Last week I did an article about Chuck Klosterman’s latest book, The Nineties: A Book, so now I’m writing about the book that’s a strong competitor for my favorite book of his: But What If We’re Wrong? It should be noted that I’m not the first person to review this book for this site:
I thought it was a good article but I do have my own thoughts on the book I’d like to share, especially since the passage of time has given new perspective. The book was released in 2016, which ended up being appropriate timing because of Trump, although he’s never mentioned in the book. There is a chapter on politics which, unsurprisingly, has a lot that’s interesting in retrospect:
- Talking about Hardcore History podcaster Dan Carlin, Chuck says “When he talks about historical periods that seem retrospectively unhinged – the Red Scare, the era of Attila the Hun, the administration of Teddy Roosevelt – he resists the urge to view these events as insane aberrations that could never exist in modernity.” (comical bug-eyed expression of shock) WHA-WHA-WHAAAAAAAAAA? Dude, you can’t just go around saying things like that! I mean, do you realize how crazy you sound?
- The chapter is provocatively titled “The Case Against Freedom”, which some might see as a “careful what you wish for” proposition in light of Trump. I do think, though, that there’s a legitimate case to be made that we place too much value on freedom in the individualistic sense, with Trump being a good example of that since the kind of freedom he likes is the freedom to exploit others, and he wouldn’t understand the idea that placing limits on individual freedom to combat things like Covid and climate change might increase freedom for people in general.
- One thing I think Chuck gets wrong is his suggestion that European countries that stricter free speech laws than we do are actually freer in terms of speech than we are. His logic is that since the First Amendment only restricts the government’s ability to restrict free speech, that essentially allows private citizens and entities to restrict other people’s free speech even more. I think he’s greatly overstating the power people have to do that, especially given all the venues for free speech we have these days. Chuck says “the United States is a safe place for those who want to criticize the government but a dangerous place for those who want to advance unpopular thoughts about any other subject that could be deemed insulting or discomfiting.” I think we can see right now just how important the right to criticize the government is.
- At one point he addresses the important we place on voting and tries to counter arguments people make for voting as a civic obligation. He counters the argument “if you don’t vote you can’t complain” by saying “Actually, the opposite is true – if you participate in democracy, you’re validating the democratic process (and therefore the outcome). You can’t complain if you vote.” That sounds to me like “yet you participate in society” logic. Also, I think the 2020 election contradicts his logic in that I bet a lot of people voted for Biden because of the fear (which turned out to be well-founded) that a narrow victory for Biden wouldn’t be enough to stop Trump from stealing the election, so in that case I think it’s hard to argue that if you vote you’re implying the outcome must be guaranteed to be legitimate.
- He also wonders whether our reverence for the Constitution might be leading to America’s stagnation and eventual downfall. He says that the Constitution is so revered that people’s criticisms of it are usually more about how it’s used that the document itself, but it seems to me that in recent years people have been more willing to criticize the Constitution itself, partly because of how flagrantly the GOP’s been exploiting gaps in the law like the fact that you don’t technically have to allow a Supreme Court vacancy to be filled.
Another chapter that I think is even more interesting with the passage of time is the one about sports, mostly about whether football will be able to survive it’s concussion problem. He mentions Malcolm Gladwell saying in 2010 that in 25 years no one would play football. We’re only 10 years away from that point and, sorry Malcolm, but I don’t see that happening. After seeing how much people underreacted to Covid I doubt people will stop playing football because of all the health risks. More observations:
- Regarding the NFL’s ever-increasing drive for popularity, Chuck said “The hard-core football audience is huge, but not huge enough – the NFL also wants to lasso those who can’t name any player whose wife doesn’t get mentioned in Us Weekly.” That seems even more appropriate considering the NFL just got a bunch of new fans courtesy of Taylor Swift.
- He mentions an interview with Kobe Bryant where at one points he asked Kobe if he’d see Whiplash and Kobe said “Of course, that’s me.” The conversation shifted after that so Chuck didn’t get a chance to ask Kobe what he meant by that, and now we’ll never know.
- Chuck also brought up the possibility that eventually all sports will be killed off by video games, which could still come true given enough time, but considering people used to argue video games caused violence I find it ironic some people are now saying video games will replace sports because sports are too violent.
- One speculation Chuck made that ended up being validated in just a few years because of Covid was the idea that the future of sports might involve sporting events being played in empty stadiums/arenas just for the TV audience.
Here’s some unsorted musings:
- Near the end of the book Chuck talks about his love for The McLaughlin Group. He said he hopes John McLaughlin is still alive when the book is released. He was, but died 70 days later. Also, Chuck at one point says “To say The McLaughlin Group sometimes traffics in ‘outdated modes of thinking’ is a little like saying Elon Musk sometimes ‘expresses interest in the future.'” It’s been a long time since people thought of Elon as a futurist.
- In the chapter about music Chuck quotes Gregg Allman saying the term “Southern rock” is redundant since all rock music came from the south. Chuck attributes this to the 1995 PBS miniseries Rock & Roll, but after some digging I found it’s actually from a different documentary aired the same year called The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which was produced by Time-Life and aired as part of Prime Time Entertainment Network, the syndicated bloc best know for airing most of Babylon 5. It’s at 11:20 of this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQc_3WRVOcc&list=PLIhBC_-F81kxTgSYJUMVXmjPwrLf8aXTP&index=8
- In the chapter on literature Chuck wonders whether the writer who’ll be remembered as the greatest of his/her generation will be someone unknown from a marginalized group or someone famous but not taken seriously. I notice that two recent presidents fit those descriptions, in that 5 years before Obama was elected it would’ve been ridiculous to think a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama could get elected president, and Trump was famous for decades before he became president but wasn’t taken seriously.
- At the beginning of the book Chuck goes over a list of things he’s been wrong about as a way to emphasize his point about how easy it is to be wrong. I appreciate his candor, so bear in mind that I don’t intend to mock him when I point out another thing he got wrong was in his book I Wear the Black Hat when he said “One of my deepest fears about democracy is that — for the rest of my life — presidential elections will be dominated by whichever candidate is more conventionally attractive.”
I’ve made some quibbles with the book but overall I think it’s a lot of fun and Chuck explores a lot of interesting questions. Sometimes he uses peculiar logic but I appreciate his willingness to explore some of the more bizarre possibilities. If he’s wrong about some things, this is the kind of book where that’s a feature, not a bug.