DON'T THINK, SMILE!: Notes on a Decade of Denial - Hardcover

Willis, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807043206 ISBN 13: 9780807043202

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Discusses the state of American culture and democracy in the 1990s, offering readers a view of ways to shape a the future

About this title

About the Author

Formerly a staff writer for The New Yorker and The Village Voice, Ellen Willis is director of the cultural reporting and criticism program at New York University. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

In six provocative essays, Willis, who writes frequently for the Village Voice and other liberal publications, dissects the political agendas and actions of the American Left during the past decade, finding them insufficient to meet most citizens' everyday challenges. Claiming that mainstream political progressives have made a fateful choice to prioritize issues of class and economics over those of "culture" (e.g., race, sex, gender and sexuality), Willis argues that their approach does not acknowledge the complexity of American social structures and her own and most people's desire to have "a freer, saner, and more pleasurable life." Willis is at her best when she prods raw nerves in U.S. politics to illustrate her points, including the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill controversy, Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve and Catherine McKinnon's anti-porn legislation. Viewing most contemporary conservative politics as a "backlash to the sixties," Willis writes with a great deal of wit and compassion. In addition to her firm grasp of the complexities of political discourse, her main strength is her ability to ground her ideological stands firmly in human needs and experience. She is particularly adept at examining how complicated individual responses to events such as Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky or the presumed connection between crime and race are missing from what she sees as the highly politicized, partisan news coverage of those events. Never taking the easy or predictable route, Willis shows an ability to explicate difficult dilemmas. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A challenging analysis of the culture and politics of the 1990's that takes on the frail left as well as the burgeoning right. Author Willis (journalism, N.Y.U.), at one point in this book calls herself a ``left libertarian,'' who is ``pretty lonely these days.'' The mainstream left, she argues, is not interested in confronting the tyrannies of government, corporations, and the church on behalf of individual freedom, but instead uses its ``meager energy'' merely to tweak the state's agenda on behalf of such specifics as affirmative action or social welfare programs. The left, she speculates, echoing the Dalai Lama, might have spent the decades since the `60s working for the happiness, ``not . . . self-denial,'' of individuals trying to regain control of their work lives, domestic lives, political and economic decisions. Instead, government is a servant of transnational corporations who, no longer challenged by an alternative Communist society, are the leading force in the world. In a series of tightly reasoned and closely linked essays, Willis goes on to discuss issues of class and the cognitive elite as raised in The Bell Curve, feminism and racism in light of the O.J. Simpson trial, and the feminist muddle over where to draw the line in terms of male sexual aggressiveness (asking, in essence, was Thomas a genuine harasser or just a sexist jerk?) She digs into the purported link between race and class to examine the work ethic, family, and crime, and takes on the women's antipornography campaign in a discussion of ``Freedom, Power, and Speech.'' Concluding, she calls for ``the left to become a movement again,'' in the interests of freedom and equality. A closely argued, clearly reasoned, lucidly presented vision of a culture in which individuals can ``live and enjoy [life] fully.'' -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807043206
• ISBN 13: 9780807043202
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 195