I’m generally not one to bemoan the state of American Culture — how could I, when I watch more TV than is reasonable — but there are times when a glaring lack of knowledge sends chills down my spine. Such a case is mentioned in a a New York Times feature on Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby recounts the event that convinced her to write the book below:
Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:
‘This is just like Pearl Harbor,’ one of the men said.
The other asked, ‘What is Pearl Harbor?’
‘That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,’ the first man replied.
At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, ‘I decided to write this book.’”
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