How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World Francis Wheen
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions by Francis Wheen, Perennial, 2004. ISBN:0007140975
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Wheen asks: "What does it matter ... if Jacques Lacan wants to think of his penis as the square root of minus one?" His answer is that, "such people are taken seriously." The rot doesn't stop at the channel: John Gray of the LSE thinks Plato's ideals of truth cause war, but praises despotic China; most broadsheets now publish a horoscope; the Blair's suffer rebirthing in a Mexican mud bath...
Management gurus are also fair game for Wheen's scatter gun, e.g. he pours scorn on Edward de Bono who was hired by education ministers to lecture on why they should wear different coloured hats at different meetings. And he lampoons Margaret Thatcher and her off-the-wall collection of economic and philosophical advisors; supporters of Nostradamus; believers in UFOs; Reagan and astrologers; Clinton and his self-help gurus; Carole Caplin and all.
Wheen also gives Blair deserved condemnation for supporting schools where creationism is taught alongside or even ahead of Darwin. But the hard left also get hit by Wheen for rigid anti-Americanism that caused them to support Ayatollah Khomeini, Pol Pot, the Soviet Union, and argued that the victims brought 9/ 11 on themselves.
Francis Wheen supports the Enlightenment - "intellectual autonomy, a rejection of tradition and authority as the infallible sources of truth, a loathing for bigotry and persecution, a commitment to free inquiry, a belief that (in Francis Bacon's words) knowledge is indeed power." All power to his pen.
This concludes the review of:
- How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, Francis Wheen