Since I had the opportunity to bring up my favorite book review of all time a few weeks ago, Matt Taibbi's review of The World is Flat, three things have been bothering me. Two are direct quotes from Friedman's book. The other is the fact that it has sold more than 3 million copies.
These are the quotes that I cannot forget no matter how much $4.99 gin I drink:
"It created a global platform that allowed more people to plug and play, collaborate and compete, share knowledge and share work, than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world."
"And now the icing on the cake, the ubersteroid that makes it all mobile: wireless. Wireless is what allows you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere."
Mark Twain defined a "classic" as a book everyone praises but no one reads. As I compare Friedman's words to his sales figures I wonder if that is how "bestseller" is now defined. Look at those quotes and tell me: who reads this shit?
Who honestly drops $25 for the hardcover and then subjects themselves for four hundred and seventy-three pages of pseudo-intellectual sloganeering and 1990s Wired buzzwords?
Three million American book-buyers did exactly that. Yet the same people likely to be attracted to Friedman's ideology (and his fact- and idea-free prose has nothing else going for it) seem to be the least likely to sit through 500 pages of anything, let alone something that reads like watching Milton Friedman masturbate.
The phenomenon of "shelf books" usually applies to books of significant literary prestige that lack entertainment value. In other words, we buy them to display on the bookcase to impress our cocktail party guests. It's the American way of acquiring the social cachet of intellectualism with nothing more than a valid credit card.
Friedman's ramblings hardly qualify. Who chases prestige by advertising that he or she has read The Friedman Unit's latest sheaf of enthusiastic handjobbing for globalization?
buy aciphex online blackmenheal.org/wp-content/languages/new/uk/aciphex.html no prescription
I understand why people buy, display, and never read Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow, but in what reality does The World is Flat serve a similar purpose?
I have no empirical evidence about what anyone does with this book after buying it.
Maybe everyone reads it cover-to-cover. Maybe no one does. I am merely struggling to develop a theory of how millions of copies of absolutely dreadful, repetitive books are sold to a public that doesn't read.
buy priligy online blackmenheal.org/wp-content/languages/new/noprescription/priligy-no-prescription.html no prescription
If adults hardly read to begin with (and make no mistake, those self-reported numbers are wildly overstated) how are they being convinced to purchase 500-page books that are poorly-written, boring, and intellectually bankrupt? If we can eliminate pleasure, education, and prestige from the list of motives, I, like Thomas Friedman, am at a loss for ideas.
AC says:
Well, I know how a copy of this book made its way into my parents' home. Maybe this story will provide some explanation as to why this crap ended up in other homes too. I think I was looking for some book to give to my dad for Christmas. So I walk into Borders and go to their best-sellers section. That book was there and 30% off. In my approximately 18 year old mind, I though, "It's a best-seller! It must be good! AND, I can get it for $17." Book was bought. Now sits in the bathroom and provides entertainment for whoever may take a shit in my family's bathroom.
Had it not been placed where it was in the store, I probably would have never bought it. Books, like many other things people buy, are subject to trendiness. People who casually look through bookstores (usually with the intent of trying to feel smart) are probably going to buy whatever's big, shiny, popular, and right in front of their faces. How The World is Flat sold enough books to become a best-seller is beyond me though.
PS. You drink $4.99 gin?
Indira says:
I think that books like The World is Flat acquire a certain cultural relevance largely because they appeal to people's need for simplicity. If we can just attribute India and China's (debatable) gains to globalization, this allows us to NOT have to think about complex issues. It's that simple. While I really don't care for Friedman, I have an even lower opinion of his ardent readers. Maybe that sounds very self-righteous but whatever.
Brandon says:
Ed, an honest question: why do you (and evidently so many other of your readers) hate Friedman? My own impression of his books and columns is that much of his writing is quite banal, as he indulges in so many of the slogans and catchphrases that you allude to. But I've never really seen him as a malevolent force… And I actually think he has been a pretty effectively rabid critic of the Bush administration's energy policy. Basically, I don't actively seek out his columns, but if I have a copy of the Times in front of me, I'll usually scan his column.
As far as his popularity, I'm guessing it has to do with the platform his NYT column provides and the fact that he plays the media circuit quite well (kind of like a Fareed Zakaria or Paul Krugman). And I think Indira is on to something in arguing that simplicity sells. But quite honestly, having seen statistics showing that most Americans don't read books for leisure at all, I think the country would be a better place if more people did read his books, simplistic and evasive that they may be.
I'm ashamed to admit I've never read War and Peace all the way through, despite having it prominently displayed for many years now :-)
Ike says:
I know that grad students don't get paid very much but I think it's time for an intervention. Gin in a plastic bottle is not gin, it's bathroom sanitizer.
Ed says:
Friedman as public intellectual is everything that is wrong with the current intellectual climate. He's a leading figure in the school of thought that it isn't necessary to prove or support one's argument; just say it and it becomes true so long as you say it on the right TV show or in the right paper.
The quote in the book review about "our culture of emboldened stupidity" sums up the way I feel and why I hate him. The country would be far from a better place if non-readers decided to pick up The Lexus and the Olive Branch, because it's devoid of facts and spectacularly wrong about almost everything. A person who doesn't read isn't learning anything; a person who reads Friedman is learning things that are wrong. I'd prefer the former.
His criticism of Bush's energy policy does very little to compensate for his positions on Iraq and 20-year career as a cheerleader for 1890s capitalism.
And he's a horrendous writer.
Patti says:
Brandon fails to mention that the copy of War and Peace displayed on his shelf is MY copy, and I HAVE read the whole thing. If he merely wanted a book on the shelf that would say "I'm smarter than you", he should have gotten a leather-bound version of same book in Russian.
I think you've tapped into a basic problem with American culture – we want to appear to be smart, sometimes without going through the hastle of actually learning something. (Like, your previous post on Non-existant Universities and Christian Colleges whose degrees are only useful if you wish to work for the Justice Department.) Assuming that the book is really as useless as you say it is, the average reader is not going to internalize, analyze,and digest the contents… he's just looking for a note or two so that he can enter a conversation with "Did you read 'The World Is Flat'? Because Friedman makes an interesting comment on finding overhead luggage space on Southwest Airlines". See, all are inpressed with his smartness since he book-dropped in a conversation.
beau says:
i work in a bookshop, and if the US is anything like the kingdom of Aus, two other factors work in Fraudman's favour.
1. Like the music industry, sales figures are almost completely imaginary. "bestseller" status is based on pre-orders from bookshops. If one bookshop orders 350 copies, and a few months later returns 300 to the supplier, what do you think the sales are recorded as? i'll give you a hint, its not 50.
2. He is such a great example of the kind of thoughtless, factless "journalism" ed is railing against that EVERYBODY QUOTES THE MOTHERFUCKER CONSTANTLY just to poke holes in, and fun at, his work. So his books are no-brainers (no pun intended) for university and library lists. This equals sales. Big sales.