Sunday, November 8, 6 pm, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, 14311 Wells Port Drive, west of I-35 off Wells Branch Parkway.
Last Sunday Special Event with Chris Hedges, author of “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.” In his new book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy and illusion. He argues that we now live in two societies: One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world, that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other, a growing majority, retreats from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. Hedges looks at trends in entertainment, education, and public life to describe an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion.
After Hedges earned a degree from Harvard Divinity School, he embarked on a reporting career that began in 1983 in El Salvador. After six years in Latin America, he spent seven years in the Middle East, most of them as the bureau chief for The New York Times. He also covered the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, before joining the Times’ investigative team covering terrorism.
Hedges was an early and vocal critic of the plan to invade and occupy Iraq. In May 2003 he gave a commencement speech in which he said, “We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security.” The Times reprimanded Hedges for “public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper’s impartiality” and demanded that he stop speaking about the Iraq war. Refusing to accept these restrictions, Hedges left the paper to become a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, write books, and teach.
He is the author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002); What Every Person Should Know About War (2003); Losing Moses on the Freeway (2005); American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2007); I Don’t Believe in Atheists (2008); and Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians (2008, with Laila Al-Arian).
Tickets are $11.50 ($10 plus a $1.50 processing fee). Proceeds go to the new Austin People’s Community Center (details coming soon). Tickets are available by calling or visiting: MonkeyWrench Books, 110 E North Loop Blvd, Austin, TX 78751, (512) 407-6925.
Sponsored by: Third Coast Activist Resource Center, MonkeyWrench Books, Workers Defense Project/Proyecto Defensa Laboral (PDL).