Empire of Illusion

Empire of Illusion begins with an exploration of the narratives found in World Wrestling Entertainment competitions, noting the increased use of class, family, and sexual conflict. Hedges compares the spectacle to Plato's allegory of the cave, and argues that the invented celebrity culture of the wider entertainment world is creating with it a population divorced from understanding reality. The artificial relationships typical in this enterprise are noted to increasingly hold prominence in American politics with the creation of celebrity status presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Hedges furthers that this heightened status of celebrity culture gives rise to the use of pseudo-events in media that distract from pressing issues. With public awareness captured by stagecraft, Hedges declares that Americans are enthralled by faith in illusion.

The following chapter decries the abuses against women in the American sex industry. The consumption of pornography is argued to be a masturbatory act that attacks intimacy and objectifies and dehumanizes the women involved. Hedges notes the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in the industry, the rampant violation of consent in pornographic productions, the intentional monetization of adolescent viewership, and profiles the testimonies of women who were traumatized by sex abuse while performing in pornography. Many graphic depictions of abuse and psychological degradation in pornography are included throughout the chapter, along with Hedges' own critical observations regarding his trips to Las Vegas and an AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. The depravity of some gonzo pornography productions is compared to the sexual abuse and torture documented in Abu Ghraib and the exhibition of sexual pathology in war zones. Hedges argues that pornography is increasingly an expression of necrophilia with its abuses of women and the rise of the use of sex dolls. The chapter is concluded with an outline on the mainstream presence of pornography, and argues that pornography in America now represents a cultural fixation on death.

In the third chapter, Hedges accuses institutions of higher education, especially prestigious American universities, of prioritizing the teaching of sophisticated systems management over all other fields of inquiry. Hedges charges that universities, at the behest of corporate and defense industry interests, created an academia that lacks critical thinking, overvalues strict analysis and utility, retreats into specialized language, overly accommodates students from wealthy families, indulges in bloated athletics spending, and sacrifices faculty support and the humanities. The end result, Hedges claims, is that higher education is chained to servicing decaying financial and corporate structures without the ability to critically examine and correct its role in the United States, and is thus captured by illusion despite its purported enlightenment.

The next chapter delves into criticisms of positive psychology and self-help media. Hedges denounces positive psychology by pointing to its possible pseudoscientific leanings and the pervasive interests of corporations in the field that seek greater productivity and satisfaction from workers. Hedges notes that the self-deceptive and baseless nature of positive psychology is often explicitly celebrated as in the case of Shelley E. Taylor's analysis of positive illusions. Hedges charges that advances in positive psychology amount to a corporate campaign to marginalize worker dissent. The wider political effects, Hedges furthers, involves demonizing dissent and protest for being inharmonious. In the name of improving mental health, corporations are attempting to subdue the masses with the illusion of happiness.

The final chapter of Empire of Illusion is dedicated to the political implications of an American culture formed by illusion. Hedges claims that the current United States of America is wholly unrecognizable to its historic form. America no longer has a civic religion or well-functioning infrastructure. While American workers are impoverished by medical debt and missing high-paying manufacturing jobs due to outsourcing, corporations have seized control of governance. Hedges argues that this worsening injustice is terminal, and that collapse at the hands of corporate tyranny is nearly inevitable. Corporations, now almost entirely unaccountable in America, have taken over the defense industry and lobby for generous kickbacks in the form of egregiously overcharged government contracts. Hedges particularly notes the neglect of popular issues and complacency with corporate power by Democratic politicians. Hedges laments the potential for a fascist corporate takeover with disingenuous Christian trappings, but balances that bleak vision with a message on the unconquerable power of love. The book concludes with the hope that love will defy the illusions of the elites.