TY  - BOOK
AU  - Arden,John Boghosian
TI  - America's meltdown: the lowest-common-denominator society 
SN  - 0275976394 (alk. paper)
AV  - E169.12 .A724 2003
U1  - 973.92 21
PY  - 2003///
CY  - Westport, Conn.
PB  - Praeger
KW  - Popular culture
KW  - United States
KW  - Mass media
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - Social psychology
KW  - Civilization
KW  - 1970-
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - 1980-
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-230) and index; The Lowest Common Denominator -- Cyber Spaced -- Vicarious Living -- Infotainment -- Retail Government -- Lock and Load -- The Bottom of the Barrel -- Shopping and Dropping -- Men and Women Are from Earth -- Hyped Sports -- Waging the Soul -- Punching the Clock -- McMedicine -- Shrink Wrap -- Dumbsizing the Schools -- Mall Art -- The Spiritual Supermarket -- Transcending the Meltdown -- Rebuilding the Future
N2  - Publisher description:  Celebrity news, video games, cookie-cutter schools, and shopping, shopping, shopping. As entertainers, corporations, and even the government pander to the lowest common denominator, American life becomes increasingly vicarious, prefabricated, and bereft of meaning. This book examines contemporary American consciousness, considering the factors that have driven society toward gossip and sensationalism at the cost of substance and depth.  Arden discusses the growing epidemic of acrimony, superficiality, attention deficit disorder, and complaints of ennui. He targets the reasons why American children have expressed their confused rage with deadly weapons, why a president boasts that he earned Cs in college, and why society has drifted into craving entertainment laced with violence and cheap thrills. The book is provocative reading for concerned citizens, as well as for scholars and researchers involved with contemporary American culture and society
ER  -