It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

[hoosier88]

Fantasyland : how America went haywire : a 500-year history / Kurt Andersen, 1954-, c2017, Random House, 306.0973 ANDE.

Subjects
•   National characteristics, American.
•   Popular culture -- United States -- History.
•   Social change -- History.
•   United States -- Civilization.
Notes
•   Now entering Fantasyland -- Part I: The conjuring of America: 1517-1789. I believe, therefore I am right : the Protestants ; All that glitters : the gold-seekers ; Building our own private heaven on Earth : the Puritans ; The God-given freedom to believe in God ; Imaginary friends and enemies : the early satanic panics ; The first me century : religion gets American ; Meanwhile, in the eighteenth-century reality-based community -- Part II: United States of amazing: the 1800s. The first great delirium ; The all-American fan fiction of Joseph Smith, prophet ; Quack nation : magical but modern ; Fantastic business : the gold rush inflection point ; In search of monsters to destroy : the conspiracy theory habit ; The war between states of mind ; Ten million little houses on the prairie ; Fantasy industrialized -- Part III: A long arc bending toward reason: 1900-1960. Progress and backlash ; The biggest backlash : brand-new old-time religion ; The business of America is show business ; Big rock candy mountains : utopia in the suburbs and the sun ; The 1950s seemed so normal -- Part IV: Big bang : the 1960s and '70s. Big bang : the hippies ; Big bang : the intellectuals ; Big bang : the Christians ; Big bang : politics and government and conspiracies ; Big bang : living in a land of entertainment -- Part V: Fantasyland scales : from the 1980s through the turn of the century. Making make-believe more realistic and real life more make-believe ; Forever young : kids "r" us syndrome ; The Reagan era and the start of the digital age ; American religion from the turn of the millennium ; Our wilder Christianities : belief and practice ; America versus the godless civilized world : why are we so exceptional? ; Magical but not necessarily Christian, spiritual but not religious ; Blue-chip witch doctors : the re-enchantment of medicine ; How the mainstream enabled fantasyland : squishies, cynics, and believers ; Anything goes -- unless it picks my pocket or breaks my leg -- Part VI: The problem with fantasyland : from the 1980s to the present and beyond. The inmates running the asylum decide monsters are everywhere ; Reality is a conspiracy : the x-filing of America ; Mad as hell, the new voice of the people ; When the GOP went off the rails ; Liberals denying science ; Gun crazy ; Final fantasy-industrial complex ; Our inner children? They're going to Disney World! ; The economic dreamtime ; As fantasyland goes, so goes the nation.
Summary
•   Explains how the influences of dreamers, zealots, hucksters, and superstitious groups shaped America's tendency toward a rich fantasy life, citing the roles of individuals from P.T. Barnum to Donald Trump in perpetuating conspiracy theories, self-delusion, and magical thinking.
•   "In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, one of our sharpest observers, Kurt Andersen, demonstrates that what's happening in our country today--this strange, post-truth, 'fake news' moment we're all living through--is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by impresarios and their audiences, by hucksters and their suckers. Believe-whatever-you-want fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA. Over the course of five centuries--from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P.T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials--our peculiar love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies--every citizen free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. Little by little, and then more quickly in the last several decades, the American invent-your-own-reality legacy of the Enlightenment superseded its more sober, rational, and empirical parts. We gave ourselves over to all manner of crackpot ideas and make-believe lifestyles designed to console or thrill or terrify us. In Fantasyland, Andersen brilliantly connects the dots that define this condition, portrays its scale and scope, and offers a fresh, bracing explanation of how our American journey has deposited us here. Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand the politics and culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book."--Jacket.
Length
•   xiii, 462 pages ;

A sobering, yet euphoric book.  Expounds a theory that explains US exceptionalism – but not a comforting theory.  A worthwhile book, packed with insights, examples, parables & arguments.  Scary reading, as we proceed into a murky future.  An elegant theory, that seems very plausible.  A must-read for students of the popular culture – God help us all.

[A159]

I have always had the habit blaming New England for bringing its bs f*cked up ways to America during the 1700s on, but somehow have ignored the fact that all that crap (their ways) was imbedded into those explorers minds since 1492. Once settlements began, selfishness and greed (backed by messed up religious hang-ups) crept into the very fabric of future Americans that has done nothing but promote flourishing ignorance for power and money no matter the cost of human life and animals in general. The book posted in the OP brings to light a strong touch of reality about it all. All that's ahead in our future is not only more of the same but power and greed on steroids for the upper 20% of our population ... until there is no more. S Hawking has revised his prediction made in 2016 that Earth had 1000 yrs left in her to only 100 yrs just last week. That's how quick in accelleration our doomsday scenario is playing out. I actually don't see much past 50 yrs myself. 

[countryguy]

It wasn't just New England.  Granted, the English were bad enough, with their land-grabbing ways, and puritanical religious zealotry.  But, they weren't alone.

The Spanish colonized the south, bringing pretty much the same kind of "...selfishness and greed (backed by messed up religious hang-ups)".  They "converted" the natives of Florida, Central America, the West Indies, and on up to California, at the point of a sword, and the muzzle of the newly-invented guns.  All the while, they were stealing everything the natives had, while conducting their obsessed search for the riches of fabled "El Dorado".

Wasn't it just ducky, the way the Europeans "brought civilization", to the "savages" of the New World?

That, folks, is how our nation got started.

[hoosier88]

Yes, read the book.  He points out that the US penchant for wishful thinking & can-do pragmatism used to run in balance - but since fantasy (Gold rush!  Something for nothing!) took hold of the national psyche, it's been Show Biz! all the way.  & no one can live on Show Biz - it doesn't produce anything tangible, other than the various agents' 5 or 10% or whatever it may be, these days.  It's an eye-opening read, & explains a lot of quirks about popular culture in the US that otherwise seem mere random noise.

 

[Tabby]

Thanks for the reveal, Hoosier88.  I'm putting it on the list.