Combatting American cynicism

Thoughts From Here
    By Sonia Lin

Props to Jedediah Purdy, LAW '01, for attacking irony. Yes, irony: the Snackwell's of emotion, which leaves us all feeling smart, safe, yet also slightly nauseated.

Irony is but a gassy, glassy protection against the outside world—a clever excuse to worry about ourselves a little more and everyone else a little less. Abandon irony, Purdy urges, and embrace your small but critical role in all common things.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

Purdy has been getting press all over for his book For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today. He's a 24-year-old home-schooler from West Virginia, the child of hippie parents desirous of a sane life. As an Appalachian babe, he ran free over brook and mountain, through the wildflowers and in the mud. Then he went to Exeter and Harvard before coming to Yale Law and writing his book.

Reviewers and journalists have been unable to resist these delicious biographical facts and the juxtaposition of this fresh, young face with the ponderous, formal prose that pervades For Common Things. As a Barnes & Noble employee who met Purdy said, "He's a cross between Opie Cunningham and William F. Buckley [Jr., DC '50]." The resulting buzz is largely positive and continues to grow.

Purdy has written an appeal—a "love letter" to the world—for renewed faith and enthusiasm in civic and political life in America. He also has launched a bright-eyed crusade against the Seinfeld-brand irony that has unabashedly created an American culture of tired, snickering observations and very little else.

Though it's tempting to take a sarcastic crack at Purdy and his book, his plea has validity. In many aspects of popular culture today, everything is funny, while nothing is delightful or worthy of passion. Yet the cultural disillusionment with common things did not spring, larger-than-life, from the loins of the media or any other popular culture vultures. From the national petty turmoil of the Clinton administration to our own recent scandal in the Ward seven aldermanic race, politics has proven to be a farce. The wealth gap grows and grows as the economy spins like a roulette wheel dealing riches, false hope and disappointment. And the Kansas School Board has recently thrown out the teaching of evolution in favor of Creationism. Sometimes it can be hard to do anything but laugh.

To heal our cynical malaise, Purdy makes a case for a return to a "banal" yet worthwhile commitment to the community. He cites his mother's role on their local West Virginia school board as a good example. Small efforts and simple things, he seems to say, can lead to a resurrection of hope.

Although For Common Things reads unevenly and Purdy comes off a bit self-righteously, the message has value in the ongoing discussion of American culture. It may also be an indication of increasing idealism among our generation. Despite the absurdity of our culture, we haven't lived through the grim, hope-shattering events that our parents experienced, such as Vietnam and Watergate.

As national life seems to spiral out of our control, we have a chance to step out of the madness and start small again. In a way, we have reached a turning point. The Columbine High School shootings sent a sobering message both about the far-reaching implications of youth violence and about the need for civic effort and increased responsibility.

America may be on fire, but out of the ashes struggle green seedlings of renewal. I see effort and hope all around me. I see it in my peers, who dream big but work small and concretely: tutoring a child, organizing a rally, smiling at strangers. I even see it in the crowds of students drawn to ethics classes and seminars, trying to figure out the meaning of right and wrong for themselves. And while this may be ridiculous, I see it in the sugary earnest success of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, who believe so much in the love song and who have tapped into our own beliefs so acutely.

Is life beautiful? The question was put to me recently. I don't know, but life is life and it's worth living. Irony should play only a slender role in a worthy existence and Jedediah Purdy does well to add another blow to that current American tendency to degrade and denigrate.

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