DON'T THINK, SMILE!

A challenging analysis of the culture and politics of the 1990’s that takes on the frail left as well as the burgeoning right. Author Willis (journalism, N.Y.U.), at one point in this book calls herself a “left libertarian,” who is “pretty lonely these days.” The mainstream left, she argues, is not interested in confronting the tyrannies of government, corporations, and the church on behalf of individual freedom, but instead uses its “meager energy” merely to tweak the state’s agenda on behalf of such specifics as affirmative action or social welfare programs. The left, she speculates, echoing the Dalai Lama, might have spent the decades since the ’60s working for the happiness, “not . . . self-denial,” of individuals trying to regain control of their work lives, domestic lives, political and economic decisions. Instead, government is a servant of transnational corporations who, no longer challenged by an alternative Communist society, are the leading force in the world. In a series of tightly reasoned and closely linked essays, Willis goes on to discuss issues of class and the cognitive elite as raised in The Bell Curve, feminism and racism in light of the O.J. Simpson trial, and the feminist muddle over where to draw the line in terms of male sexual aggressiveness (asking, in essence, was Thomas a genuine harasser or just a sexist jerk?) She digs into the purported link between race and class to examine the work ethic, family, and crime, and takes on the women’s antipornography campaign in a discussion of “Freedom, Power, and Speech.” Concluding, she calls for “the left to become a movement again,” in the interests of freedom and equality. A closely argued, clearly reasoned, lucidly presented vision of a culture in which individuals can “live and enjoy [life] fully.”