Johann Hari—hypocrite

The same brilliant award-winning young journalist who once demonized J.R.R. Tolkien for daring to oppose unbridled modernity has since turned his attention to writing pieces like these:

How to survive the age of distraction

Has the internet brought us together or driven us apart

The deal we dare not turn down

2010--The year zombies came for our brains

In these pieces you’ll find him railing against internet culture and the accompanying rise of pornography and short attention spans in the age of Facebook and Twitter; bemoaning the decline and impending death of paper books and sustained, deep reading; expressing bitterness at omnipresent advertising and consumer culture, and lecturing us soberly on the decay of the environment.

Symptoms of unbridled modernity.

Which Tolkien warned us about.

In The Lord of the Rings.

I guess the message here is that the progress wrought by modernity is all good--when it’s Hari’s kind of progress, like the cosmopolitan city. But when it results in consequences with which he doesn’t align himself--like teh evil internets--it’s bad.

Rich, isn’t it?

What a fucking hypocrite. Not to mention a slack-jawed reader of Tolkien.

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Yes, I'm back from vacation! More light-hearted stuff to come soon.