America's Meltdown The Lowest-Common-Denominator Society

Subjects:

• Psychology » Environmental Psychology
• Popular Culture » Popular Culture (General)
• Sociology » Sociology (General)

Reviews:

• Written in a trenchant style yet employing vernacular befitting a pop psychologist, this is a scathing critique of the rampant vulgarity, violence, and voyeurism in contemporary US mass culture, rooted in the cash nexus of corporate capitalism....Highly recommended. All levels and libraries.
  —Choice January 2004
• None of Arden's observations is new, but he presents them coherently and convincingly, and thoughtful readers will find little to disagree with.
  —ForeWord Magazine Nov/Dec 2003

• Endorsement From Noam Chomsky: Arden addresses problems that are at least worrisome, perhaps ominous, and that we ignore at our peril.
• Endorsement From Ben H. Bagdikian
  author, The Media Monopoly: A damning indictment of our mass media's cynical exploitation of the crudest impulses in the human psyche.
• Endorsement From Danny Schechter
  Executive Editor, The Media Channel: Arden is one of the millions who doesn't want what's oozing out of our TV screens. Fortunately for all of us, he's taken the time to explain why the system isn't working for all of us--and that we can do something about it.
• Endorsement From Montague Ullman, M.D.: Nothing short of an urgent wake-up call to sit up, take notice of and do something about the morally, intellectually and emotionally corrosive effect unchecked corporate power, operating overtly and covertly, has had over every aspect of our lives.

Table of Contents:

• The Lowest Common Denominator
• Cyber Spaced
• Vicarious Living
• Infotainment
• Retail Government
• Lock and Load
• The Bottom of the Barrel
• Shopping and Dropping
• Men and Women Are from Earth
• Hyped Sports
• Waging the Soul
• Punching the Clock
• McMedicine
• Shrink Wrap
• Dumbsizing the Schools
• Mall Art
• The Spiritual Supermarket
• Transcending the Meltdown
• Rebuilding the Future
• Notes
• Further Reading