Against Everything

Against Everything is a collection of essays by Mark Greif that is, well, against everything. He criticizes reality TV, exercise, the Iraq War, pop music, consumerism, and so on. Two of the sixteen essays were great--one on Octomom (connecting her vilification to the 2008 financial crisis), and one on modern warfare (with heroic, mythological soldiers fighting in one-sided campaigns that cannot be considered war). As Greif is an English instructor at Stanford and an editor at a literary magazine,  his essays are well written and rooted in theory and philosophy. That said, I had a funny response to the book: I found Greif overly sensitive and alarmist (against exercise? really?), and yet the strength of the writing and his surprising connections buoyed the reading overall. In other words, I disagreed with most of the book, and also liked most of the book. 

The root of my disagreement with Greif is right there in the preface. He is inspired by Thoreau. He grew up near Walden Pond. Though it's implicit, he considers himself Thoreau's spiritual descendent. I'm more of an Emerson man myself. To me, Thoreau is every affluent teenager judging those with less privilege. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," Thoreau claims, with no basis, and then continues his hippie, freeloading condescension. Since Mark Greif aligns with Thoreau philosophically, I find many of his conclusions incorrect. But purely as a writer, I would much rather read Greif than the famous--sententious--transcendentalist.