Politics and Vision (Wolin)
Pop psychology
Porizkova, Paulina
Pornography
and addiction
ages of users
AVN Awards
and diseases
and dolls
and drugs and alcohol
entry into
and fan participation
fusion with commercial mainstream
gonzo
and income
and increased cruelty and abusiveness
and Internet
Las Vegas expo on
and love
number of films and revenue from
as pantomime of sex
and prostitution
and racism
and relationships
and revenge and triumph
and sadism
and television shows
Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind (Taylor)
Positive psychology
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Postman, Neil
Poverty
Power, Tyrone
The Power Elite (Mills)
The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges (Soares)
Powers, Jim
Presidential debates
Price, Kirsten
The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates (Golden)
Princeton Review
Princeton University
Prisons
Probst, Jeff
Propaganda
Protest
Pseudo-events
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
Public Opinion (Lippmann)
The Purpose Driven Life (Warren)
Radnóti, Miklós
Raytheon
Reagan, Ronald
The Real Housewives of . . . (television show)
The Real World (television show)
Reality television
American Idol
America’s Next Top Model
and Goody
moral nihilism of
and pornography
and revenge and triumph
and sadism
and surveillance
Survivor
The Swan
See also other specific reality shows
Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched (Andrejevic)
The Republic (Plato)
Republican Party
Rice, Condoleezza
Rida, Flo
Riesman, David
Rivera, Diego
Road Rules (television show)
Robbins, Tony
Robertson, Pat
Rock of Love (television show)
Rockefeller, John D.
Rojek, Chris
Roldan, Patrice
Romans
Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Rosenthal, Joe
Roth, Joseph
Roth, Philip
Rover (company)
Rubin, Robert
Ruskin, John
Russert, Tim
Rwanda
Sadism
Salon.com
Sam (FedEx Kinko’s trainee)
San Jose State University
Sands of Iwo Jima (movie)
Satan
Saul, John Ralston
Savio, Mario
Scheer, Robert
Schumpeter, Joseph
Schwartz, Charles
Scientific management
Second World War
Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S.
Select Committee on Intelligence
Self-help books and specialists
Seligman, Martin
Senate Intelligence Committee
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
700 Club (television show)
Sex and the City (television show)
Shadow Statistics
Shetty, Shilpa
Shopping
Siegel, Bugsy
Simon, Bob
Simon, Scott
Simpson, O. J.
65 Guy Cream Pie (movie)
60 Minutes (television show)
Slaughter, Sergeant
Slut Bus (Web site)
Smith, Adam
Smith, Scott
Snoop Dogg
Soares, Joseph A.
Social Security
Socialism
Socrates
Solon
Soviet Union
Spencer, Herbert
Springer, Jerry
Stagliano, John “Buttman,”
Stagliano, Karen
Stalin, Joseph
Stanford University
Status Anxiety (Botton)
Steinem, Gloria
Stereotypes
Stern, Howard
Stewart, Jon
Stewart, Martha
Stock market
Stone. F.
Stoya (porn actress)
Styles, Nadia
Subprime mortgages
Summers, Lawrence
The Sun (magazine)
Sunset Boulevard (movie)
Survive, Evade, Resist, and Escape (SERE) program
Survivor (television show)
Susman, Warren
The Swan (television show)
Swirlies (movie)
Switzerland
T, Mr.
Tacitus
Talk Radio Network
Taylor, Frederick
Taylor, Ronald
Taylor, Shelley
Telecommunications companies
Television
and celebrity interviews
and Christian Right
and corruption
and Fahrenheit
hours watched by Americans
and hunger for celebrity
and illusion
and Iraq
journalism
and Las Vegas
predictability of
and pseudo-events
pundits
and sensationalism
tabloid shows
talk shows
and validation
and wealth
See also Mass media; Reality television
Temptation Island (television show)
Terrorism
Thinking XXX (television special)
Thomas, Dylan
Thrill, Jeff
Tiberius
Tillerson, Rex
Tina (Survivor contestant)
TMZ (television show)
Tocqueville Between Two Worlds (Wolin)
Today (television show)
Totalitarianism
Town & Country (magazine)
Toyota
Transformational Positivity
Traylor, Ray (Big Boss Man)
Treasury, U.S.
Trenton, New Jersey
Trilling, Lionel
Tweed, Jack
Twight, Charlotte
Twitter
Undertaker, the (wrestler)
Unemployment
See also Job losses
Unilever
United Auto Workers
United Nations
Universities
and America’s decline
and assault against humanities
and corporations
and critical thinking
and deference to authority
and diversity
and donors, alumni, and fund-raising
and entitlement and elitism
and evil and crimes against humanity
for-profit
and How to Win at College
and intelligence
and military-industrial-academic complex
and professors
and specialization and jargon
and standardized tests
and student activism
and working class
See al
so specific universities
The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex (Giroux)
The Unsettling of America (Berry)
U.S. News & World Report (magazine)
The Uses of Literacy (Hoggart)
Valentino, Rudolph
Vasquez, Anthony
VegasGirls
Viacom
Vietnam War
Volkoff, Nikolai
(Boris Breznikoff )
Wagoner, Rick
Wall Street
bailing out
and cult of self
fortunes
and jargon
and journalists
speculators
titans
Walters, Barbara
War
and Cassandras
and illusion
and intelligence
and love
and military spending
as movie
and popular culture
and Wolin
See also Afghanistan; Iraq: War; Second World War; Vietnam War
Warhol, Andy
Washington, University of
Washington Post
Wattleton, Faye
Wayne, John
Weber, Max
Weimar Germany
Welch, Mary
Weldon, Felix de
Welfare
Wellesley College
White, David
White, Jonathan
White, William H.
Wicked Pictures
Wight, Paul
See also Big Show
Williams, Dolores
Williams, John
Wilson, Al
Wilson, Torrie
Winfrey, Oprah
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Wolin, Sheldon S.
Woolhandler, Stephanie
World Database of Happiness
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
World Wrestling Federation
Wrestling
and authority
as choreographed rituals and acts of retribution
and clans
and communism and racial stereotypes
and hidden cameras
and referees
and shifting identities
and social breakdown
and women
Yale University
and big questions
and children of alumni
and endowment
and entitlement and elitism
Yeats, William Butler
Yella
Yugoslavia
Z, Dr.
Zinn, Howard
Copyright © 2009 by Chris Hedges
Published by Nation Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
116 East 16th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Nation Books is a co-publishing venture of the Nation Institute
and the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
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or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.
Design and composition by Cynthia Young.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hedges, Chris.
Empire of illusion :
the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle / Chris Hedges.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-786-74955-3
1. Mass media—United States. 2. Popular culture—United States.
1. Title.
P92.U5H365 2009
302.23—dc22
2009013585