liberals

Freedom

brittany — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Brittany: I’m one of those lit geeks who has long loved Jonathan Franzen. I read How To Be Alone on a solo trip to Japan when I was twenty, and it particularly spoke to me as an introverted writer. The better part of a decade later, I’m still so infatuated with that particular collection—though I’ve also read Franzen’s three previous novels, memoir, numerous pieces in The New Yorker, and his longtime partner Kathryn Chetkovich’s Granta essay “Envy” before it was so publicly associated with Franzen—that it was no stretch to know I’d like Freedom. I’ve also read a lot about Franzen’s process as a writer, and frankly, it seems few people have the commitment to churn out the type of work he produces. That doesn’t mean I think it’s above critique; it’s just that I admire his work ethic and generally, the end result.

Mandy: Given that I frequently read The New York Times Book Review and listen to pop culture pundits on NPR, I’m quite familiar with Franzen’s status as a literary darling; however, I had never read his work until Freedom. This past July, I listened to a compelling New Yorker podcast in which Franzen discussed the prevalence of songbird killings for food in the Mediterranean, and I decided it was time I join the ranks and give this guy a shot. When Freedom was released, I dutifully attempted to avoid its reviews, so as to not taint my experience of the nearly 600-page tome. But that effort yielded little success; once the media got a hold of the book, glowing reviews were ubiquitous, and thus my hopes were high.

Brittany: Freedom ended up being much of what I expected, and months after putting it back on the shelf, I’m still relatively satisfied with the long nights it took me to finish it off. Five main characters (six if you count the underdeveloped daughter) weave in and out of one another’s lives, most tragically and painfully, and nearly all of them are deeply flawed, rather screwed up people.

For reasons I still haven’t quite figured out, I identified both with philandering tortured artist Richard Katz and college athlete cum miserable housewife Patty Berglund. In part, I think this is because Franzen has gotten rather good at not overstating who his characters are, allowing readers to put a bit of our own experience onto the story of each key player. That said, as is nearly always the case when a critic loves a mainstream work, I like to pretend that the reflection I seek in this sort of fiction isn’t shared by anyone else. I don’t want to think about who else identifies with a woman like Patty, because in the end, while I might have felt for her, having sympathy for her character is also very much a statement of how I see myself opposed to her. I’m not a miserable housewife, nor am I an adulterer (even if I do sometimes act like a tormented creative type). Being able to both identify as something and not as something both hold value for me; in this case, simultaneously.

Without giving too much away, I think the book is about having compassion, and I suspect that I liked it because I tried to have a lot of it for all of the characters. Except for Joey Berglund. I think he has a personality disorder.

Mandy: While I understand why Franzen is being showered with praise, I was pretty disappointed in Freedom. To my mind, fiction should facilitate a temporary transportation into the world the author has created, and my main criticism of Freedom is that I was entirely aware through the duration of the book that a) I was reading, b) I was reading something someone made up, and c) I was experiencing characters through the lens of the author (read: they didn't come off as authentic selves). It also was clear to me that Franzen himself really identifies with Walter Berglund; therefore all the characters felt like they were presented through Walter's point of view, even when they were in first person narration.

Many critics have lauded Franzen for having the ability to write realistically from a woman’s perspective, a notion that itches my anti-essentialist thinking and one with which I don’t entirely agree. Even though most of Freedom is written is from Patty's perspective, the novel really revolves around her husband, Walter. For that reason, it makes sense that Franzen chose to write a lot of Patty's self-reflection in third person, particularly since one can argue that women’s lives tend to revolve around men’s (instead of their being agents of self-determination), a viewpoint to which I give some credence. But the question is one of intentionality on the part of the author, and I don't think Franzen was ever really able to get inside Patty’s character in a way where she enveloped him; it was always the other way around, with Walter being the focal point. The same is true for Richard Katz, the two kids, and Lalitha. In fact, the only character I even slightly identified with—and believe me, it was only slight—was Jessica. But she barely got any face-time, and may have been the least developed of all the characters.

It probably didn't help Franzen’s case that I recently read Zadie Smith's On Beauty, a novel which is thematically similar to Freedom (in that it also has a filial cast of rather unlikable characters who represent middle class liberal America’s hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies) that also had the benefit of an immensely skilled author whose linguistic craftsmanship and character development outshines Franzen’s, in my humble opinion. Smith’s characters are messy and lack self-awareness or self-control that might prevent their ample mistakes while Franzen’s characters see the forest for the trees and still insist on bumbles. In that light, On Beauty contained happy and unhappy surprises that felt genuine. With Freedom, I had the jump on the trajectory of each storyline from beginning to end, and the failure of the writing itself to captivate had me using the strength of self-persuasion to avoid skipping pages. In short, enjoying Freedom required too much effort for my liking.

Brittany: The last two pages of the book were simply magical for me and made the whole thing worth it because I'm not good enough yet at predicting endings to have seen any of that coming. I tend to think ninety percent of fictional or fictionalized stories—films, books—end horribly, and this didn't. I may like to think I’m above a happy ending, that I can somehow stomach that life so rarely grants them, but for me personally right now, I was just sort of relieved that even made-up people could have one.

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, Brittany Shoot, January 6th 2011

Get Opinionated: A Progressive’s Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action)

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Amanda Marcotte

Seal Press

A few years ago, my uncle, the family’s token conservative, sent me a copy of Dinesh D’Souza’s Letters to a Young Conservative, probably to irk my mother. Despite my inclinations, I decided to give it a try. The first chapter of Letters is masterful, beginning with a lecture D’Souza gave at Columbia University, at which he was greeted with crowds of angry, rioting, liberal students bent on silencing his conservative point of view. D’Souza recalls fighting his way through bullhorns and posters saying things about “capitalism” and “imperialism.” D'Souza presented this situation as a testament to the sorry state of modern liberalism. Although today this sequence may remind us of a Tea Party rally, the image of the crazed young liberal beating drums and waving signs is one that’s hard to shake.

I thought of D'Souza's Letters while reading a new book on modern progressivism, Get Opinionated by Amanda Marcotte, editor of Pandagon and regular contributor to RH Reality Check and Slate's Double X blog. Both are fiery calls to action from well-respected authors. Unfortunately, both are also a little light on facts and evidence.

Marcotte clearly sees her goal as motivating liberals—ostensibly young liberals—to become more politically aware and take steps in their own lives to see their ideals realized. “Consciousness raising isn’t just for identity politics,” she tells the reader, urging him or her to leave comments on blogs to foster intellectual discourse. Marcotte says that to counter anti-government histrionics from conservatives progressives need to put forth “positive, truth-based counter-arguments to raise people’s consciousness.” If only Get Opinionated practiced what it preaches.

The problem is that Marcotte isn’t arming her readers with strong arguments. Instead, Get Opinionated teaches readers that hyperbole will suffice when it comes to shaping political beliefs. If Marcotte urges her readers to go forth and debate, then she should also explain that they should be equipped with serious arguments and evidence, which some progressives aren’t.

Marcotte acknowledges that liberals often have a PR problem. Addressing the war on drugs, for example, she reminds us that stoners don’t make the best spokespersons, stressing that, instead, sensible drug policies are best fought for by someone who looks good in a suit, doesn’t smoke pot, and will discuss the social and economic ramifications of mass incarceration. But while Marcotte notes that a reasoned liberal makes a stronger case, she doesn’t always follow her own advice.

“Deep down inside, we all wish people read and thought about subjects in a little more depth,” she writes. But when it comes to offering a framework for addressing more touchy subjects, Marcotte has a harder time presenting sober, nuanced opinions. Take, for example, her discussion of terrorism. The language used in discussions about terrorism is tricky, with liberals often confusing their emotions about Bush's misadventures in Iraq with the separate issue of terrorism. Marcotte herself falls victim to the dangers of emotional rhetoric. “The most likely explanation for the unnecessary histrionics at airport security is that they’re part of the ‘frog in boiling water’ strategy of introducing a stronger police state,” she writes. Such an argument echoes the kind of wacky conspiracy theories that keep liberal opinions from being taken seriously. Perhaps Marcotte is right, but such accusations need evidence. Presented only as speculation, they are no better than Fox News claiming Barack Obama is a socialist.

Political debate should not rely on ad hominem attacks, but that good idea is frequently overshadowed by the ways in which Marcotte fires at conservatives. A great blogger, journalist, and feminist, Marcotte is just the person to demonstrate the sexist implications of social conservatism. Instead, she intimates that socially conservative men get turned on by talk of “family” and that they spend an inordinate amount of time “monitoring the status of their teenage daughters’ hymens.” These accusations are counterproductive, sidetracking the debate from the actual reasons social conservatism harms women. Marcotte risks alienating potential supporters of women’s rights by giving a distasteful comment while setting a low bar for political debate.

Marcotte is at her best when she argues that “You Don’t Have to Be a Stinky Hippie to Care about the Environment,” the name of her first chapter. She paints an enticing picture of a life in which Americans ride bikes, grow gardens, eat less meat, and save energy in myriad ways. But most liberals already accept that America needs to reduce its carbon footprint. So even though this is a strong point, it is by far the most conventional.

What Marcotte misses in her book is that liberal thought today still lacks a coherent and well-reasoned approach to national security. It’s too bad she took a reactive stance rather than the positive goal of creating a new, liberal approach. It is precisely because Marcotte repeatedly invokes the power of conversation, debate, and good information that the lack of careful reasoning in the book is so strange. Get Opinionated is clearly Marcotte’s own vision of liberalism, one that she hopes will inspire others to think and talk. However, she should demonstrate how to formulate intelligent and persuasive opinions, not just encourage her readers to get political.

“I want badly to say that reading this book means you’re already on the right path, but humility forces me to declare that it is only marginally deeper than Jon Stewart’s book featuring naked pictures of historical figures,” Marcotte says. She could argue that Get Opinionated was all in good fun, that this review is overblown because she wasn’t that serious. But publishing a book has responsibilities, especially when it purports to represent a liberal viewpoint. Marcotte is smart and could have done better. Instead, she may have accidentally given D’Souza new fodder for a second Letters.

This article was created by Campus Progress.

Written by: Pema Levy, May 5th 2010

Left Forum 2009 (4/17-4/19/2009)

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:02:00 +0000

Pace University

New York, New York

Left Forum is an annual meeting of liberal intellectuals, academics, activists and students hosted by a New York City college or university. The conference is divided up into panels that take place in classrooms scattered across the campus. As I sat listening and astutely taking notes at the first panel I attended, a sudden feeling of nostalgia washed over me. I couldn’t help but feel transported back to my years as an undergraduate. Choosing panels was like choosing between courses. There was everything from “Long Term Strategies for the Left," to the more specific “The Challenge of Right-Wing Populism in Northern Core Capitalist Countries.” Like everything seemed in college, the choices were abundant.

Of the many panels I had the chance to attend, two in particular stood out. The first, “The Iraq War in Perspective” offered a dynamic spattering of writers, activists, and journalists who had been in and out of Iraq since the beginning of the U.S. occupation. Initially I was struck by the lack of an Iraqi presence on the panel: every one of the speakers was an American male, and with the exception of one, they were all white. This is something that Left Forum seems to struggle with: balancing elite academic ideologies with the actual people implicated in the theories. Despite this, the speakers offered what they experienced on the ground in Iraq, much of which is not reported through the U.S. media. Eight years after the launch of the invasion of Iraq, we are no closer to withdrawal than we were when we began; from the failure of the anti-war movement in America, to the foreshadowing of Obama’s foreign policies, the panelists painted a bleak portrait of the situation in Iraq, which is a picture you will not find on the front page of the New York Times.

The second panel, “The Culture Wars & Sexuality” grappled with the social and political restrictions on sexuality and identity politics. Betty Dodson—who is widely known as a sex educator, author, and artist—was effervescent. A witty woman in her eighties, she dominated much of the conversation with talk of the need for self-pleasure in sexual fulfillment. The panelists also spoke about Proposition 8 and raised serious questions about whether it should be a flagship cause in the gay rights movement. One of the most informative panelists, Bianca I. Laureano, worked with the sex-positive website Latino Sexuality, and was the first in the group to directly address the issue of race in the context of sexuality. It was refreshing to have a young, female panelist of color, and her experiences added exponentially to the dialogue.

Ultimately, the nostalgia I initially experienced persisted throughout the conference. This feeling was not just a result of physically being transported to a university; rather, it was the cocoon-like nature of Left Forum. From the communist publications being distributed at the front door to the inside leftist jokes about the implications of Obama’s foreign interactions, I felt as though I were in an intricately constructed liberal bubble. The attendees at the conference largely represented the fringes of political norms, but for a few days, surrounded by peers, they were in the center of a liberal terrarium.

Despite the institutionalized nature of such an academic gathering where certain voices go unheard, there was much to be gained. Having the opportunity to engage in dialogues with an array of highly respected academics, activists, intellectuals, and students is immeasurable. Many times those sitting in the audience next to me had just as much to offer as the panelists themselves and questions from the audience blossomed into beautiful diversions that would never exist outside of the surreal world of Left Forum.

Written by: Lizzy Shramko, April 26th 2009

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:24:00 +0000

By Rosemarie Tong

Westview Press

Rosemarie Tong’s Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction offers a clear, thorough introduction to feminist theory. With detailed chapters on Liberal Feminism; Radical Feminism; Marxist and Socialist Feminism; Psychoanalytic Feminism; Care-Focused Feminism; Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism; Ecofeminism; and Postmodern and Third Wave Feminism, the book presents even-handed coverage of the major schools of feminist thought.

The chapters are on average thirty to thirty-five pages long. The text is, thus, concise enough to be useful in survey or introductory feminist theory courses. The theoretical origins of each school thought are examined, and each chapter also considers supportive and opposing views in relation to the different ‘branches’ of feminism. As such, the book offers a useful dialogue that not only reveals the important contributions of these different feminisms (and the key thinkers from each branch), but also scrutinizes the unexamined assumptions and biases in each approach.

While portions of the book are dry and a bit tedious to wade through, this is understandable given the wide-ranging coverage and the textbook type format. It would be difficult for any author, even one as obviously well-versed in feminist theory as Tong, to share a history of feminist thought that didn’t sometimes tend towards an encyclopedic style. Moreover, even though the coverage of primary sources becomes wearisome at times (especially for readers already well versed in feminist theory), the comprehensive approach that considers the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical branch is well worth wading through (and particularly useful for those new to feminist theory).

One area that seems missing in this revised addition is a consideration of transnational feminism. An overview of this branch, especially considering its current importance to the field, would have improved the chapter entitled “Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism.” Another missing area of feminist thought is sexuality studies and queer theory. Given the explosive growth of these branches of thought, this seems an odd omission. However, in spite of these absences, the book is certainly a very useful introduction to feminist thought. In addition to being useful for survey courses in feminist theory, the book also serves as a great reference text to have on hand, especially given the excellent bibliography.

Written by: Professor What If, October 21st 2008

Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:09:00 +0000

Edited by Joshua Frank, Jeffrey St. Clair

AK Press

As we enter the final countdown to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, we will hear political pundits talk in red- and blue-state terms. The shorthand goes like this: blue states are progressive and urban, while red states are conservative and rural. And those purple states? Well, forget about those states; they're the bisexuals of electoral politics. We just don't know what to do with them. (wink)

As someone who has spent most of her life participating in radical social movements in the red states I call home, I was hoping Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair's edited volume, Red State Rebels, would dispel the myth that activism is something that only exists on the coasts. To this end, the authors were successful. Within these 300+ pages, short, easy-to-read essays reveal that resistance to American hegemony comes in many forms.

For almost a hundred years, the farmers of North Dakota have been engaging in non-corporate models of doing business. From buying gasoline from cooperative gas stations to selling their agricultural products to producer cooperatives, the farmers of North Dakota have been sticking it to "the corporate man" for some time. And now, in the twenty-first century, these farmers are winning the fight against Monsanto's genetically-engineered (GE) seed and corporate greed - not for environmental reasons, but for economic ones! When Monsanto started punishing farmers for brown-bagging (replanting seed from their own harvest, rather than buying new seed), farmers organized and offered Monsanto the first anti-GE wheat campaign organized by American farmers. Because farmers were the organizers of the movement, Monsanto was forced out of the state's wheat production, teaching us all an important lesson in corporate resistance: kill the demand for a product, and the corporations will leave.

This issue of farmers resisting corporate greed is just one of the issues presented to us in this forty-three essay volume. Written in an accessible, investigative journalism style, these essays educate readers about all sorts of issues affecting rural America: the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, the cost of using your First Amendment rights in front of conservative police, polluted land left from industry long gone, and resistance to upscale resorts attempting to destroy nature in order to bring city-folk out into the former wilderness. Many essays focus on individuals who experience repression for being the "opinionated weirdo" in town—a common target for rural law enforcement.

Except occasionally, most of the essays focus on environmental and land issues. And while this is not overly surprising considering the environmentalist backgrounds of both of the co-editors, it unfortunately upholds the idea that red states are entirely rural, which they are not. Not a single essay looks at activist organizing efforts in college towns, a place where many red state rebels find solace and build communities of support to resist becoming the lone weirdo target. Instead red state rebels are painted as solitary fighters, taking on "the man" or law enforcement with a rugged individualist fervor.

Also, with the exception of one article on rebuilding New Orleans, this volume skips over activist struggles in urban cities. Unfortunately, even when these articles deal with rural issues faced by people of color, the authors fail to embed their stories within a critical race or anti-racist framework. Few articles speak about gender issues and none even begin to touch on queer issues. Yes, there are articles that include people of color, women, and GLBTQ people, but there is no critical analysis of race, gender, and sexuality.

Despite these flaws, this edited volume is a must-read for those interested in buffing up their knowledge of grassroots resistance across the Heartland. Though the book too narrowly focuses on rural land and environmental issues, this content is especially thought-provoking and offers many new ideas for activist tactics. Since it's not written from an over-the-top radical or single ideological perspective, and since nowhere does the volume pretend that Democrats are all good and Republicans are all not good, this book would make an excellent gift for a friend or family member you feel needs to hear about resistance to the status quo.

Written by: Ailecia Ruscin, October 15th 2008