Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age

A rigid, narrow vision:
The title refers to two illusions that the authors claim are embedded in America's "public culture." One illusion is the notion that people and nations are generally well-intentioned and fair-minded, so that conflicts must result from misunderstanding. The other is that all economic and political systems are converging on Western-style capitalist democracy. Certainly some Americans believe these things, but are these beliefs as pervasive and strongly held as the authors claim? Central to the book is the claim that these illusions have the American mind in a tight grip. Are the authors right? You don't need to read the book to judge for yourself. If you think (as I do) that the authors have oversimplified American attitudes, one major thesis of their book collapses. There is a deeper problem with the book. The authors claim to see the world clearly, without illusion. Yet never, ever, do they display any uncertainty (or sense of humor) about anything. The future, especially the long-term future, is too uncertain for anyone to have confidence about how things will play out. The authors do not seem to recognize any possibility they could be wrong--for example, about the permanent superiority of the US economic system. Yet their own table on page 176 (intended to show the inferiority of Soviet economic performance) shows that Japan did better than the US in growth of per capita GDP for 1973-2001, and West Europe did just as well. Who knows what the statistics for 2002-2030 will show? Furthermore, they have tunnel vision: they see only threats of a military or quasi-military nature. Their four key threats are (1) terrorism, (2) Russia, (3) China and (4) Europe. To meet those threats they espouse a concept of "strategic independence." They are overconfident about the ability of the US to cope with such threats all by itself. Never, ever, do they see a need for a Plan "B." And it does not seem to occur to them that other sorts of threats might turn out to be more important. They are blind to the possible necessity of long-term allies and treaties to face non-military threats. For example, a pandemic may well kill far more Americans in the next fifty years than terrorists armed with a few nukes could possibly kill. Dealing with possible pandemics requires good international cooperation (as does dealing with terrorism). Pandemics are just one example; any reader can easily imagine other such examples. Finally, people who claim to be free of illusions had better get their facts right. The authors often get facts wrong. For example, they claim that unemployment in the US "is lower than in any of the other developed great powers." (p 138) According to the CIA Factbook, unemployment in the US in 2006 was 4.8%, whereas in Japan it was 4.1%. They show faulty judgment on other issues. On page 289 they take seriously the idea that Saddam had WMDs just before the war but moved them to Syria. This is of course theoretically possible; it's also theoretically possible that Dick Cheney machinated the US into war with Iraq so as to enrich Halliburton. Only committed ideologues would entertain either theory. I could give more examples of the authors' errors and misjudgments, but this review is already too long. The book does set forth provocative opinions that are worth thinking about, some of which might turn out to be right, which is why I give it more than one star.