Have you ever gotten a book out of the library and then deliberately kept it out extra long just to reduce the chances that some poor soul will read it and be influenced by it? I felt that way about Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change by Pat Murphy. I wanted to like it. The title is everything I've been working on for the past year. My sense after reading his book is that he's more on my side than not in terms of preparing to transition to a world without cheap oil.
But with friends like these, who needs enemies. His writing reminded me of a Michael Moore film. Even though though his point is substantially correct, he makes it in such a sloppy and annoyingly inaccurate way with completely inappropriate side trips that you find yourself stuck with an indefensible argument of what ought to be well-established.
This guy has little mean-spirited diatribes through-out the book. Things like, "only get 1/2 an hour of non-propaganda news each day" and "corporations are evil" and "don't eat meat" and "white colonialists perpetrated slavery on innocent Africans." He hates everything about modern American life, including regional malls, the internet and the way we've structured our family life. The first part is a ninety page treatise on how we're all going to hell in a handbasket and richly deserve it because of the many crimes we've committed. I kept wanting to ask, seriously, "Why do you hate America so much?"
The middle section is his version of what changes he thinks we need to make in terms of buildings, transportation and food. He's not entirely wrong. It's that the entire book is filled with his crotchety yearnings for what people OUGHT to do instead of what they WANT to do. It's pretty clear that he's happy to impose his will on the cretinous public because he is right and they are wrong. My particular favorite is his assertion that we ought to fax messages rather than email them to - uh - save electricity. (???) What can I say, he mentions his desire for people to stop using the computers in general and the internet in particular several times.
The final section is mercifully short. It's a brief recap of each of the previous chapters with no additional insight. I really appreciated it because now I could suggest that people picking up this book just start on page 227 to get the fifty page version of the book. (He has nearly fifty pages of end notes and index, a trait I've noticed is common among people who play fast and loose with the truth: they bolster their bullshit six layers deep. If you actually look at his cites they are ridiculously sourced for the most part.)
But, really, don't even read the last fifty pages. There's got to be a better place to get this. Because, from him, you get stuff like this:
"Community is very weak in conglomerations of people living urbanized, industrialized lives. In those places the following characteristics hold sway.
Overall, this book struck me as a diatribe from a mean, angry man ranting about how no one has any friends anymore and no one volunteers or loves their family or watches out for their neighbor. It is demonstrably false in my life, but in his, gee, I bet he's right
But with friends like these, who needs enemies. His writing reminded me of a Michael Moore film. Even though though his point is substantially correct, he makes it in such a sloppy and annoyingly inaccurate way with completely inappropriate side trips that you find yourself stuck with an indefensible argument of what ought to be well-established.
This guy has little mean-spirited diatribes through-out the book. Things like, "only get 1/2 an hour of non-propaganda news each day" and "corporations are evil" and "don't eat meat" and "white colonialists perpetrated slavery on innocent Africans." He hates everything about modern American life, including regional malls, the internet and the way we've structured our family life. The first part is a ninety page treatise on how we're all going to hell in a handbasket and richly deserve it because of the many crimes we've committed. I kept wanting to ask, seriously, "Why do you hate America so much?"
The middle section is his version of what changes he thinks we need to make in terms of buildings, transportation and food. He's not entirely wrong. It's that the entire book is filled with his crotchety yearnings for what people OUGHT to do instead of what they WANT to do. It's pretty clear that he's happy to impose his will on the cretinous public because he is right and they are wrong. My particular favorite is his assertion that we ought to fax messages rather than email them to - uh - save electricity. (???) What can I say, he mentions his desire for people to stop using the computers in general and the internet in particular several times.
The final section is mercifully short. It's a brief recap of each of the previous chapters with no additional insight. I really appreciated it because now I could suggest that people picking up this book just start on page 227 to get the fifty page version of the book. (He has nearly fifty pages of end notes and index, a trait I've noticed is common among people who play fast and loose with the truth: they bolster their bullshit six layers deep. If you actually look at his cites they are ridiculously sourced for the most part.)
But, really, don't even read the last fifty pages. There's got to be a better place to get this. Because, from him, you get stuff like this:
"Community is very weak in conglomerations of people living urbanized, industrialized lives. In those places the following characteristics hold sway.
- Teaching lust, violence and competition - Through corporate media giants, young people are taught violence and sexually inappropriate behavior. Most American TV shows, including cartoons for small children, are about little more than aggression, violence and sexual desire in some form or the other. The mass media also teach people to be fiercely competitive in sports, school, social life and work. Americans are taught that material possessions are the primary determiner of happiness."
There's quite a long list, I just chose one little gem.
Overall, this book struck me as a diatribe from a mean, angry man ranting about how no one has any friends anymore and no one volunteers or loves their family or watches out for their neighbor. It is demonstrably false in my life, but in his, gee, I bet he's right
