On Freedom

May 15, 2021
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 Ch�dr�n'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.

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Starred review from June 21, 2021
Critic Nelson (The Argonauts) traces the limits of liberty and the call to care in this expansive and sharp-eyed study. Exploring “structural questions” about freedom, Nelson exposes instances where conventional uses of the term—for instance, the “intensely American” idea “that liberty leads to well-being”—clash with the contradictions of human nature. Skillfully reading the works of such critics as Eve Sedgewick and Hannah Arendt, Nelson outlines the complexities at the heart of her subject: the paradox of sexual freedom, for example, means “many of our most basic and hard-earned sexual freedoms... are legally dependent on principles of individual liberty.” On climate change, she probes the costs of personal liberty when humans are changing the planet in “genocidal, geocidal” ways. Patient and “devoted to radical compassion,” Nelson turns each thought until it is finely honed and avoids binaries and bromides. While the literary theorizing is rich, this account soars in its ability to find nuance in considering questions of enormous importance: “We tend to grow tired of our stories over time; we tend to learn from them what they have to teach, then bore of their singular lens.” Once again, Nelson proves herself a masterful thinker and an unparalleled prose stylist.

September 15, 2021
At few times in our nation's history has the concept of freedom been so dissected and debated as it is today. Broadcast across cultural divides and political parties, espoused by political pundits and university scholars, the notions of "freedom to" and "freedom from" are parsed in discussions ranging from pandemic health-care policy to critical race theory, by everyone from pastors to police officers. Such disparate arguments form the crux of Nelson's profound examination of the subject in wide-ranging essays analyzing freedom as it relates to the arts, sexuality, addiction, and, perhaps surprisingly, climate change. Juxtaposing the concept of liberation with the construct of restraint, Nelson also delves into freedom's antithesis, and the result is a heady mix of erudite analysis and personal revelation. A poet, professor, and author of the acclaimed memoir, The Argonauts (2015), Nelson brings a critically nuanced appreciation of individual and societal freedom to her mapping of the minefields involved in simultaneously embracing liberty and jettisoning habits of control and paranoia that threaten liberation.

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