Our Culture of Pandering

Our Culture of Pandering
by Paul Simon

BOOK DESCRIPTION

As we broaden our views, embrace our differences, foster advancements in science and technology, and collaboratively strengthen the political, social, and educational underpinnings from which we build informed and productive lives, we have much to be proud of as a nation and as a people.

But we are tempted?-particularly during times of political unrest and unbridled patriotism?-to ignore the far-reaching repercussions of a society that caters to money and power. In Our Culture of Pandering, former U.S. Senator Paul Simon interrogates the arenas of politics, media, religion, and education to decry the disturbing practices that confuse public service with profit-making ventures or popularity contests, that compromise the best interests of the broader population to appease a powerful few.

Boldly and eloquently contributing to a cumulative understanding of how we can build a sturdier, more ethical foundation for the future, Simon suggests proactive, long-term solutions to the problems that threaten our country's moral, financial, and intellectual well-being?-problems that are increasingly exacerbated by our culture of pandering.

"In too many areas we have spawned ?'leadership' that does not lead, that panders to our whims rather than telling us the truth, that follows the crowd rather than challenging us, that weakens us rather than strengthening us," Simon writes in his introduction. "It is easy to go downhill, and we are now following that easy path. Pandering is not illegal, but it is immoral. It is doing the convenient when the right course demands inconvenience and courage."

Lest we grow complacent and our nation static, Simon urges us to demand more from the political candidates who chase dollar signs and cater to polls, to raise our expectations of local and national media outlets that recycle gossip and peddle scandals while foreign policy and international news receive back-page treatment or no treatment at all. He asks us to consider the implications of churches that spend more money remodeling their buildings than helping those in need within their own communities and throughout the world, and he presses us to acknowledge the staggering, long-term consequences of schools that drop their academic standards to sustain their reputations and maintain funding.

Our Culture of Pandering is a stalwart and earnest call to action from a steadfast and trusted advocate of progressive public policy. Leavened with altruism and rich with compassion for citizens of America and beyond, present and future, this important and cautioning treatise advocates genuine leadership in the realms of politics, media, religion, and education. In his trademark lucid and synoptic style, Simon supplements up-to-date examples of pandering in our society from a breadth of sources with commentary and interpretive wisdom garnered from a lifetime of public service.

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

From Publishers Weekly:

Former Illinois senator Simon (Freedom's Champion: Elijah Lovejoy) joins the growing chorus of commentators from the left, right and center who believe there is something seriously wrong with the United States' most cherished institutions.

Simon, who now is a director of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Southern Illinois, sets out his major thesis in the book's title. Simon passionately believes that politicians, the media, religious leaders and educators have, individually and collectively, abandoned their responsibility to lead. In place of a commitment to do what is best for America, even if it means proposing unpopular policies, leaders in each of these fields have substituted a commitment to tell their constituencies, particularly those with money and power, what they want to hear, in a way they want to hear it. In doing so, says Simon, they have made us vulnerable to future political, moral and economic disasters.

Simon's diagnosis that politics is driven by money, pollsters and above all else a desire for reelection, has been already made by other commentators, as have his complaints about the media. More novel and more interesting are his comments about how religious leaders have failed to provide meaningful spiritual guidance. Simon argues that religious leaders pander to their congregations by asking them only for capital contributions rather for than the sacrifices he feels define the Judeo-Christian ethic, mainly to provide assistance for the poor and the less fortunate. Missing in this book, and others like it, is an analysis of why Americans are willing to settle for being pandered to.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Before joining the faculty of Southern Illinois University in 1997, Simon was a U.S. senator from Illinois. He posits that his book "is a call to alter our course, to encourage those who hold the titles of leadership to actually lead, and to prod those who are not leaders to demand more of those who hold the titles." He contends that our leaders in politics, the media, religion, and education are guilty of pandering, of giving in to what is easy instead of fighting for what is right. Simon goes... read more