Necessary Reading for Today: End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

 End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

End Times Fascism book cover

Author and journalist Naomi Klein

Author and filmmaker Astra Taylor

In their new book End Times Fascism: And the Fight fort he Living World, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor provide an important observation from Joyce Carol Oates about Elon Musk, where she questioned his lack of enjoyment or celebration on social media. Where other tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg have proclaimed social media’s ability to bring us together, Oates observes how other social media platforms have devolved into a space for harboring grievances and complaints. It’s a fitting observation that Klein and Taylor lean into to raise questions about how these wealthy elites with seemingly more resources than some countries and many people can find so much of the world problematic that many of them seek to develop charter cities or autonomous zones of exclusivity or even isolated bunkers that will allow them to disengage and shield themselves from the rest of the world. End Times Fascism explores the hard shift in the tech industry from progressive ideas and thoughts towards fascism and dictatorships to how they have exploited millennialism and apocalyptic thinking and partnered with other fascistic political movements in America and around the world in order to demonstrate their need for exclusivity and shelter. After reading Gil Durán’s excellent new book The Nerd Reich, which also details the fascistic shift in Silicon Valley and its determination to accelerated the collapse of society to form their own autonomous enclaves and feudal systems, End Times Fascism provides a complementary if not a broader view in how 21^st century fascism and its links to technology and apocalyptic thinking are different from the 20^th century fascism that we’re often warned about and keep vigilant eyes in order to prevent its resurrection. These books are not only timely and relevant, but also necessary in helping to make meaning and understand the motivations of the individuals and groups who not only hold much of the world’s wealth but also are able to leverage that wealth to change the world, often to benefit themselves.

An important lesson Klein and Taylor explain at the beginning of their book is how this modern version of fascism differs from earlier iterations, examining its evolution as “humanity has entered an era of unprecedented, global-scale existential crises.” While in the past, we might trust our leaders in industries and governments to mount challenges to these crises, but today’s approach is much different and more self-serving. Furthermore, Klein and Taylor explore how this approach to accelerating the end and the apocalyptic thinking limits resources for others while allowing the world to burn. That is, with the end of the world fast approaching, there’s no need to help others out, but rather only to prepare for its imminent demise. This book not only highlights the apocalyptic thinking of Silicon Valley, but also their symbiosis with the conservative, right-wing political world to wrest more control and dominion over society.  

End Times Fascism is organized into 4 different sections that examine the history of fascism and millenarianism in the 20^th century and how it has led to an increasing belief in end times and the hypervigilance of these end times symbols. While it is still a little unsettling to see how many people are increasingly banking on the end of the world being near, Klein and Taylor’s book is also a reminder about how often this kind of thinking and belief system arises during manufactured crises and unprecedented events. In Chris Jennings’s End Times, he explores the Ruby Ridge standoff and tragedy, and how it arose from the millenarianism that permeated the Christian nationalism of the 70s and 80s, and how Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth was among the best-selling books of the 1970s. Even though this kind of thinking isn’t novel, the apocalyptic thinking and hastening the end of the world remain a popular belief system for some groups of people. The second section details how Silicon Valley is working to hasten the end times and how AI and data centers in particular are proving to be part of the accelerant that is hastening the end for some communities. While there has rightly been considerable pushback against data centers in communities, it was shocking to read about Musk’s Colossus, a massive data center in Memphis. Named after a 1960s sci-fi movie computer, Klein and Taylor document Musk’s late-to-the game approach to AI, and how this facilitated his hasty and dangerous construction of basically a private powerplant to fuel his AI, which the authors also note has a reputation for generating racist and misogynistic content. As Duran’s book noted, many of the Silicon Valley’s companies are named after sci-fi and fantasy book characters, yet these CEOs and leaders often misread or omit the warnings and ironies in these characters, and it seems like Musk missed the irony of naming his vast AI data center after a murderous robot- man-made technology run amok and seeking to end humanity. It was shocking to learn about Musk’s secret deal with the Memphis city council that allowed him to unleash pollutants, toxic chemicals, and waste in neighborhoods that have often been the site of other economic and environmental injustices. Although there’s been more and more pushback regarding data centers recently, Klein and Taylor’s reporting helps to further emphasize the environmental and human toll that our use of AI has on communities and individuals. This book raises important awareness of these issues and frames the damage done to communities in a way that identifies its toll on individuals and families, making this an important read. It’s also one of the many travesties and atrocities that are perpetrated around the world in the name of technological progress and efficiency. While we may think our lives are improving, Klein and Taylor remind us of those voices and victims who are often stifled, maligned, or silenced by the powerful and affluent.

Although Klein and Taylor focus on the institutional, racial, economic, and political violence that has become more prominent with the rise of 21^st century fascism, their book also offers signs of hope through resistance. Although they report on Musk’s data center and the damage it has inflicted on the Boxtown neighborhood of Memphis, Klein and Taylor also highlight group and individuals like Keshaun Pearson who helped organize the Memphis Communist Against Pollution, which has collaborated with other organizations to fight the encroaching environmental pollution from these data centers. They also spend time discussing how communities and groups in Minneapolis supported neighbors and immigrants when DHS invaded its neighborhoods and murdered two citizens. For all the attempts to malign these victims and paint them as radical terrorists, Klein and Taylor highlight the kind of supportive communities and neighbors who put themselves as risk for the care and good of one another. It’s an important reminder of the connections that help to sustain us during these wild, violent times. It’s also an important reminder of the kinds of dichotomies and sides that are set up as our society continues to break apart due to polarization. We can choose the side of exclusivity, of rejection, of violence and condescension, or we can choose to be part of a broader collective, working to protect others against harm. While Klein and Taylor don’t necessarily frame their arguments in this way, they do end their book with a reminder of the doomsday clock, and how both the UN and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists raised concerns about the destructive powers of nuclear technology. Both organizations arose from the wreckage of World War II, seeking to prevent further wars and the use of destructive technology. While Klein and Taylor acknowledge the limitations of the UN and the frequent failures to recognize the destructive power of nuclear technology, they present important warnings and reminders of what lies ahead if we continue down this apocalyptic path while indiscriminately using technology without thinking. Klein and Taylor report on many of the interconnected fascist factions not only in the US but around the world, and although breadth of this coverage can feel daunting, it’s also important to recognize their coverage of the communities of resistance that have risen to challenge the encroachments on our rights. My thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of this book. Highly recommended!

Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion by Chris DeVille

 Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion 

by Chris DeVille

Such Great Heights book cover

Author Chris DeVille

Big thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sending me Chris DeVille’s new, comprehensive history detailing indie rock’s influence and evolution over the past 25 years, Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion. While I enjoyed reading this book, I didn’t always agree with DeVille’s takes about indie rock, especially regarding how and what to include in the indie rock bins. Nevertheless, DeVille makes some good arguments about how indie rock was propelled forward by the evolving nature of the internet and social media, among other events, which continued to expand the types of music that was made, as well as how people listened to and interacted with music. If anything, I found that this book continued in the tradition of some other great books about musical genres that traced their evolution and development by examining the historical context as well as the audience growth and appeal. Such Great Heights reminded me of books like Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which examined the rise of college music or what others might classify as “alternative” music, and Stephen Blush’s American Hardcore, which traces the punk and specifically hardcore music that resulted through the networking of van touring, DIY shows, zines and tape trading. Similarly, Such Great Heights posits the role of technology, and specifically the development of web 2.0 and its interactivity with promoting more independent music, that is, music that wasn’t necessarily reliant on major label production and promotion. In addition, DeVille notes how mp3s, free and eventually those available for .99 cents, shifted the nature of the music business, since record labels no longer had to put up money for packaging and distribution. This enabled smaller, independent record labels like Merge Records to save money on costs and develop better revenue sharing with their bands. This also made independent labels more appealing to artists looking to maintain their artistic vision and integrity. Thus, like other shifts in musical genres, the indie movement benefited from this changes to the industry and technology. I appreciated that DeVille works to define indie music not necessarily by the style, but rather as “a vast network of bands, labels, concert venues, record stores, radio stations, and homemade zines, which largely existed apart from the major-label system…. It was less a genre than a culture: a loose coalition of outsiders, idealists, elitists, critics, creatives, college students, and so forth.” It’s sometimes hard to define a type of music that encompasses so many different styles, and is really more reflective of the other elements related to the music. As a result, DeVille’s book chronicles many of the bands and artists, but also spends a lot of time examining the blogs, magazines, journalists, and platforms that helped to propel indie music to such great heights.

Such Great Heights was a fun read for me because, to quote the frequently referenced James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, I was there when many of the bands in the early chapters started. It was completely fun to remember about the hype that The Strokes received in that summer before September 11^th. Especially as a recent college graduate who struggled to find work and then struggled with working full-time, music from new bands like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Rapture and established bands like Radiohead and The Dismemberment Plan really brought a lot of joy to my life at a particularly joyless time in America. I actually remember going to Spaceboy records in Philly right before Labor Day 2001 and picking up an EP by The Rapture (Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks) because I heard it on WPRB, and thought it was so fun and different sounding that a lot of the music available. I don’t think I had regular internet access at the time, so a lot of new music came from listening to college stations. I also remember seeing The Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Unitarian Church in February of 2002, after they released debut EP, but before they signed to a major label, and just being blown away by the sounds the three band members could make. In particular, Karen O was just so much fun to watch perform. Strangely enough, my son has gotten into the song “Maps”, and sometimes we watch older performances from the band. Regardless, it was fun to reminisce with DeVille in these sections of the book, since I remember how exciting this time was in discovering these bands, even though some of them, like Interpol and Radiohead, were signed to major labels, and weren’t necessarily “indie”. However, for DeVille, the genre was more about the style and not necessarily their status and affiliation. Also, I loved revisiting Dismemberment Plan and reading more about them. I only discovered this band through friends and a roommate in college, and they became a favorite of mine, especially for running. I still love when any of the songs from The Dismemberment Plan is Scared comes on during a run. As DeVille notes, the band has a kind of danceable, kinetic quality that wasn’t always a part of rock music in the 90s. Plus, they referenced Young MC and Rob Bass in their music, which was both funny and fun.

The next few chapters were also pretty fun and relevant, taking me back to a time when I had more disposable income and time to spare, when I could easily spend a few hours at the record store or splurge to go see a show on a weeknight. Although I had been a fan of Modest Mouse since my cousin made a mix with some songs in 2000, it was fun to recall how ubiquitous “Float On” was in the spring of 2004, remembering too how that song was a part of so many car trips in the early aughts; or how much the Franz Ferdinand debut was played on my walks to work or taking the subway home from night classes around that time; or how I somehow stumbled on the DFA sampler on iTunes after hearing LCD Soundsystem on WPRB. DeVille not only provides a detailed history of these bands and how they came about, but he also channels it through his own experience as a college student, musician, and music lover, sharing the joy and excitement in discovering “an alluring secret world”. Again, I loved this, since the music from this time has that kind of personal connection. There was so much in the early chapters that took me back to hanging out with friends, listening to music, and spending nights trying to find these songs on different file sharing sites or in later times, blogs.

I found the middle and later chapters enlightening, but also not as relatable since I was kind of losing my edge around the early 2010s, settling down and starting a family, my time for musical exploration was becoming contracting and in some ways fossilizing. It was actually funny to read about Odd Future and Tyler the Creator in Chapter 10 “Late Registration” since I was teaching an intro college course that year, and was seeing so many donut OF shirts. I was shocked, but also intrigued by this band and in particular by Tyler. I remember, too, getting into debates with a friend about the band. After reflecting a little more on my initial, visceral response to the band and wondering why so many white college students were interested in the band, it reminded me a lot of NWA, and how their kind of street knowledge scared so much of white, middle class America. Tyler’s Goblin album was both challenging and exciting, and I could tell that he was not only a creative force, but also seemed to be going through a lot of the kinds of struggles with identity that most adolescents experience. As DeVille notes, the themes and topics from OF were relevant to many kids, and was possibly one of the elements that made them so appealing to a larger demographic. This chapter also touched on how hip-hop and indie music formed a kind of creative bridge, expanding genres and opportunities to create new and unique sounds that wouldn’t have really happened in a pre-Judgement Night world. I also enjoyed Chapter 9’s focus on Chillwave and other kinds of psych-indie music that was evolving from the economic malaise of the early 2010s. I’m not sure if I completely agree that this music evolved from a desire to revert back to happier, analog nostalgia, but it was interesting to learn more about this style of music and see how it has led to the development of a kind of new ambient lo-fi genre. In fact, I was actually surprised to read about how much the worlds of hip-hop and indie rock cross pollinated around this time. Again, being on the outer edges of this book’s time period, I wasn’t as invested in some of these scenes and genres, so I learned a lot and was surprised about a lot.

DeVille’s writing is exciting and easy to follow; as he relates his own experiences to the music and shares his own accounts of shows and discovering the music for the first time, readers can also share in this joy and excitement. It’s one of the pleasures of this fun book. I didn’t realize how much music blogs and myspace helped to propel the popularity of indie music (along with films like Garden State and shows like The O.C.). Although the book focuses on music that was independent of major labels’ influence, DeVille explores how major labels, corporations, and tech companies all recognized the consumer potential for indie rock, and eventually sought to take advantage of its popularity, and how other artists that are on major labels were able to leverage indie artists to expand their popularity and audiences. That was the only disappointment in the book—that there was a lot of focus on major label artists, and how the attention from Pitchfork, Vice and other publications and platforms eventually moved the needle from indie to major labels. I guess that this kind of shift is also part of the story of indie music, and it was interesting to see how progressive major label artists were, sometimes, using their fame and influence to leverage more independent artists and possibly challenge their own audiences with new sounds and voices. Nevertheless, it does also seem like there’s another cynical and economic aspect to it. One thing that I also wondered about with this book was the continued explosion of different genres that have been subsumed by indie rock. In particular, the section on Chillwave was kind of funny to read about all the different variants. This also seems more like a way that algorithms and dedicated niche groups are involved, and that platforms can find a way to market to smaller, dedicated groups that allow them to feel a stronger connection to these genres. That is, I wonder whether some of the explosion of different genres is not necessarily the work of artistic vision, but rather savvy and targeted marketing by social media and streaming platforms. Maybe I’m getting too cynical as I’m losing my edge. Nevertheless, that’s what is so much fun about DeVille’s book—revisiting some of the most exciting and inventive times in recent music history.  It’s a detailed trip down memory lane with some newer avenues to explore and learn about other bands and artists, at least for me. Highly recommended!

P.S. Glad to see Pavement and Sebadoh mentioned in the book, but sad that Archers of Loaf’s “Plumb Line” was not mentioned—one of the earlier and best mentions of Indie Rock.

Sustained Success- The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles: A Curated History of the Birds by Zach Berman

 

The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles: A Curated History of the Birds book cover

Author Zach Berman

Wide receiver A.J. Brown

Franchise Quarterback Jalen Hurts

“‘Whenever you win like this, or have sustained success for a period of time, it takes a lot of people, a lot of departments and sectors doing their job, improving and getting better,’ longtime Eagles center Jason Kelce said before the Super Bowl in 2023.” (p 15)

“‘Be proactive and don’t just do what’s popular, but sometimes do what you think is right,’ Lurie said. “‘And I think that’s been the guiding principle really ever since I bought the team…. Stick to your principles, stick to what correlates with winning, and don’t worry that you’re at times making short-term unpopular choices. That should be the last thing you ever think about.’” (p 23)

During the Eagles’ 2024 Super Bowl run, I was filled with a lot of gratitude about this team, really appreciating their sustained success, especially when thinking about the operations and decisions for other teams. I also am old enough to recall some of the years when the Eagles had really good players, but didn’t experience this same level of success. These years that preceded Jeffrey Lurie’s ownership have caused considerable frustration in thinking about what could have been a great run of success. Zach Berman’s new book The Franchise: Philadelphia Eagles: A Curated History of the Birds takes readers inside the franchise and looks not only at the players, but also examines other integral members of the team that, in the words of Jason Kelce, have contributed to this kind of “sustained success.” This was a great book for any Eagles fan. I was reading it at the same time as my son, who not only read about some of the players he currently follows, but also learned more about the Eagles’ earlier great players and periods. It’s amazing to step back and consider how successful the Eagles have been over the course of the last 25 years. With the exception of a few down years, the Eagles have made the playoffs with consistency, and have been in the NFC Championship game almost a 1/3 of the time.

Berman, a Philadelphia sports journalist who has covered the Eagles, presents a comprehensive resource for the team, starting with portraits of the executives and moving on to coaches and quarterbacks. I loved reading the parts about the executives since I think they are often covered the least in the media. In particular, I loved reading about their philosophies towards not just football, but how other areas like education, engagement, and leadership all factor into their football decisions. It made me appreciate the team so much more, to understand that there are principles that they adhere to in making decisions about players, the facilities, and even community outreach. As someone whose kids have participated in Eagles camps and their holiday parties, I can say that their organization is incredibly forward-thinking and involved in communities. The Eagles really try to involve everyone in their team, and I think this was also apparent in many of the hype videos they created during their playoff run this year.

The other sections of the book focus on coaches and players. Although there are some repetitive parts of the book where content seemed to be re-used, I found these sections to be informative and entertaining. Berman makes the details interesting and adds some analysis to help readers understand and contextualize the contributions of these key players. I also really enjoyed that the book features “Icons” like Brian Dawkins, LeSean McCoy, and Fletcher Cox, as well as “Standouts” like Jeremiah Trotter, Brian Westbrook, and DeSean Jackson. In addition, there are some great moments recounted with a whole section on the Super Bowl (2017) and “The Moments” that reviews some of the best games/plays over the past 25 years.

Zach Berman has done a great job detailing not just the players and plays that have made the Eagles one of the teams representing the “gold standard” of the NFL over the past 25 years, but he also includes the coaches and front office members that helped to develop a philosophy and culture driven by core values. Furthermore, I loved seeing how this culture and these values have evolved over the course of Lurie’s ownership and Roseman’s stewardship. I think this shows how committed the team is to success, and not just chasing ticket sales or great players. They recognize the value in leadership and team work. Berman’s writing is clear and informative, and presents a fun narrative that traces the team’s success through the hiring of Andy Reid all the way to their recent success with Nick Siriani. Both my son and I loved reading this book, and he loved learning more about the players and teams from the early 2000s season that he never got to watch. Berman starts the book by sharing that this was initially planned to be a book documenting the Super Bowl run from 2022, which the Eagles lost to the Chiefs on a last minute field goal. Thus, his book took a different perspective, but I’m really glad that he was able to create this great reference and interesting narrative about the Eagles success. He ends the book speculating about a revised edition in 2050, but with the Super Bowl win this past year, I wonder if there will be a new edition coming out or whether he will embark on another book that documents the amazing championship season of 2024. In either case, this book is a winner that documents the winning ways of one of the elite teams of the NFL. Go Birds!