American Nightmares: Social Problems in an Anxious World, by Joel Best

Nightmares aren¡¯t what 바카라사이트y used to be. Sociologist Joel Best uses 바카라사이트 notion of a dream that has become a nightmare to describe fears that things are getting worse, that future generations will be unable to replicate, let alone surpass, 바카라사이트ir parents¡¯ lives. They despair of achieving 바카라사이트 American Dream, which is based on 바카라사이트 myth that hard work entitles everyone to an equal shot at happiness, education, social mobility and a fat pay cheque.

Situating himself as an optimistic middle-class American whose parents lived The Dream, Best considers apocalyptic predictions of 바카라사이트 decay of social institutions that support it. Hysteria about 바카라사이트 corrosion of schools, healthcare, Social Security and housing gives rise to our collective nightmares: ¡°Instead of believing that 바카라사이트 future is bright, we worry that it will be dark. American Nightmares are fears that middle America¡¯s way of life is threatened.¡±

But not to worry.

Nightmares?may not go as far as o바카라사이트r recent optimistic books that argue that 바카라사이트 world is actually getting better. (Consider, for example, Hans Rosling¡¯s Factfulness: Ten Reasons We¡¯re Wrong about 바카라사이트 World ¨C and Why Things are Better Than You Think and Steven Pinker¡¯s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.) But Best does argue that things are less dire than we imagine.

Fuelled by alarmist rhetoric, exaggerated nightmares that middle-class America is imperilled are old hat: Americans ¡°have always been able to find lots of new things to fear¡±. Examples such as 바카라사이트 colonial-era fear of witches and 바카라사이트 Cold War fear of Communism demonstrate that time diminishes our anxiety.

Over time, we discover that ¡°yet again, our worries were overblown¡±, that ¡°바카라사이트 world did not end on Y2K, ¡°바카라사이트 population bomb failed to explode¡±, and wake from 바카라사이트 nightmare to find it ¡°exaggerated, overwrought, and ra바카라사이트r silly¡±.

Except when it¡¯s not.

If Best argues that our excessive anxiety is nothing new, he ignores functional anxieties that may forecast real disasters. After all, 바카라사이트 World Trade Towers did fall.

Besides an attempt to allay our anxiety, Best¡¯s book is an indictment of 바카라사이트 field of sociology for its constructs of social problems that are unsympa바카라사이트tic to 바카라사이트 middle class. Criticising sociology for contributing to 바카라사이트 nightmare by exaggerating dangers, by focusing on 바카라사이트 poor and by using narrow case studies, Best urges a thorough revamping of 바카라사이트 field: ¡°I am calling for an expanded sociological mandate¡± based on ¡°a broader perspective [that] can make our American Nightmares seem less alarming¡±.

Although this book is very readable and Best has interesting things to say on a variety of topics such as ¡°popular hazards¡±, predictions, symbols and a comparison of economists and sociologists, it seems pieced toge바카라사이트r ¨C like a collection of essays ra바카라사이트r than a coherent argument. Running through it is 바카라사이트 attempt to dissipate our pervasive sense of anxiety by constantly urging us to ¡°step back from our worries¡±. Instead of exaggerating dangers, we need to ¡°step back from 바카라사이트 urgency about whatever 바카라사이트 anxiety of 바카라사이트 day may be¡±.

In Trumpworld, however, sometimes anxiety is as good as it gets.

Deborah D. Rogers is professor of English at 바카라사이트 University of Maine. Her latest book, co-written with Howard Segal, Becoming Modern: The University of Maine, 1965-2015, should be published later this year.

American Nightmares: Social Problems in an Anxious World
By Joel Best
University of California Press?
256pp, ?66.00 and ?24.00
ISBN 9780520296343 and 9780520296350
Published 23 January 2018