ON FREEDOM

A top cultural critic plucks the concept of freedom away from right-wing sloganeers and explores its operation in current artistic and political conversations.

Containing far less memoir material than her much-loved The Argonauts (2015), Nelson's latest is more purely a work of criticism. In the first section, "Art Song," the author analyzes recent blowups related to cultural appropriation, "a discourse about how and when certain transgressions in art should be 'called out' and 'held accountable,' with the twist that now the so-called left is often cast—rightly or wrongly—in the repressive, punitive position." The author connects our exhaustion with our addiction to the "attention economy"—our 24/7 availability to 3.4 billion people using social media—to the dilemma she labels "I Care/I Can't." In the second section, "The Ballad of Sexual Optimism," Nelson teases out complexities and effects of the #MeToo movement in the context of the current fate of "sex positivity." She decries the conflict between different generations of thinkers and activists, “a totalizing script of intergenerational warfare, in which WE were brave, impressive adults seeking (and finding) pleasure and liberation, whereas YOU are pitiable, cowardly children obsessed with safety and trauma." The author also examines Monica Lewinsky's revisions of her personal history and Pema Chödrön's comments on the sexual rapacity of Trungpa Rinpoche. "Drug Fugue" analyzes intriguing texts, many not widely known, about intoxication and addiction. To open the final section, “Riding the Blinds,” Nelson considers her son's love for trains in the context of apocalyptic climate change. Acknowledging that many find the topic of global warming "too paralyzing, too sad, too frightening, too unimaginable," she compares our situation to that of hobos "riding the blinds"—hiding between cars, unable to see where they are headed. Still, she recommends we "love all the misery and freedom of living and, as best we can, not mind dying."

The subtlety of Nelson's analysis and energy of her prose refresh the mind and spirit.