Rating: 
Summary: "Civilization Is Impossible Without a Hierarchy of Quality"
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the exaggeration
Review: It is not doomsday. Are things really so different? 100 years ago america was mostly farmers. Does the author really believe that those people were educated and politically active? Probably most people couldn't read and would have loved to watch wrestling, drink frappucinos, and buy the enquirer if they were available in those days. The book is entertaining and I can agree with the author on many points, but I don't think that it is as bleak as he makes it seem. The difference between now and 100 yrs. ago is that the media gives us a lot more insight into the lives of the lower classes and this can create a distorted view of how america really is.
Rating:
Summary: A New Way To Think About Some Very Old Problems
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent diagnosis, questionable prescription
Review: Morris Berman accurately describes America's millennial malaise -- from runaway global corporatism to anti-intellectual infotainment. He also provides an excellent path for individuals to resist this tidal wave, a monastic Thoreau-like lifestyle dedicated to preserving our arts and humanities.I have one problem with the book -- it's overwhelming pessimism about American democracy. I disagree with Berman's belief that the current problems in America are beyond repair and that it is either useless or destructive to participate in public life. I'd prefer the path of Enlightened Populism -- like Bruce Springsteen, I believe in a promised land. Our inability to use our democratic tools effectively may, in part, be due to this fashionable dropping out, which Baby Boomers seem to wear like a badge of honor. Read Berman for his excellent analysis of what's wrong with our modern culture, but ignore his pessimism. There is always a way out of the morass.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring
Review: Berman's books should be required reading for liberal arts instructors everywhere. At least for those who still feel loyal to the idea of preserving the best that has been thought and said. While Berman is at his most accessible in this work, it can be tough going. I found myself agreeing with his bleak conclusions, while striving to fight a sense of dread for my children's future. But I suppose with understanding one can achieve a 'nomadic' detachment for all that is fixed and crumbling. My only problem with this work was Berman's comment for preserving our socialist treasures which seemed at odds with his praise of authentic individualism in the face of the collective. Are these two ideas compatible? Perhaps a smarter reader might illuminate this for me? I also wanted to mention Berman's intermezzo chapter where he illustrates several ideas from his thesis through fiction. I thought it was brilliant! If you intend to read some of the works found in this chapter I'd like to recommend 'Mockingbird' by Walter Tevis.
Rating:
Summary: 100 Proof Commentary Packs a Wallop
Review: A distillation of some of the ideas presented in his trilogy, and a characteristically out-of-the-ordinary suggestion on how the decline of American culture might be approached, Morris Berman's "Twilight of American Culture" aims at a wider audience than his previous books. Though I missed their density of scholarship, meandering arguments and rangy footnotes sprinkled with essential commentary/information, the accessibility of this slim volume doesn't sacrifice the high test quality of Berman's critique. There is just nobody who offers a more wickedly accurate assessment of our current social, educational, political disintegration, yet manages a credible response to living through it. First I'm going to send copies to my son and daughter, then recommend it to everyone I know. If this book achieves the popularity it deserves, its argument is wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: Disintegration of US society & chances for long-term renewal
Review: I was moved to write this book because of what I regard as increasingly disturbing trends in American culture, and their similarity to social and cultural patterns in Rome in its late-empire phase. It seems that four factors are present when a civilization comes apart: extremes of wealth and poverty; increasing inability to pay for basic bureaucratic functions; rapid decline in the level of functional literacy; and pervasive apathy, or "spiritual death." These factors, all present in the Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries, are now showing up in the United States. "The Twilight of American Culture" charts these developments in detail, and argues that social legislation, grass roots activism, "New Age" spirituality and the like are finally powerless to arrest this process; the momentum and logic of late-modern capitalism is simply too far gone for any short-range correctives to have a significant impact. What I do recommend, instead, is the preservation of cultural treasures and ways of life in the face of this disintegration, in the same way that a new monastic "class" arose in Europe in the 6th and 7th centuries, especially, and acted to preserve what was valuable in Graeco-Roman civilization. Quiet, undramatic, this was activity that, many centuries later, formed the basis of the cultural renewal that led to the Renaissance.
Rating:
Summary: Hits and misses
Review: This is as trenchant critique of modern American culture as one might wish. Berman's aim is to point out that our civilization is as liable to collapse as was the Roman Empire in the fifth century. A student of Joseph Tainter (The Collapse of Complex Societies,1988), Berman emphasizes the increasingly heavy marginal costs of adding to the complexity necessary to sustain our civilization. Striking symptoms include the growing inequality in wages where CEOs are earning hundreds of times more than average workers and the dumbing down of our culture. For example, Jay Leno found high school students who didn?t know against whom the Thirteen Colonies fought to gain independence, nor were some familiar with the Gettysburg Address. Berman believes that the prevalence of McWorld corporate driven consumerism is a sign that our culture has hardened into a classical phase, and has lost its essential spirit.
A highlight of his book is the discussion of how during the Dark Ages, much of our Greek and Roman heritage was preserved through monastic asceticism which despite its anti intellectual bias performed the crucial function of copying texts. Berman's notion is that if we are to preserve the glories of our culture we must once again find ways to encourage a modern monastic option in hopes of a reflowering after the coming dark age.
I would have liked to see Berman engage in a deeper analysis of his condemnation of consumerist culture. What parts of such a culture should be changed or dropped? A more penetrating critique would explain that our corporate culture exists in part because it delivers a great variety of goods and services to the privileged relatively cheaply, and at the same time provides employment and tax revenues for public services. On the other hand, Berman could have gone further to outline the subsidies that corporate entities like Wal-Mart provides its shoppers at the expense of low wage workers here and abroad. More measures of the twilight of our culture that Berman ignores include the absence of political or corporate interest in recycling and the minimal resources devoted to sustainable waste disposal or alternate forms of energy generation.
Perhaps my biggest concern is that Berman, like many other culture and economic critics, ignores the issue of growing population pressure on available resources. How does he view the tripling of the world population from 2 billion in the 1930s to the present 6.4 billion? How do such numbers effect the impoverishment of our political and social lives? It's a shame that this worthwhile book doesn't address the population, immigration and resource issues that are at the heart of the very questions of sustainability and the coming darkness that he predicts.
Rating:
Summary: Berman, take your own advice!
Review: Like all such "sky is falling" type pieces, I was mildly intrigued, hoping to come across at least one original insight. I was shortly disabused as I began to experience that sensation one has on a trip one knows is irrelevant-- you realise you don't need to take it soon after you've already locked your door. Berman's work, despite its melodramatic title, doesn't get frothy about the day to day of the 'real world'-- instead, he gets inordinately hissy about what goes on in the PC world of academe-- which was abandoned long ago by his so-called NMIs (oh, discover the secret of this ridiculous acronym yourself!). Listen to him (...)endlessly about the typical "dumbing down" statistics (despite what American technology continues to achieve in sphere after sphere). His grasp of economics-- the level of a Bulgarian civics instructor in 1975. He doesn't like the fact that Bill Gates is so rich-- in an era when life expectancy has rocketed forward and poverty (in the West) is determined by how few TVs one owns. He doesn't like Starbucks (I don't either) but doesn't understand or bother to explore why it (and the rest of his McWorld) is so successful. His heroes: Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. 'Nuff said. He sneers at Christians who home school, throwing a blanket charge of anti-intellectualism over them, while admiting a closet admiration for white supremacists who resist the Feds with stockpiled arms caches. And while he rightly criticises the PC/multi-cult brigade, the dots he doesn't connect link that crew right back to his own "make capitalism go away please" ideology of...well, I can't even characterise it. It is nonsensical and seems centered only when it has to do with Berman's conception of how higher education should operate. Because, you see, what he's really after.... What does he REALLY want?: Berman, in a toga, droning on like your worst prof in University about all his various opinions to a literally captive audience of acolytes. Sorry, class bell just rang, Prof. Berman. Gotta go. In the big university of Life, my man, you ain't ever gonna get tenure until you begin to apply some academic discipline against your own mish mash of stale ideas and envy. See you next term-- NOT!
Rating: 
Summary: worth the time but.....
Review: Sure, almost everything Mr. Berman says is true and is indeed a powerful indictment of the ills of our contemporary American civilization -- BUT WHEN WAS IT ANY DIFFERENT? In what golden age were things that much better? I've lived through the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and now we're well into the 00's; and I can assure you that the amount of stupidity, greed, crassness and evil (as well as the amount of intelligence, generosity, and goodness) in our society during that time has been pretty constant. The forms change but the basic human inputs do not.
Mr. Berman appears to live in quite a different world than I do. Most of the people that I know have jobs, family, friends, a real place in the world and a relatively stable day-to-day existence, and if someone does come upon hard times (job loss, illness, family trouble) the rest of this social net helps to sustain that person. Jeremiads are fun to write and, in moderation, fun to read, but let's keep a sense of proportion.
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