Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
by Chris Hedges    New York:  Nation Books, 2009. Pp.  232

Reviewed by Dr. Susan K. Hedahl

A colleague in pastoral ministry sent me an interesting observation about the title of Hedges’ book.  He noted that the baptismal liturgy of the early church asked the candidates if they would renounce the devil, all his works and empty shows (or in other words the entertainments, the spectacles, offered by the Roman Empire).  Whether the allusion is intended or not, the title certainly invites the baptized of today into a work which urges serious reconsideration of the spectacles of this current age.

Chris Hedges has been a career journalist in many parts of the world and his work earned him the Pulitzer Prize.  Currently he is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and writes for Truthdig.  This latest work is an introduction to the circus hall of mirrors which metaphorically now can be said to characterize our nation.  Unlike the acknowledgement we make to ourselves when walking through such places, Hedges claims that culturally we have actually accepted the distortions we have created and in which we indulge as truth.  In scrutinizing particular aspects of our culture, Hedges reveals how Americans seem unable to distinguish fantasy from reality any longer.

The various cultural nodes, which Hedges analyzes to make the point his title asserts, are the issues of literacy, pornography, the destruction of our educational system, the corrupt life of corporate America and varied activities that are contributing to the breakdown of life in America.   What makes this work so profoundly interesting -- and simultaneously depressing-- is Hedges’ descriptive powers, which are buttressed by statistical and narrative facts.

In the initial chapter on the entertainment industry, quoting one author:  “Celebrity culture has bequeathed to us what Benjamin DeMott calls “junk politics.”  Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights.  It personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them.…. [it] “miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad….And finally, it “seeks at every turn to obliterate voters’ consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst.”” (47)

The chapter on “The Illusion of Love” discusses the pervasive blight of the pornography industry.  With its addictiveness, denigration of women and the extraordinary amount of money the industry generates, the chapter is shocking reading.  Hedges makes some interesting ties to this form of human activity and the photos which became public about the pornographic behavior of American soldiers at Abu Ghraid prison.  The point is clear:  “Torture and pornography inevitably converge.  They each turn human beings into submissive objects.” (73)

Hedges insights into the manipulations of corporate America describe its workings through the systems of education, finance, education and privilege.  “Our elites use a private dialect that is a barrier to communication as well as common sense.  The corporate con artists and economists who rigged our financial system continue to speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible language coined by specialists on Wall Street and at elite business schools.” ( 97)

Our illusions have created many coping systems; several of the following phrases are mocking reminders of the familiar self-help and religious fantasies that enhance our state of illusory well-being:

“Mass culture is a Peter Pan culture.  It tells us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete.  This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, Hollywood, or Christian preachers, is a form of magical thinking.  It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth….It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers off-shore penal colonies where it openly practices torture into the greatest democracy on earth.” (190)

Read this work (in fact, read all of Hedges’ works).  It is this type of book that could clearly change a ho-hum adult Sunday discussion group into something quite different.  This work ought to be keeping company with seminary classroom works that feature Niebuhr and others who ask that as Christians we examine just exactly what it is we do believe.