Why are the times we live in so out of joint? Why, despite so much entertainment, so much freedom, so many technological conveniences and so many choices, are we still so unhappy? Why is our culture so steeped in violence and voyeurism, hype and hyperventilation? And why, in a culture with more material abundance, education and opportunity than any other in history, is there still not enough to go around?
These are just some of the paradoxical questions Ziauddin Sardar poses in this witty and phosphorescently intelligent guide for the concerned and the confounded.
Tackling our obsession with celebrity and lists, our anxieties about sex and shopping, our concern about human rights and kids, our changing perception of how we see ourselves and others, and revealing our incapacity to dissent or evolve into a coherent multicultural society. Sardar presents the building blocks from which the genome of postmodern times can be read.
Here then is the alphabet that spells out: let’s go somewhere else!