Berman Essay

Morris Berman's 'Twilight of American Culture' - Analysis

Morris Berman, author of the Twilight of American Culture believes that American civilization is on the verge of collapse. Berman states four factors which clearly explain the reason for the decline in American culture: accelerating social and economic inequality, declining marginal returns with regard to investment in organizational solutions to socioeconomic problems, rapidly dropping levels of literacy (critical understanding and general intellectual awareness) and lastly, spiritual death -emptying out of cultural content and the freezing of it in formulas.

The first factor, accelerating social and economic inequality, shows us that America is no longer a middle class society. He discloses that no other major industrial nation has such a disparity of wealth as the United States. To back up his statement, he presents the reader with statistical information. The top 1 percent of the people own 47 percent of the nation's wealth, and the top 20 percent owns 93 percent. He also reveals that Bill Gates' net worth in 1998 was larger than the combined net worth of the bottom 40 percent of all American households. Berman continues by saying that this inequality is global: "The wealth of America's top quintile is implicated not only in the poverty of South Central Los Angeles but also in the slums of Buenos Aires".

The second factor is declining marginal returns with regard to investment in organizational solutions to socioeconomic problems.Berman analyzes statistics on Social Security, Medicare, the aging population ,declining birth rate and the national debt, Berman says that people cannot rely on economic growth and nor can they project it indefinitely, in the future. He thereby concludes "a structural crunch does seem likely sometime in the 21st century".

The third factor is rapidly dropping rates of literacy. He states that roughly sixty percent of us have never read a book of any kind, and only six percent reads as much as one book a year. One hundred and twenty million are illiterate or read no better than a fifth-grade level. Forty two percent of American adults cannot locate Japan on a world map; most Americans cannot define a molecule; and many don't understand that the earth revolves around the sun each year. This type of mass intellectual dumbing down, Berman argues, is common to the collapse of civilizations throughout history. He discusses the four factors and says that America is rapidly going the route of the Dark Ages, synonymous to the Roman Empire.

The fourth factor, spiritual death means having corporate consumerism and an undeniable urge to shop which forces us to materialism. We get drawn into corporate messages, hence losing our individuality. Berman quotes - "We live in a collective adrenaline rush, a world of endless promotional/commercial bullshit that masks a deep systemic emptiness, the spiritual equivalent of asthma."

Berman criticizes various points such as the replacement of human civility with corporate politeness e.g. - "thank you for choosing AT&T", the decline of motivation of the youth today, the inability of the American public to distinguish garbage from quality, and thinking becoming no more than wandering through the latest "mental theme park".

Moreover, Berman gives an example of Deepak Chopra's book 'Escaping the Prison of the Intellect', Berman comments "The problem is that Chopra seems to be addressing an audience that for the most part hasn't managed to find its way into the 'prison of the intellect' in the first place."

Berman gives a few solutions; he reveals that we need to learn from the monks who took it upon themselves to preserve human decency and culture from the barbarians. He gives examples from three areas: Exposing the emptiness of modern life, offering "alternative education," and redesigning the "visual landscape that we all move in."

He gives us the monastic option - people who are unique individuals, go out of their way to preserve their individuality and creativity.