Friedman "Compelling"
I am usually a fan of or at least sympathetic to Alan Bisbort's Advocate columns, but his recent critique of Thomas Friedmans Hot, Flat and Crowded ["Friedman Unit," Nov. 20, 2008] was absolutely baffling. Given the tone and content of Bisbort's article, I wonder whether he has actually read much work by the author he criticizes. Instead he seems to have based the entirety of his comments on a review of Friedman's book by author Bill McKibben. Even more troubling: the elements from McKibben's critique upon which Bisbort focuses suggest that McKibben himself may not have read much beyond the inside front flap of Friedman's latest book. For example, according to Bisbort, McKibben notes that Friedman's book is out of date because it fails to address rapidly rising oil costs. Based on my reading of Hot, Flat and Crowded, Friedman directly addresses the larger issues of instability of oil prices and the rise of petrodictators and their dangerous influence on global economies and politics. Bisbort seems upset that Friedman chose to explore the systemic causes of these challenges rather than the resulting symptoms like higher fuel prices.
Bisbort claims that Friedman has been pretty much wrong about everything in the last five years, but offers limited evidence to back up such a broad assertion. He goes on to compare Friedman to TV pundits Bill Kristol, Dick Morris and Bill O'Reilly. The absurdity of that is jaw-dropping.
I suggest that Friedman does a compelling job of compiling a wealth of ideas from diverse sectors while illustrating the interrelated complexities and urgency of the topic. I also believe that he is quite effective at showing how pro-environment, pro-sustainability strategies can be synonymous with a pro-business perspective. In fact, one of Friedman's core theses is that America's greatest opportunity to reinvigorate its economy and reassert itself as a global leader is by retooling itself—under active government leadership—to embrace a wide variety of green technology solutions (alternative energy sources, conservation strategies, etc.). Obviously, Friedman is not the originator of this idea, but he is a compelling and articulate spokesman for it. This seems like the sort of progressive, broad-scope solution-focused thinking Bisbort might want to champion, even if he disagrees with some technical specifics.
Striving to discredit Friedman's ideas because his books have sold reasonably well strikes me as petty; if Bisbort is upset that McKibben is not as well known and widely read as Friedman, he could have kept his column's focus on trumpeting McKibben's work instead of drifting into a passive-aggressive rant against Friedman. With little substantive information or thoughtful depth to support Bisbort's own critique, his column was disappointingly and uncharacteristically amateurish.
Jason Bauer-Clapp
South Deerfield
