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Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium | 
 enlarge | Author: Dick Meyer
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 17038
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307406628
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.93
EAN: 9780307406620
ASIN: 0307406628
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Americans are as safe, well fed, securely sheltered, long-lived, free, and healthy as any human beings who have ever lived on the planet. But we are down on America. So why do we hate us? According to Dick Meyer, the following items on this (much abbreviated) list are some of the contributors to our deep disenchantment with our own culture:
Cell-phone talkers broadcasting the intimate details of their lives in public spaces
Worship of self-awareness, self-realization, and self-fulfillment
T-shirts that read, “Eat Me”
Facebook, MySpace, and kids being taught to market themselves
High-level cheating in business and sports
Reality television and the cosmetic surgery boom
Multinational corporations that claim, “We care about you.”
The decline of organic communities
A line of cosmetics called “S.L.U.T.”
The phony red state–blue state divide
The penetration of OmniMarketing into OmniMedia and the insinuation of both into every facet of our lives
You undoubtedly could add to the list with hardly a moment’s thought. In Why We Hate Us, Meyer absolutely nails America’s early-twenty-first-century mood disorder. He points out the most widespread carriers of the why-we-hate-us germs, including the belligerence of partisan politics that perverts our democracy, the decline of once common manners, the vulgarity of Hollywood entertainment, the superficiality and untrustworthiness of the news media, the cult of celebrity, and the disappearance of authentic neighborhoods and voluntary organizations (the kind that have actual meetings where one can hobnob instead of just clicking in an online contribution).
Meyer argues—with biting wit and observations that make you want to shout, “Yes! I hate that too!”—that when the social, spiritual, and political turmoil that followed the sixties collided with the technological and media revolution at the turn of the century, something inside us hit overload. American culture no longer reflects our own values. As a result, we are now morally and existentially tired, disoriented, anchorless, and defensive. We hate us and we wonder why.
Why We Hate Us reveals why we do and also offers a thoughtful and uplifting prescription for breaking out of our current morass and learning how to hate us less. It is a penetrating but always accessible Culture of Narcissism for a new generation, and it carries forward ideas that resounded with readers in bestsellers such as On Bullshit and Bowling Alone.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Thoughtful Reading December 26, 2008
Mary Ann Sikorski (Michigan)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dick Meyer discusses a lot of the behaviors and politics that we experience, but maybe think...Is it only me that finds this "disgusting." Very affirming if you have been thinking about how you would like to see a return to civility in America, rather than the "self-absoption" that is all around us, especially in omnimedia land and politics. Meyer offers some beginning, positive suggestions for change that anyone can do.
a wonderful screed December 17, 2008
C. P. Anderson (Charlotte, NC)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is definitely a screed, or a rant, or whatever you want to call it, but it is a very, very good one.
Yes, Meyer, doesn't introduce much new material, but the material he synthesizes (Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies) and the way he ties it all together is really something to behold. And he is a wonderful writer - there is at least one aphorism on every page. What Meyer is really good at is simply hitting the nail very squarely on the head.
Meyers takes on a number of different issues - consumerism, lack of community, vulgarity, polarization, etc. - that really get at what's wrong with our society. I was reminded a lot of books like The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics or Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots. No polemics, but more of a call to action to the decent people still out there. Call us conservativerals, or liberatives, or whatever you want - you know, the people who go to church but also belong to the ACLU, who are Scout leaders but also read the New Yorker, who coach Little League but are also against the war in Iraq.
One thing that I didn't like so much about this book has been touched on by other reviewers - it could definitely use some peeking behind the curtains, some real thought about what's behind all this. To me, it's pretty obvious it's really just unregulated capitalism. I believe that tends to make us very focused on self and material things almost by definition. For social animals like ourselves, this almost necessarily means emotional and spiritual impoverishment in the end - for the individual and the whole society.
Another thing that really didn't work for me was Meyer's constant searching for themes - the hate idea, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier story, "truthiness," the movie Network, the 60s - that might tie things together. None of them really seem to work and seemed awfully forced at times. He really doesn't need them, as when he just lets the words flow, his writing is at its best.
One thing I really did like though (and which a number of reviewers did not) was Meyer's solution. It's really just Voltaire's "we must cultivate our own gardens." He does a good job of explicating this though. And if you think about it, it was really the only way he could possibly end this book.
 Boring December 16, 2008
Retired Joe
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with much of the conclusions but most of the material seems obvious. After the first few chapters the material became more difficult to read because it seemed somewhat repetetive and familiar. Any real insight or opinions about possible solutions did not appear to be presented.
Shallow as a kiddie pool, then deep as an ocean October 29, 2008
M. Strong (Milwaukee, WI USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Inconsistent little book here.
Dick Meyer starts out with what is basically a hundred or more pages of whining about American culture. He whines about peoples' attitudes and the press and politicians and what's on TV. It gets old quickly and it's ironic, because you're reading all of this whining in a book called "Why We Hate Us" and the temptation to say, "whining is why I hate us" and walk away from the book.
That would be too bad, because the book takes a turn somewhere about halfway through and Meyer starts making some really insightful points about American culture and how to lead your life in a way that will help you get beyond a lot of the nonsense of America's culture and to contribute to a better culture. I found myself dog-earring pages because of points that Meyer was making and finished the book thinking differently about my actions: That's a big deal from a book that also quotes Talking Heads lyrics as source material.
If you'd like some original and off-beat insights into modern American life, and you're willing to wade through a healthy dose of nonsense in order to get there, then you'll probably be happy with the decision to read this book.
Reinventing the Wheel October 25, 2008
Michael H. Agranoff (Ellington, CT)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Americans have another habit not mentioned in the book. We must constantly reinvent the wheel. Marshall McLuhan essentially said all this, in a far wittier manner, in his 1951 classic "The Mechanical Bride", which fortunately is still available. It comes to this: by giving up our respect for the intellect, and pandering to mobocracy, we have created a diverse paradise that breeds only discontent. The schools, which stress corporate communication education, are as much to blame as anyone. There is really nothing new in this, but it does prove that the old virtues had some merit. That is also the point of the satirical allegory "Planet of the Apes." Meanwhile, the American Dream has been denigrated into "winning the lottery." People refuse to accept one essential truth: self-esteem comes from what you think of yourself,and your own efforts; not from what others think of you. Yet modern psychological tests reward you for answers that "go with the group." Well, we shall survive.
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