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Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse
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About This Book
An incisive, culturally observant analysis of the evolving mores, manners and taboos of social justice ("anti-racist") orthodoxy, which has profoundly influenced how we think about diversity and freedom of expression, often with complex or paradoxical consequences. In this provocative book, Thomas Chatterton Williams, one of the most revered and reviled social commentators of our time, paints a clear and detailed picture of the ideas and events that have paved the way for the dramatic paradigm shift in social justice that has taken place over the past few years. Taking aim at the ideology of critical race theory, the rise of an oppressive social media, the fall from Obama to Trump, and the twinned crises of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd, Williams documents the extent to which this transition has altered media, artistic creativity, education, employment, policing, and, most profoundly, the ambient language and culture we use to make sense of our lives. Williams also decries how liberalism—the very foundation of an open and vibrant society—is in existential crisis, under assault from both the right and the left, especially in our predominantly networked, Internet-driven monoculture. Sure to be highly controversial, Summer of Our Discontent is a compelling look at our place in a radically changing world.
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Reviews
"Extensive footnotes at times overtake the core text, yet Summer of Our Discontent succeeds in analyzing recent history and its ongoing impact."
"A thoughtfully reasoned contribution to the literature of race and racism in our time."
"Chatterton Williams's style is a touch rarefied for my taste, his language inflected by the stodge of academic jargon, but his thinking is dextrous and his insights are acute."
"Williams is refreshingly frank in the way he takes down the unholy foursome in America's racial conversation ..."
"The result is a serious effort to take stock of the illiberalism besetting contemporary American culture that too often gets bogged down in its own anti-wokeism."
"No matter what I say here, whatever inconsistencies I point out, whatever disagreements we have about the timeline of events and their effects, my engagement with his ideas can be dismissed as a result of my ideology, and further proof of his claim that his intellectual opponents do not wish to argue in good faith (as only he can define it)."
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