Product Description

Have you ever had the feeling that, in some hard to define way, we are throwing away two and a half millennia of Western civilization, bit by bit, as our culture becomes more and more infantile? That day by day we grow more and more focused on the quick fix, the ticking-off, the expedient lie, the jingle, the spin, the catchy slogan, the obsession with safety, the horror of risk, the terror of complexity, the preoccupation with surface, the apportioning of blame, the instant gratification? Have you ever wondered what happened to grown-ups? Michael Bywater turns his penetrating eye on the state of Western culture, from politics and the media to show business and science, and concludes we are all Big Babies now. He argues that the Baby-Boom generation is now running the show, and its own commitment to perpetual infantility is reflected in its unstoppable drive to infantilize the rest of us. Ranging from the White House to Buckingham Palace, from MTV to the BBC, from mission statements to Viagra spam, Bywater examines advertising, music, politics, the health industry, education, religion, fashion, sport and publishing, and makes a fierce and often hilarious case that, in almost every area of our lives, we are inexorably becoming...Big Babies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #295037 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 262 pages

Review
I suspect [this book] might change our world... it details, in shocking and visceral and wincingly recognisable fashion the way in which we are treated, by government and advertising and people who write signs and, well, everyone really, as if we are all mewling infants who have to be told, essentially, look look shiny shiny coin coin every forlorn second of every babyish day. --The Observer

Sharp, very funny and slightly disturbing...it is hard to know which group should be more despised: that which bosses and patronises with its imprudent warnings or that which feebly acquiesces. But one thing is certain: neither is likely to read Big Babies, for it is far too intelligent, witty and original to appeal to any of these infantile minds...Bywater must be our leader, Big Babies our bible. --The Telegraph

Michael Bywater [is] a wonderfully sharp and witty writer, whose sentences sing and dance, whose fluffiest paragraphs are held up by a steal core of thought. --The Scotsman

Christopher Fowler
"Raises serious social issues while cracking plenty of willy
jokes"

Daily Mail
"A polemical, often side-splitting rant which highlights, most
brilliantly, the creeping infantilism and dumbing down of Western culture"

Customer Reviews

good cultural criticism
I was a little put off this book by little irritants (something about it suggested it was going to be smug!) but was quickly engaged and I now reckon it to be the best of the recent slew of state-of-the-nation books.

Bywater's perspective on our malaise is that it can be attributed to the "infantilization" of the population, a trend he relates to the attempts by corporate advertising to be "matey" while (really) robbing us blind. We are big babies because we are happy to suckle these teets, zone out on ipods and walk around oblivious to others in a kind of "oceanic disconnection". Growing up would result from chucking out the air guitar, dressing better and enjoying a more substantial diet - culturally and culinary.

There is an excellent part on the prevalence of holding things in abeyence through bracketting - through concepts such as "liberal democracy" or "random people". When you write like this, Bywater says, you are recognising the ambiguity of the terms you are applying. This ammounts to, in effect, adding "so-called" to the front of every concept you utilise. One effect of this "living life as in brackets" is to live in a perpetual abstraction. I found this to be reminiscent of passages from Marcuse' One-Dimensional Man where he goes on about concepts (like "beauty") which exceed what you can say about them. This is probably not revolutionary stuff and I suspect Derrida is (was?) on to something simular but I found it to be well presented in here.

An interesting artivle in the Humanist magazine saw Bywater expand on his thesis a bit. He considered the twin fundamentalisms of Dawkins and the Islamists as being equally crude babyish desires to have "clear dogmatic meaning or none at all!" - a perspective to be trumped by "ambiguity, nuance and subtlty". It is towards cultivating these low-key virtues that maturity lies.

A rallying cry, set to music by wit
Not to be mistaken for a grumpy old man rant, nor the affable malignity of light weight attacks on our culture, this is a serious but beautifully observed lament for the loss of our autonomy, hilarious in its dire examples of how we are diminished by the plethora of warnings, notices, inducements that litter our daily lives. With Bywater's help we can stay alert to the seductive charmlessness of remaining forever in a child like state of obedience, silliness, and acceptance of presciptive behaviour and can avoid the folly of lifelong immaturity and irresponsibility.
For all those adventurers who have never worn their baseball caps backwards, nor thought of remaining on the escalator once it has reached the next floor and will risk buying Christmas crackers without fear of 'explosive content'.

A well argued piece
Michael Bywater hit the nail on the head by opening this book with the statement: "Something has gone wrong". I've felt the same way for years now, but could never articulate exactly what it is, unlike Mr. Bywater. It seems that all our woes can be traced back to the Baby Boomer generation refusing to grow up and both behaving and treating others like big babies.

I found this a much better read than his 2004 offering, "Lost Worlds". Instead of being a collection of snippets, the entire book develops the Big Baby thesis in Michael Bywater's unique style. It's thought-provoking and entertaining - what more do you want!

Be a (wo)man and buy the thing!