Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of Kids These Days, this collection of new and selected essays traces how inequality, student debt, and over-work have come to define our culture and our lives. Our economic situation, political discourse, and future prospects have gotten much worse since a guy brought a sign that said SHIT IS FUCKED UP AND BULLSHIT to the Occupy Wall Street protests at Zuccotti Park. We all knew what he meant . . . but where are we now? And how did we get here?
Malcolm Harris, one of our most exciting young cultural critics, takes on these questions from every angle. He examnines everything from how we've become complicit in lowering the bar for what counts as prosperity; to how we sacrificed meaningful privacy so casually we didn't even notice; to the higher education financial bubble that is about to burst.
But these funny and voice-driven essays remind us to laugh at the absurdity of all: he cops to being the guy who tricked protestors into thinking Radiohead was playing Occupy Wall Street; he demonstrates outsize impact the Ikea catalog has had on our worldview; and he assures us that Marx saw the necessity a crisis moment just like the one we're living in.
This wide-ranging look at how much has happened since the supposed End of History, shows a versitile cultural critic at the height of his powers.
Synopsis
From the writer hailed for giving voice to a generation in Kids These Days comes a bold rejection of a society in which inequality, police violence, and exploitation have come to define our lives In these new and selected pieces, Malcolm Harris, one of our sharpest and most versatile critics, examines everything from the lowering of wages to the rise of fascism--and the maddening cultural landscape in between. Along the way, he explores protest strategies past and present; questions the wrong (and often racist) lessons we've learned from American history; and, most comfortingly, assures us that Marx saw the necessity of a crisis moment just like the one we're in.
Rarely does a writer come along who can turn our world so thoroughly upside down that we can finally understand it for what it really is, but Harris's wry and biting essays do just that, and help us laugh at what we see.
Our economic situation, political discourse, and future prospects have gotten much worse since a guy brought a sign that said "Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit" to the Occupy Wall Street protests. We all knew what he meant then . . . but where are we now? And how has so much happened since the so-called end of history? The over thirty pieces collected here offer compelling answers to these questions and more.