight Key Performance Indicators without any clear correlation between them is predictably a recipe for total confusion and exasperation."

Also, in this chapter, he sets up all the famous management gurus then demonstrates how their pronouncements fail to stand the test of time (and it is remarkable how many ended up broke, in prison, or both. The pointless aphorisms of Antony Robbin come in for particular mockery, lesson 364 (in self mastery) from Giant Steps "Remember to expect miracles ... because you are one" - didn't David Brent use that one?

I liked this book, but then I agreed with it. It is not always well constructed and his targets could have been better grouped, but it is a much needed book. ( )

The world is a scarily illogical place. Francis Wheen has some ideas on why that is, and while I don’t completely agree with him about everything he has to say, I definitely enjoyed the ride. ( )

Interesting in places, but the arguments don't always follow through in places. Some topics could be discussed in greater detail. Disjointed. ( )

This is occasionally amusing if you like watching the shooting of fish in barrels. Wheen seems to fancy himself as a modern H. L. Mencken. In an age when people generally let twaddle pass unremarked, shrugging shoulders, and assuming that the foolish are always with us, he strikes at the obvious targets boldly. Here is someone who presumes it is possible to gain some sort of advantage over the forces of idiocy.

Wheen does convince me that the fog of moral relativism has spread far. All forms of objectivism seem to be under assault. Social moral and scientific values are all at times lost in the myths of relativism. One theory always assumed as good as another.
Science and technology of course continues unbothered by the lack of critical thought or real peer review in other areas.
But unless critical thought is widespread society is doomed to misuse that science.

However the book has no real depth just a selective list of examples of varying degrees of dubiousness, with no description of a theme, no analysis of context nor sociological impact beyond the immediate cause-effect.
Wheen starts with the proposition that Mumbo-Jumbo took power along with Khomeini and Thatcher. and has remainded ascendent ever since.
He lists examples and that is that. No grand plan, No analysis of trends no real evidence of its growth no distinguishing between follies. mere anecdotes. Just a list of things that he felt personally affronted or amused by. I see one of his newspaper reviewers summed the work up as equivilant to watching Victor Meldrew mutter I dont believe it. He was wrong. Meldrew is more amusing.

Mumbo Jumbo did not in my opinion suddenly gain ascendency. to remain in power ever since. Pivotal though that time may be in many ways. People have been battling it since time immemorial. H. L. Mencken, George Orwell, and Alan Sokal. are amongst the fighters. Indeed Sokal's success in spreading dismay amongst the enemy is documented here, evidence that Mumbo jumbo does lose on occassion that it has not conquered the world.

There is no overall analysis. we are left to assume that Margret Thatcher's confrontational nature her inability to seek or negotiate compromise. is some how equivilent to the indescisive ambivilence of those politicans who's natural instinct on seeing a fence is to sit on it ignoring as often as not the warning signs,Danger Wolves!

Have been reading gradually, a chapter at a time, have found all chapters amusing and was forced to read chunks to a random man on the train yesterday. Have urge to bookmark every third page and read bits to someone.

Skims over such topics as Thatcherism, Self-help books, Alien spotting, The demise of Princess Diana, Post-Modernism and the dotcom phenomenon. Fun!

Really quite good. Not always the easiest read as much of the language is quite intellectual and references a lot of people I have never heard of. Nevertheless it presents an interesting point of view. (read most of it on the train) ( )

I agreed with much of this book, with it's debunking of new-age medicial practices, flying saucers, fundamentalism, et al, but therein lies the problem. The people who will read this book will probably hold many of the same opinions already, while the people who won't, and should, read it will see it as an unbalanced attack by a left-wing journalist. (It should be noted that Wheen's politics doesn't stop him attacking people and beliefs on the left).

Because of it's polemical nature the book lacks is balance, occasionally it would have been useful to hear the other side of an argument, and not everything he tackles is mumbo-jumbo.

Economics is the book's weak point. Wheen dismisses economists like Milton Freidman for putting forward a monetarist approach. Also, why did certain economists believe that if you taxed the rich more there would be a trickle down effect that would enrich the rest of society? Especially in light of the efforts the rich go to avoid paying tax in the first place. Was this belief political or economic, and if it was political, is that not a betrayal of the 'science' of economics? Whichever way you look at it though, holding a different economic belief is not believing in mumbo-jumbo.

There is a problem with his approach to alternative medicine, as well. Homeopathy, and a number of other 'treatments', have been proven to be bunkum as medicine but they do work as treatments because of the placebo effect. It appears in certain circumstances if a patient believes something is working then it does. Although of course, there is a limit to this effectiveness - it doesn't heal bullet wounds, for example. Acupuncture is a different matter, there are studies showing that it may have be effective in some areas - in China, you can get cheaper operations if you use acupuncture instead of conventional anaesthetics, and it appears to be working.

Other than that, the usual suspects get the treatment they deserve - alien abduction, anti-evolutionists, homeopathy, Diana worship, etc. The book can't help but highlight how gullible and foolish sections of the general public can be. Despite Chris Carter, creator of "The X-Files" stating it was only a tv show, a number of viewers were not fooled by him and realised that his creation was indeed an oracle of truth. (Carter is also quoted as saying that he wanted the show to expose hoaxes as well but that idea got shelved in the end because the paranormal explanation got better ratings - or was it because you can't hide the truth?). It is disappointing he didn't question why aliens, whose science must be significantly more advanced than humanities, keep kidnapping humans in order to anally probe them?

Of the gullible and foolish sections of society it appears that one of the most gullible, and certainly foolish, are managers, who will latch onto any theory. Jesus Christ, CEO, anyone? Tom Peters made a fortune selling the idea of excellence to managers only to made another fortune later when, after changing his mind and stating there were no excellent companies, he sold the idea of managing chaos. My personal favourite is Edward De Bono and his [[Six Thinking Hats]], which posits the idea of wearing a different coloured hat for a different style of thinking - red hat for emotions/feelings, green hat for alternative thinking, and so on. After developing this idea, De Bono then likened himself to Plato, Aristotle, & Socrates.

This book can be added to a number of recent works that are debating the enlightenment - romanticism schism, the rational against the emotional.

It's credo, and the enlightenment in general, can be found in George Santayana's "The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it". ( )

This is one of the those books that once I picked it up I couldn't help but put it done. Dull and unmemorable. I can't get into it at all, and wouldn't mind giving it away. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158648348X/qid=1147720860/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002... ( )

This was a good book that could have been much better. Francis Ween makes some excellent points in his analysis of how the Enlightenment is being overturned and overshadowed by spurious beliefs and lazy thinking. However, some parts of this book become quite boring, when Ween continues down a path that he has already hammered to death. And his worries about astrology seem a little over the top to this read.
The part i most enjoyed was his ripping apart of post-modernism/structuralism. As someone who studied a BA in History and a Masters in IR and politics, i have encountered the po-mo brigade again and again, and i have to say i agree with everything Ween has to say about them!
This is a good book that would be a wake-up call to a lot of readers, however i think that in parts it would be too dense, putting many people off. ( )