Are You Serious? How to Be True and Get Real in the Age of Silly

This is a book that defines and celebrates the quality of seriousness and examines the contemporary forces ranged against it. It critiques the lack of seriousness in our time, and seeks out people and activities outside of the modern mass culture that are slowly leading us back to fineness and attentiveness of mind.
We used to live in a world run by serious people: many of our political and religious leaders, writers and artists, journalists and academics, lawyers and businessmen were men and women who were plainly serious about their professional role. These grown-up figures have all but disappeared, leaving our country and our culture in the hands of amateurs, buffoons, and professional clowns.
Yet according to critic Lee Siegel, the urge to be serious remains strong in American hearts. Consider the spectacle of Hollywood actor Sean Penn: despite his clumsy efforts to inject himself into national and foreign policy debates beyond his ken, one must applaud his desire to be considered a serious person.
Everywhere around us, in fact, we see people wrestling with this heartfelt need. From celebrities embracing social and political causes to comedians who have abandoned humor for caustic truthtelling, to men and women in every realm of life who strive to break through the pursuit of instant gratification into ways of living purposefully, the book portrays the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the American quest to be serious.
Are You Serious? will offer a survey of seriousness in all its incarnations: from its use by writers and intellectuals to the way we employ the word in everyday situations, from romance to business. The book will then explore the challenges facing seriousness in our time. In chapters such as "Is It Possible to Be a Serious Artist?" and "Is It Possible to Be a Serious Journalist?" and "Is It Possible to be a Serious Politician?" we will meet the people who are achieving seriousness in their vocations, as well as the forces in modern life that make seriousness so difficult to attain. In a final chapter called "The Future of Seriousness," new modes of seriousness, from subsistence farming to lutherie, are celebrated as paths to a fulfilling and purposeful future.