When I first began graduate school every book I read for class was the best book I had ever read….until the next book. It took a couple years but I finally realized that not every book is a good book with good insight into life and learning. I mention this because a month ago I finished reading
That Used to be Us, by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum…and I hated it. Friedman’s previous works,
The World is Flat, and
Hot, Flat, and Crowded, were both A+ works to me. His ideas were original, creative, inspiring, and provided a great snapshot of our country and how it fits into the world. Because I enjoyed these books so much I was very excited to read
That Used to be Us. It didn’t take long, however, before I was fighting the urge to throw the book against the wall. To me this novel is an inaccurate and absurd attempt at describing how America has fallen behind the rest of the world and why we need to take drastic and radical steps to improve our countries performance or risk being left behind to crumble. I did manage to finish the book and immediately felt the need to write a response, mostly in defense of my generation and those around me, which Friedman and Mandelbaum constantly scold and ridicule. In trying to be concise, I’ll generalize my feelings into 3 areas that really got my intellectual fire to ignite: 1. The fundamental condescending and hypocritical nature of the book, 2. The use of outdated ideas and concepts to support their ideas, and 3. The narrow-sighted critique of younger generations and failure to comprehend the scope of a flat world.
I stood in Barnes and Noble and stared at the cover of this book for a solid 4 minutes, debating whether to use my gift card on this book or another venti peppermint mocha. Out of nowhere a guy comes up next to me and says, “You should buy the book, it’s very insightful and a great read.” My initial reaction was to stare at him with bewilderment. After all, he had just broken the unspoken code of Barnes and Noble; don’t talk to anyone unless they work at the store and are a last resort to find the ‘long lost’ novel you have been searching for! After a few seconds I smiled and said thanks for the input, and decided maybe the man was a human form of my intellect telling me to buy the book and move on with life. But now I think the guy was a mere distraction from what I was about to figure out if I had not been interrupted. The book’s title is a dead giveaway that the authors wrote this with rose-colored glasses.
The whole concept of the book is that America used to be great, it is not anymore, and we need to work on recovering our greatness as it used to be. The fundamental problem with this is hindsight is 20/20, we all know things look much better in the past than they were as the present. When I was a teacher in Currituck, North Carolina I was close to miserable most days and wrestled with how much I disliked teaching. However, after a year away I realized how much I missed it and wanted it back. Of course I only saw the good moments from that experience, not the tough times in and out of the classroom. Regardless, the authors should have begun the book with a significant disclaimer admitting to their idealizing vision of America past. Either way they dredge forward on the basis that America had it much better before the end of the Cold War and technological advances that contributed to Friedman’s brilliant idea of a now flat world. Of course as a history major I can understand this. The 50’s sound like they were a surreal time of pleasure and middle-class bliss. The problem of course is we cannot go back in time yet (unless you’re Michael J. Fox) and last time I checked the clock hands were moving right not left. Change is inevitable, good and bad, and Friedman and Mandelbaum seem to focus most of the book on the negative impact change has had on America on the world stage and why we need to aim our destiny arrow….towards our future goals….which are actually already past us….so we shoot backwards….by looking forward….yeah, doesn’t make sense.
Another problem with the premise of this book is the assumption the authors make that America was better off when everybody else (other countries) were inferior and far more dependent on us to keep the world upright. I don’t see this as a negative as the authors portray it; instead as an opportunity for equality to grow and the world to become a shareable community in which collaboration and understanding lead to a better tomorrow. The authors would probably say yes, we see this as the hyper-connected world we describe in the book. But the negativity, and Mr. Friedman, the hypocrisy arises from moments such as found on page 97, “In the hyper-connected world, whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is, will it be done by you or to you?” Pretty gloom and doom. I read this and wished the world wasn’t flat, that Asia had never developed as it did and that nationalism was still considered ‘ok’. That way, in the world, as an American I’m the one ’doing’ to others. The authors constantly seem to walk along these lines, flirting with blatant disregard for their previously creative works. If you are going to be at the forefront of global thought and declare a new world where the playing field has been leveled and a green revolution needs to take place, you cannot come back with a book that says our country needs to return to a day when these things were not the reality. It is in nature hypocritical to declare America threatened by the very ideals that you (the authors) expound as the new portrait of the world moving forward. And I should have seen the title as the first clue to this, after all, “that used to be us” is a phrase that should be reserved for beginning of stories told by grandparents to their grandchildren; stories of the past as seen through rose-colored glasses.
Next Up: Part 2: Demolition Man and the smiling checkout clerk at Wal-Mart.
