THE STANDARD READER
The Standard Reader Books in Brief Over the Edge: How the Pursuit of Youth by Marketers and the Media Has Changed American Culture by Leo Bogart (Ivan R. Dee, 323 pp., $27.50) "Americans devote a...
...Yaffe's edition of the Treatise far surpasses all its competitors in its faithfulness to Spinoza's peculiar manner of writing...
...But he does examine the last century's cultural shift in an inventive way...
...Bogart is certainly not the first to complain that the modern media cocoon is peppered with sex and violence...
...But Bogart makes a compelling case against such conventional wisdom...
...The young change their preferences just as much as anyone else...
...Over the Edge is a sound analysis of the cultural changes marketing has wrought...
...Yaffe's excellent interpretive essay helps readers to see why Spinoza regarded his dual foundings—of liberal democracy and of a "critical" way of reading the Bible—as being inextricably linked...
...A new girlfriend may lead a man to choose a new deodorant...
...And while the pervasiveness of quotation and the number of statistics scattered throughout the text can be mind-numbing at times, Bogart is engaging on the inner workings of television and its self-regulation...
...And sex and violence attract young viewers like nothing else...
...Steven Lenzner...
...Why government bureaucrats should make these difficult calls Bogart never explains...
...But he also spends many pages explaining that research shows a complete lack of consensus among viewers about which material is suitable for what age group...
...Kelly Jane Torrance Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise edited by Martin Yaffe (Focus, 480 pp., $24.95) Anyone lacking Latin who is seriously interested in, among other things, the philosophical foundations of liberal democracy, the rise of the historical-critical approach to the Bible, and Leo Strauss owes Martin Yaffe a substantial debt of gratitude for his edition of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise...
...It thus provides us fresh access to the late 17th-century work, which is at once "the philosophical founding document of both modern liberal democracy and modern biblical criticism...
...Because of his seriousness and because of his modesty—he does not confuse himself with a thinker of Spinoza's rank—Yaffe is a most able guide to Spinoza...
...As for Yaffe's contribution to the study of Strauss, it consists not only of the way in which he follows Strauss's admonition to translators not to impose their own prejudices on a text, but also the way he keys his text to the Latin editions that Strauss employed in his great essay "How to Study Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise...
...Filmmakers, for example, will sometimes insert language or sex into a movie to garner a tougher rating—no self-respecting teenager wants to be seen watching a PG film...
...His main recommendation is ending the Federal Communications Commission's automatic renewal of licenses...
...The Standard Reader Books in Brief Over the Edge: How the Pursuit of Youth by Marketers and the Media Has Changed American Culture by Leo Bogart (Ivan R. Dee, 323 pp., $27.50) "Americans devote a substantial part of their waking hours swathed in a cocoon of make-believe," sociologist Leo Bogart writes in his new book, Over the Edge...
...But he fails to offer any real solution to those, like himself, who care about what children see on their TV screens...
...starting a family may lead him to change his carmaker...
...The young are more subject to short-term trends than anyone else...
...Yaffe thereby enables Latinless readers to investigate the hundreds of citations to the Treatise that Strauss provides throughout his essay...
...Bogart argues that it is Madison Avenue marketers, not Hollywood, that are primarily responsible for the coarsening of popular culture, especially television...
...Marketers see young consumers as the elusive holy grail—if they can win their brand loyalty now, they'll have it forever...
Vol. 10 • June 2005 • No. 39
