When Irony Fails
An impassioned "love letter" argues that it's time to give up our favorite cop-out and roll up our sleeves.
Review by Stephen Lyons
For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today
by Jedediah Purdy
Last year I testified at two public hearings regarding land use and development in the county of eastern Washington State where I live. The hearings were emotional--testy eve--and dragged on deep into the night. Citizen after citizen spoke eloquently in favor of preserving open space. The three county commissioners appeared to listen attentively to our testimonies, then voted in favor of the minority view, in favor of uncontrolled growth. We were heartbroken.
When the next public hearings concerning development were held, I instead attended a Suzuki piano recital performed by a six-year-old. Although I felt guilty, I thought, "Why bother?"
What will it take for me to return to public hearings, to give up my cynicism and comfortable evenings; to sift and sort through piles of proceedings in an effort to stay informed and empowered? A good beginning would be twenty-four-year-old Jedediah Purdy's book of current-affairs essays, For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today. Purdy's plea for a return to public and civic involvement is so idealistic that it almost sounds foreign. He unabashedly calls his plea "a love letter."
"I have written this book for two reasons: so that I will not forget what I hope for now, and because others might conclude that they hope for the same things."
With a surgeon's precision, the author dissects our current collective distaste for all things public. Calling on Emerson, Tocqueville, Thoreau, and his own home-schooled upbringing in West Virginia, Purdy traces our devolution from citizens who held to the common good of a public life to the isolated private life of the self-promoting freelancer, what the contemporary marketing guru Tom Peters champions as "brand You."
Purdy argues that apathy leads to an absence of politics. The "unhappy reputation" politics holds in our minds is "undignified, disreputable, vaguely ridiculous, and thoroughly outmoded." Business gives us instant gratification; politics makes us sick. When these two prevailing attitudes converge, the results can be not only morally destructive, but also environmentally catastrophic, as in the horrific case of Purdy's native state of West Virginia, where mountain after mountain is being leveled in an insatiable corporate land grab for coal.
If Purdy had simply spent two hundred pages criticizing us for becoming more ironic because we watch too many Seinfeld episodes, then For Common Things could easily be dismissed as the rantings of yet another angry GenXer. What elevates his discourse are his sensible correctives: a return to reality while turning away from the fantasy of a perpetual feel-good world. The real world of attending evening meetings or organizing neighbors is not always fun, but, as Purdy writes, the work ultimately can shape a rich and satisfying life. Public action is organic work, which is often messy, but at least it has dignity.
The pronoun "we" is a dangerous reference in these times of "me, myself, and I," and Purdy leans too heavily on the collective second person pronoun. "We" are not all watching "South Park," and many of us have tried to effect changes for the public good only to be met with the overriding brute force that money has in our culture. Our cynicism is well earned.
Perhaps the greatest hope found in Purdy's persuasive argument is the author himself. His command of language, political history; his uncanny grasp of the subtleties and twitches of America's past and present moods contradict his years--but not his passion. For Common Things will endure because we need a guide out of our present morass. Read it slowly, often, and with pleasure at knowing that a young man, wise beyond his years, can still speak without a hint of irony about preserving what we love--and remembering what that love requires. Then, for the common good, venture out into that fitful evening to begin, once again, the work that calls us back together. It is good work that waits.
Stephen J. Lyons, a frequent contributor to Hope, is a regular columnist for High Country News? Writers on the Range syndication project.
from For Common Things
...imagine an environmental impact label, like a nutrition statement, on the package of every product in a store. The label might include an estimate of all fuels consumed, all poisons used, and all natural resources employed in the manufacture of the product, as well as a description of its byproducts and their disposal...the label might identify the processes, such as global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, or the development of acid rain, to which the product contributed...