Full Description
"Professor Jacek Dabala's short polemic, A Pre-Collapse Cure for Stupidity, serves as
a straightforward, blunt instrument intended to jar us out of our collective stupor
in the face of catastrophe. Squarely taking on critical, timely issues such as climate
change, democracy, populism, and the state of journalism, Dabala deploys a provocative,
untimely language intended to persuasively argue that our present world is
the outcome of a mass stupefaction of our own making.
Professor Richard Baxstrom, University of Edinburgh
"Do we need an informed public and knowledgeable narrators making sense of
things at a time of great complexity and uncertainty? We do. But as Jacek Dabala
points out in his engaging new book, the globe is facing endangered democracies,
empowered politicians drawn to totalitarianism and journalists lacking the skills to
respond. Chief among Dabala's necessary conclusions: We need better education
teaching "the meaning and real value of democracy and freedom." And we need it
now. Before it's too late."
Professor Steven Beschloss, Arizona State University
"Born of frustration and an awareness of impending climate disaster, in this short
book Jacek Dabala sets out his sense of the whole problem. Dabala reveals a vicious
and self-reinforcing cycle of propaganda and stupidity built of short-sighted, selfserving
or outright malevolent voices in politics and the media."
Professor Nicholas J. Cull, University of Southern California
"In these provocative and timely essays, Jacek Dabala issues a clarion call to educators,
journalists, and politicians to address the major crises facing the world today
by ending the "circle of stupidity" that perpetuates bad governance and misinformation
with devastating consequences."
Professor Diana Owen, Georgetown University
Contents
Foreward — 1 The Stupidity of Politicians and What It Means in the
Time of Climate Change — 2 Why Is Democracy Struggling and Why Is War a Real
Threat? — 3 The Death of Democracy in Seventeen Steps — 4 Liberalism Versus Conservatism: The Antagonism
That Is But Is Not — 5 The ABC of the Media — 6 The "Silly Buggers" — 7 How To Tell a Propagandist from a Journalist? — 8 What Went Wrong? — 9 Corruptions of Political Freedom — 10 The Tail Wagging the Dog — 11 Perfect Journalism: Is It Really That Simple? — 12 Three Questions to Test the Quality of Any
Government — 13 A Cure for the Global Political Stupidity — 14 Cruelty of the World's Political Future — 15 Sources of Political Stupidity — 16 Can Religion and Faith Still Be Saved in the
Contemporary World — About the Author — Bibliography — Index of Names and Notions
