Freedom and civilization are the products of middle-class values and activities, and those who question those values are enemies of society'—such is the tired and outworn conclusion of this tired and pretentious tract. Johnson, a former editor of The New Statesman, begins with a historical argument that appears promising, if eclectic and rather superficial. He traces European history from the Greeks to the Industrial Revolution, arguing that each stage in this development was propelled by the innovations and dynamism of the urban middle class, and that each stage declined or fell with the circumscription of middle-class freedoms. With the full development of a market economy, Johnson proceeds, the middle class has been able to avoid this fate in the modern epoch—at least until now—and has produced a sustained period of development and growth. This interpretation is certainly debatable—and worth debating—but any logical basis for discussion becomes utterly lost when Johnson abandons history and move to his real task: the defense of our received civilization against its enemies, whom Johnson simple-mindedly classifies as Freudians and Marxists. Taking up, as a cudgel, Karl Popper's conception of scientific verification through the criterion of falsifiability (The Logic of Scientific Discovery), Johnson attacks his opponents for their quasi-religious irrationality. His prose degenerates into ugly rhetoric such as student Fascist Left, and he adopts vaguely racist epithets like witch-doctor when referring to his targets. Like his hero Popper (in the latter's The Open Society and Its Enemies), Johnson is unable to distinguish between theories and variously attacks Herbert Marcuse, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan lllich, Freud, Levi-Strauss, and sociology tout court, employing the same insubstantial criticisms throughout. Occasionally slipping into hysterics, this book merely updates Popper's questionable work without adding any sustained theoretical content.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1977
ISBN: 0297772945
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1977
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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