The World is the Worst/the Best

It's all a matter of perspective

This year’s shortened Thanksgiving-to-Christmas timeframe became a steady drip of cortisol to my system that really added a nice undercurrent of panique to every day. I love being me.

One last holiday thought before I get into what I’ve read. Who decided we need to hear “Jingle Bells Rock” every 90 seconds? Fucking hell, please make it stop.

Ok, onto the books. These two are so different that they make a nice compare-and-contrast. Each had me thinking about the world we live in now, and how we as individual humans respond to a society that doesn't reflect our values.

PR Porn

All the Worst Humans is the memoir of Phil Elwood, a PR exec whose clients were—you guessed it—the worst humans. Like Muammar Qaddaffi and Bashar Al-Assad.

I loved this book. Elwood is a fantastic and funny storyteller, and he pulls back the curtain on exciting worlds people like me only read about in library books. Like an anecdote about a debauched weekend in Las Vegas with the frightening and deranged son of Muammar Gaddafi, in search of a pair of jorts with a side of cocaine. Or his astounding manipulation of American power and media to bend FIFA to his will. Or how he launched a trade war between Antigua and the United States, or became the American rep for a group of no-goodnik former Mossad agents, or attended a cocktail party with Donald Trump at the home of Phil’s boss, the fascinating and amoral Peter Brown.¹

To quiet his conscience throughout it all, Elwood guzzles astonishing quantities of alcohol. I think he could drink Winston Churchill under the table. That is, if Churchill would deign to drink with someone whose cocktail of choice is a mimosa.

I guarantee this book will entertain you. It’s also filled with wise bon mots about working in PR and the state of the news business. He points out that PR pros greatly outnumber real journalists, and most of the news we read is somehow being manipulated before we ever see it. It’s easy to brush off his worldview as too cynical because of the life he’s led. But .. look at the world we live in now.

The Courage to Act

At less than 150 pages, Small Things Like These is possibly a coyly self-referential title. I just discovered this novella by Claire Keegan is Oprah’s latest book pick. I read it in a weekend.²

It’s set at Christmas in a small town in 1985 Ireland which is maybe not so different from 1916 Ireland. Bill Furlong is the adult son of an unwed mother, and now has a wife and daughters and a job delivering coal and firewood. This is a quiet story that puts you in Bill Furlong’s world and inside his kind, sensitive mind. I don’t want to give too much away but on his coal delivery he discovers something at the convent.

Without access to mimosas, Bill is compelled to let his conscience lead him. When he tries to talk with his wife about his concerns, she gets testy. “Where does thinking get us?” she said. “All thinking does is bring you down.” She’s a real peach.

I do have compassion for how the townspeople are complicit in what is clearly so so wrong. The women in his life urge him to butt out. They don’t want to jeopardize their safe adjacency to power. Perhaps because Bill Furlong has always been an outsider, it’s easier for him to exhibit radical moral courage. Let’s hear it for the outsiders!

This little book will get you thinking, and whether or not it brings you down is kind of up to you. I like that it’s about how you don’t need to be an asshole, even if every single other person you know might be. I’d like to think that when the chips are down, I could be that kind of person. I want to be someone who has the courage to zig even if the people in power insist I zag.

The ziggies are who lead us to better places. Every aspect of social progress that we Americans take pride in was hard won by a tenacious minority–from the American Revolution to suffrage, from Civil Rights to gay marriage. We love to trot out our American exceptionalism, and quote the plinth Lady Liberty stands on, but the truth is the majority of Americans have been opposed to all of it, always. Every good thing took multiple decades of scrappy bloody battle. And every one of those battles was won inch-by-inch thanks to small things like what Bill Furlong did at the end of this book.

Both are true

The world is a dark and cynical place where powerful people tend to be corrupt, greedy, and indifferent to improving our society. The world is a miraculous conglomeration of beauty, love, and limitless possibility. It can be hard to hold both of these things in my head at one time, but both are true.

I think simply choosing to believe the latter is a radical act against the former. The news isn’t great; it’s easy to decide the world is going to shit. As I write this, the GOP is on the verge of shutting down the government because they’re afraid Elon Musk might troll them on X.

But you can also find moments of kindness and inspiring bravery. I’d bet we’re all demonstrating some extra generosity this yuletide. And as for bravery, look to the people of South Korea these last couple weeks. Or my personal Time Man of the Year, Giséle Pelicot. Remarkable.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

1. Beatles fans–Do the Google on Peter Brown.

2. My daughter and I were supposed to read it together but I couldn’t help showing off how good I am at putting my phone down. I totally dunked on her.