It’s Christmastime which means most people will turn to re-read old favourites or pick up something feel-good, escapist and/or seasonal. And then there are people like me who couldn’t care less about the holidays and just want to read something gripping and brilliant yet so bleak that by the end you’ll be playing Russian roulette while your family breaks out the Monopoly. That’s right, Chris Hedges is back with a new book to tell everyone once again that WE’RE ALL FUCKED in America: The Farewell Tour!
But seriously, this is a great book and not at all something to laugh about (pfffthahaha... ahem. I’ll put away the adulterated beverages for the moment).
Hedges’ thesis is that the American Empire is on the brink of collapse and sets out to explain why. The subjects include: industrial decay; environmental negligence/destruction; mass unemployment and low paying, unsecure jobs; the erosion of democratic institutions; cripplingly expensive education and healthcare; drug epidemics; ubiquitous, cruel porn; the rise of gambling and its subsequent addictions; unfettered corporate capitalism; and an overpopulated prison system in desperate need of reform. None of it is undeniable and it’s a convincing argument for a challenging future to come.
He makes a number of important points like how the more aggressive the left becomes - through groups like Black Lives Matter and antifa - the more they undermine their position. The state only becomes more powerful in response as they’re pressurized to maintain order which they do through drafting harsher laws taking away personal freedoms and making the police force more militarised. The alternative solution? Consistently applied resistance through nonviolent action in large groups.
I think porn could have a detrimental effect on kids growing up on it, giving them a warped sense of sex and relationships in general, particularly if they get into the harder stuff early on. Not that that genie’s about to go back into its lamp but, eh, hopefully they’ll figure it out and realise sex in loving relationships is more fulfilling.
I really liked the idea of not looking for an exceptional individual to lead the way but to look to each other and ourselves to build towards change together - the disappointment that was Barack Obama shows that no matter who we think is The One to make all the difference, there isn’t any one person who will do this. Hope and Change are important and worth fighting for but we have to realise it and not expect someone to do it for us.
It’s not Hedges’ but he quotes former British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston who said something profoundly true like “We have no permanent allies or enemies, only permanent interests”, which is a line I can’t stop thinking about. It remains so applicable today.
Hedges is a liberal socialist but he goes after the Democrats as much as the Republicans for suckling on the corporate tit and selling out the electorate. He makes the salient point that as much of a buffoon as Trump is, the Media and the Democrats’ blaming Russian interference as the reason why they lost the election is dishonest and misleading. They lost because of the massive - and growing - disparity between rich and poor in America and they voted, rightly or wrongly, for someone who promised to change that, as they did for Obama. By irresponsibly not addressing these problems, there will only be further voter apathy towards the system until it breaks down completely and the people revolt.
All of the personal stories here were morbidly fascinating from the gambling addict, the drug addict/prostitute, and the young drug addict who died; some people just live harrowing lives having been completely let down by the mythical “American Dream”.
There’s a lot I agree with here - and I imagine most people will too as I like to think most people are kind - except for the end where Hedges descends into pure fantasy, talking about a future without war, free healthcare and education for all, and so on. I take his point that we must have ideals and dream big in order to progress - history is made by the dreamers who were told their ideas were impractical - but I don’t think we’ll ever escape war or greed or cruelty in general; that’s just how humans are wired. There will never be a global society - we need our tribes; that too is part of our biology, for better or worse.
Hedges cites other sources saying that the collapse of the American Empire has already begun - it supposedly started in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq - and will reach its apex in the 2020s and be done by 2030. Speculation doesn’t do much for me. It’s an educated prediction based on past empires’ patterns of behaviour but it’s still just pie in the sky that any chump could engage in.
It also doesn’t account for the fact that we’ve never had population figures this high or technology like we have now ever before. This is where the quiet optimist in me pipes up, shrugging off the doom-mongering and thinking - hoping - that the best and brightest among us will find, and realise, solutions to these problems. We’re smarter than we’ve ever been and, as bad as things are in America, and around the world thanks to corporate capitalism - which is something that will have to change soon for the betterment of everybody - I can’t believe it’ll all end within a decade or so.
And then there’s the fact that America: The Farewell Tour is very similar to Hedges’ 2009 book Empire of Illusion. This book is basically Empire of Illusion: Redux with more up-to-date examples. He said then that the Empire would come crashing down soon and it didn’t happen in the last nine years so why would it happen in the next nine? Though, if you’ve read Empire of Illusion, in reading this you might find the subjects/tone/message repetitive, it’s still damning that the problems highlighted in that previous book continue today - in fact might arguably be worse.
Which is why, when I was thinking to myself “What is the point of books like this? Chris Hedges is harping on for the umpeenth book in years and years and nothing changes!”, the answer is self-evident: because change needs to happen and it isn’t. And so we have people like Hedges writing necessary books like this to point us in the right direction: a more egalitarian one.
Regardless of my own minor critiques of it, America: The Farewell Tour is an important book that reminds us that the answers to our questions lie within us and in the people around us. Though the subject matter may be dark, it is superbly written - you won’t find gloom and doom communicated more compellingly anywhere else. Chris Hedges’ strong, compassionate narrative voice remains a powerful Virgil for any reader descending into the uniquely 21st century circles of hell that is modern America.
A late winner for my favourite nonfiction read of 2018!
I’ll leave you with this from the book’s last page:
“The theologian Paul Tillich did not use the word ‘sin’ to mean an act of immorality. He, like Kierkegaard, defined sin as estrangement. For Tillich, it was our deepest existential dilemma. Sin was our separation from the forces that give us ultimate meaning and purpose in life. This separation fosters the alienation, anxiety, meaninglessness, and despair that are preyed upon by mass culture. As long as we fold inward and embrace a hyper-individualism that is defined by selfishness and narcissism, we will never overcome this estrangement. We will be separated from ourselves, from others and from the sacred.”
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