The Assault on Reason by Al Gore Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Assault on Reason by Al Gore - Essay Example Extrapolating this to â€Å"The Assault on Reason† by Al Gore, the basic premise is essentially the same. The practice of politics that is an affront to reason and instead preys upon my insecurities and fears often leads to sections of society, by their nature of being less privileged, vulnerable to further exploitation. In a society where there is a premium on high skilled jobs filled by people with college degrees and access to sophisticated programs of skill development, the marginalization of certain ethnic communities happens in a â€Å"double whammy† fashion. First, these communities are not able to put themselves through college or pay for acquiring specialized skills. In a further affront, they are pushed down the chain as a result of non availability of jobs that can employ them. Thus, they not only are left out of the race but go down the â€Å"food chain† as well. This is just one instance of how the current political and economic structure favors a pr ivileged few at the expense of the majority. If Al Gore were to re-write his book, he can draw lots of inspiration from Prof. Young’s framework and this paper looks at how the ideas of Gore as well as Young have a certain convergence as far as the theme of oppression is concerned. Essentially, both Al Gore and Prof. Young have the same theme of state power and power of the elite employing the methods of control and influence. While Prof. Young has provided a framework of oppression listing the five faces, Al Gore details the practices of state and elite control over the masses. The difference here is one of theory (Young) and practice (Gore) that may be explained by the fact that while Prof. Young’s was an academic study, Al Gore’s book was made for a wider target audience and written in a style that is easily understood by the lay reader. Each chapter of Al Gore’s book is a detailed description of the ways in which the mainstream media, the