WHY BOTHER?
Getting a life
in a locked-down land |
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Introduction
to Why Bother
Why Bother, in
a wonderfully engaging and erudite manner, addresses the great
question confronting democracy, community and justice -- and
that is civic motivation. Prepare to be motivated. Sam Smith
is an antidote to mindless speed reading. He makes you pause
between paragraphs in order to mull over the captivating morsels
he is placing in your imagination. - RALPH NADER
Sam Smith puts
it to us straight in these essays about finding meaning and hope
- JAY WALJASPER, UTNE READER
An American original.
. . He's got a big old cussed independent streak that keeps you
guessing and hence keeps you reading. - CRISPIN
SARTWELL
The alienated young, the over-worked
30-something, the free-thinking 40 year-old, the downsized 55-year-old
worker, the senior who society has put out to pasture are all
part of an America that finds itself a fugitive from the law
of averages -- the tens of millions who don't fit the media-driven
stereotype of a booming, contented country. Living in a culture
that has reduced their role to that of compliance and consumption,
these Americans increasingly react with anger, anxiety or apathy.
In this highly readable short
book, journalist and social critic Sam Smith takes on this crisis
not as a political issue but as a personal one: how does the
individual survive in such a place? Drawing from a wealth of
sources and experience ranging from philosophy and anthropology
to the Internet and rock zines, from Kierkegaard and Camus to
Humphrey Bogart and Rage Against the Machine, Smith confronts
directly despair and survival, approaches to personal rebellion,
speaking truth to power, suicide and false faith, the loss of
democracy, and what to do when nobody cares whether you do it
or not.
This is no glib self-help book,
but rather a brutally honest exploration by someone who, as an
alternative journalist for more than three decades, has repeatedly
been out of step with his time and culture. Yet beneath the direct,
honest language is a love letter to the individual, freedom,
and life itself.
Smith writes: "Hectored,
treated, advised, instructed, and compelled at every turn, history's
subjects may falter, lose heart, courage, or sense of direction.
The larger society is then quick to blame, to translate survival
systems of the weak into pathologies, and to indict as neurotic
clear recognition of the human condition. The safest defense
against this is apathy, ignorance, or surrender. Adopt any of
these strategies -- don't care, don't know or don't do -- and
you will, in all likelihood, be considered normal. The only problem
is that you will miss out on much of your life."
Smith describes an alternative
based on the existentialist "hat trick" of integrity,
passion and rebellion. Describing despair as "the suicide
of imagination," he writes, "the task is to bear knowledge
without it destroying ourselves, to challenge the wrong without
ending up on its casualty list." Despite more than three
decades of challenging wrongs, bearing bad news, and bucking
the system, Smith retains a spirit and humor that attracts an
audience across political lines to enjoy and be challenged by
his work |
GREAT AMERICAN
POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL |
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Featured
in Utne Reader
and on All Things Considered
 Published by W.W. Norton,
New York & London.
"Smith's
book is a toolbox for hacking a corrupt system. It is also funny
as hell . . . There are butts that need kicking in this country.
. . Sam Smith is handing out the boots." -- Alex Steffen,
The Stranger, Seattle weekly
"Must
read. . . combines laughter and trenchant critique to a degree
seldom seen" -- John Rensenbrink, Green Horizons
"The Tom
Paine of the Nineties" -- Chuck Stone
"Truly
independent journalist" -- Patrick Mazza, Cascadia Times
"Phenomenally
interesting. . . I recommend it highly" -- Michelle Laxalt,
co-host of Newsmakers
"You'll
be enlightened, challenged, even entertained" -- Chuck Harder
on the Talk America Network.
"Lucid
. . . Keep going, Sam" -- Mario Cuomo
"Desperately
needed" -- Roger Morris, author of Partners in Power
. |
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SHADOWS
OF HOPE. Published
by Indiana University Press in 1994, this was the first book
to raise serious questions about the character and politics of
Bill Clinton. Said one reviewer, "I had to be forcibly
restrained from quoting yards of it."
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CAPTIVE
CAPITAL
Colonial
Life in Modern Washington. This classic description of Washington in the
1960s and 70s is full of insights and information still useful
today. |