- 224 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
One-of-a-kind cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman “offers up great facts, interesting cultural insights, and thought-provoking moral calculations in this look at our love affair with the anti-hero” (New York magazine).
Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist” for The New York Times Magazine, has walked into the darkness. In I Wear the Black Hat, he questions the modern understanding of villainy. When we classify someone as a bad person, what are we really saying, and why are we so obsessed with saying it? How does the culture of malevolence operate? What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don’t we see Bernhard Goetz the same way we see Batman? Who is more worthy of our vitriol—Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson’s second-worst decision? And why is Klosterman still haunted by some kid he knew for one week in 1985?
Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and imaginative hypotheticals, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the antihero (seemingly the only kind of hero America still creates). As the Los Angeles Times notes: “By underscoring the contradictory, often knee-jerk ways we encounter the heroes and villains of our culture, Klosterman illustrates the passionate but incomplete computations that have come to define American culture—and maybe even American morality.” I Wear the Black Hat is a rare example of serious criticism that’s instantly accessible and really, really funny.
Chuck Klosterman, “The Ethicist” for The New York Times Magazine, has walked into the darkness. In I Wear the Black Hat, he questions the modern understanding of villainy. When we classify someone as a bad person, what are we really saying, and why are we so obsessed with saying it? How does the culture of malevolence operate? What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don’t we see Bernhard Goetz the same way we see Batman? Who is more worthy of our vitriol—Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson’s second-worst decision? And why is Klosterman still haunted by some kid he knew for one week in 1985?
Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and imaginative hypotheticals, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the antihero (seemingly the only kind of hero America still creates). As the Los Angeles Times notes: “By underscoring the contradictory, often knee-jerk ways we encounter the heroes and villains of our culture, Klosterman illustrates the passionate but incomplete computations that have come to define American culture—and maybe even American morality.” I Wear the Black Hat is a rare example of serious criticism that’s instantly accessible and really, really funny.
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Yes, you can access I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Index
ABBA, 142
ABC, 56, 98
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, 165–67, 171–73, 179–80
Adams, Cecil, 10
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (video game), 156
Afghanistan, 144
Afghan War Diary, 144
AFL, 97
AIDS, 105, 113, 151
Airplane! (film), 167, 179
airplane hijacking, 40–42, 54–55
Albarn, Damon, 33
Albom, Mitch, 178
Ali, Muhammad, 50–54, 154, 155
Allen, Marcus, 98
Allen, Woody, 88, 154, 186
Allin, G.G., 158
“Along Came Jones” (Coasters), 10–11
AMC, 47, 48
Ament, Jeff, 172–73
American Experience (TV series), 107
American Gigolo (film), 152
American Psycho (Ellis), 74–75
American Rhapsody (Eszterhas), 109
Amin, Idi, 191
Amos, Tori, 31–32, 113
Andersen, Christopher, 113
anti-Semitism, 185
AOL, 138
Apollonia, 44
Arabian Prince, 95
Arfin, Lesley, 87
Ariel, Washington, 55
Arizona, 160, 162
Arkansas, 122
Aryan Brotherhood, 52
As Nasty as They Wanna Be (2 Live Crew), 78
Assange, Julian, 143–47
Atlas Shrugged (Rand), 130
Atta, Mohamed, 56
Aykroyd, Dan, 152
Backbeat (film), 180
Bananas (film), 154
Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (play), 10
baseball players, and drug usage, 197–98
Basic Instinct (film), 109–13, 130
Batman character, 59–61, 66, 69–70, 72, 73, 75
Bayless, Skip, 154
BBC, 51
Beastie Boys, 93
Beatles, 6, 53, 180, 189
Beavis and Butt-head (TV series), 131
Bell, Roland, 48
Bell, Stringer (fictional character, The Wire), 48, 50
Belushi, John, 152
Berman, Chris, 154
Bias, Len, 49
Big Con, ...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Epigraph
- Preface
- What You Say About His Company Is What You Say About Society
- Another Thing That Interests Me About the Eagles Is That I [Am Contractually Obligated to] Hate Them
- Villains Who Are Not Villains
- Easier Than Typing
- Perpetual Topeka
- Human Clay
- Without a Gun They Can’t Get None
- Arrested for Smoking
- Electric Funeral
- This Zeitgeist is Making Me Thirsty
- “I Am Perplexed” [This Is Why, This Is Why, This Is Why They Hate You]
- Crime and Punishment (or the Lack Thereof)
- Hitler Is in the Book
- The Problem of Overrated Ideas
- Acknowledgments
- About Chuck Klosterman
- ‘But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past’ Excerpt
- Index
- Copyright