American Humanist Association president Niose provides a thorough examination of modern secular movements in America, while lumping believers together in disdain.
From the beginning of the book, the author pits “Secular Americans” (identified as atheists, agnostics, humanists and those who are generally nonreligious) against “the Religious Right,” an amorphous group who appear throughout as the source of most of America’s ills over the past 30 years. Niose points out that while nonbelievers have always existed in American society, only recently have they begun to act to institute changes in public policy, mainly as a direct reaction to the religious right. Looking back to America’s founding, Niose argues that “a fair assessment of history would reveal that the structure of American government was not intended to be either proreligion or antireligion, but simply neutral on religion.” Where religion did become involved in early American public life, he writes, it was harmful or even disastrous (e.g., the Salem witch trials). Niose echoes the argument of other modern nonbelievers that religion is usually immoral in its effects on society, whereas secularism is untainted by any immoral past. This sets the stage for the author’s extended assault on the religious right, which is characterized as anti-intellectual, hypocritical and belligerent. The most useful part of the book is Niose’s survey of the rise of organized secularism. He discusses important figures in the secular movement, landmark Supreme Court cases and the creation and growth of national organizations. Readers hoping to better understand the background of today’s secular movement will find solid material, and secular activists will applaud the author’s zeal for the cause. The vast majority of religious Americans, however, will not see themselves in this book at all. While it may be understandable that Niose attacks the most radical of the faithful, it is less understandable that he ignores the existence of the vast majority of people of faith.
A loaded attack on religion redeemed by a useful examination of secularism.Pub Date: July 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-230-33895-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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