1. Jonathan Franzen? There's a common reaction (especially on twitter) to Franzen which is basically "Franzen? Fuck that guy!" This is understandable but, I think, wrong. There's good reason for trying to engage with Franzen, even at his worst.
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5. Via E.B. White, genteel, small-town tree-hugging liberalism has always been a part of the New Yorker's DNA. Robert Warshow, reviewing a White book in 1947, provided a devastating critique.pic.twitter.com/GJHkuz4Y9r
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6. Franzen's brand of liberalism has diminishing appeal but it does persist among a certain strand of that upper-middle-class that has disproportionate cultural power, hence it needs to be argued with. As I try to do here: https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-jonathan-franzen/ …
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But Franzen at his worst is SO EFFING TERRIBLE.
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I believe a word that might be appropriate here is "fusty"
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I didn’t find the Franzen piece to be nihilistic, as some have. It has triggered an angry backlash, and it's quite possible that Franzen has attempted to use reverse psychology to light a fire under people's asses to prove him wrong about the inevitable climate apocalypse.
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But a lot of those small town bucolic tree huggers have no problem with global collective action as well. Franzen lives in Santa Cruz, not the sticks.
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His outlook is probably similar to a lot of educated liberals. Their model of progress is people writing articles for one another at influential magazines, and building a coalition among the educated elect. If that doesn’t work, they conclude we’re doomed.
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