How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World<\/i> by Francis Wheen<\/p>\n
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” “Science is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific. It is, therefore, rational to accept it hypothetically.” There’s an interesting perspective put forth here, covering Reaganomics\/Thatcherism, post-modernism, cults, quakery, etc., etc., essentially referring to it all as “Mumbo-Jumbo”. There’s a deluge of history related, presumably diffracted through the author’s lens.<\/p>\n The topics range so widely and in almost a stream-of-consciousness manner such that I can’t really give a general opinion. Some of this book rang true, some didn’t, some gave me stuff to think about.<\/p>\n I read with most interest the Reaganomics\/Thatcherism part, largely because we are poised to try and solve this Second Great Depression issue, and there are some loud voices endorsing some trickle-down methods of stimulus (which the author puts in the Mumbo-Jumbo category). I’m becoming motivated to read more about the economic theory of Keynes and Friedman, which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.<\/p>\n Overall, I thought it was an interesting book, though not overwhelmingly clear in its presentation. It felt more like a description of a bunch of wacky stuff that happened, rather than an organized argument. Which is odd, since this is a book about a supposed decline of rational thought in modern times.<\/p>\n The U.S.\/Canada title of the book is Idiot Proof: A Short History of Modern Delusions<\/i>, which calls to mind the 1841 Extraordinary Popular Delusions<\/i>, a classic work that I’ve read about half of1<\/sup>. This book is not quite as scholarly as that work, but informative nevertheless. <\/p>\n ____________________ How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World by Francis Wheen “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” -Charles McKay, … Continue reading
\n-Charles McKay, Preface, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds<\/a><\/i> (1841)<\/p>\n
\n-Bertrand Russell, 1959<\/p>\n
\n1<\/sup> I got really bogged down in the chapters relating the Crusades in Volume II, and haven’t gotten back to it.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"