This very experienced and knowledgeable Princeton, New Jersey journalist has covered conflicts and political uprisings around the world for The New York Times. Perhaps that background goes some way to explaining his extremely negative portrayal of his home country in this screed delivered in language that could have been lifted directly from Karl Marx or Fidel Castro. Long on carefully identifying worsening political, economic and cultural problems in America, he is very short on offering any workable realistic solutions. In chapters on Decay, Heroin, Work, Sadism, Hate, Gambling, and Freedom, he describes his interviews and interactions with the downtrodden, the unemployed or underemployed, the angry, and the disillusioned as he tours the country. Many of these subjects are clearly hardened criminals by anyone’s criteria. Much of their sometimes justified anger leads to contradictory recommendations for remedies. He carefully avoids documenting the lives of anyone who had ever experienced any prolonged success.
Hedges conveniently forgets to reveal, even in About The Author that he is a Harvard graduate
an Ivy League teacher, and an ordained Presbyterian minister, putting him indisputably in the elite class that he thoroughly castigates. He seems to conclude that Americans are all fated to either go to hell, or to experience hell on earth. There is certainly no acknowledgement that any secular humanist such as myself could possibly be conscientious, concerned about the very legitimate societal problems he identifies, or offer any meaningful solutions.
In the final few pages he self-identifies as a socialist who believes his country is doomed to become an autocracy ruled by the corporate capitalist 1% who exploit and oppress the rest of us for monetary gain. He concludes that only a radical, perhaps violent, revolution has any chance of saving democracy. (He seems to hedge, as his name suggests, on advocating or condoning violence.) There is a lot of truth in his insights into the plight of those he encounters, but he denigrates almost anyone who has had any success in the mainstream of society, including the mainstream press that he belonged to, and all university professors, who are depicted as subservient to the capitalist elite, even as he advocates for universal free tuition and wider access to higher education. Even Barack Obama is scorned as a pawn of the corporate capitalists.
The chapter on gambling is perhaps the most revealing in uncovering the cold, calculating exploitation of the unsuspecting, particularly by one Donald Trump and his Taj Mahal casino. And the detailed documentation of the cynical psychological, monetary, and physical abuse of the unfortunate in the private prison system makes a mockery of the word Correction in their names.
To put my critique of this work into perspective, perhaps I need to acknowledge my own privileged position in a much less autocratic western country, as a lucky, relatively wealthy, healthy, and happy retiree after a long very satisfying career. But I found the tone of this book to be so gloomy and the predictions so bleak that it made me wonder if the title was some sort of personal cry of despair, or even a veiled suicide note. Although I learned a lot, I cannot seriously recommend this book for the general public. But it would be a great resource for a Sociology 101 course.
The Passionate Reader 