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The End of Society as We Know It? A Review of The
Unwinding
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2014-03-23 23:10:43
The bestselling books of the past few years include several young adult dystopian series, dark tales of life after
environmental devastation (Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker) and/or the takeover of the government by despots who think
nothing of sacrificing teenagers for mass entertainment (Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games), arranging all marriages
(Ally Condie’s Matched), or dividing the world based on personality types (Veronica Roth’s Divergent). Dystopian literature
is based on the idea that civilization has collapsed and the societies that have emerged in the United States and elsewhere are
harsh, unequal, violent, and either totally chaotic or totally controlling. The Mayan Calendar exemplifies another vision of
apocalypse and a nonexistent or dystopian future. In fact, it and the popular dystopian novels are nothing new, as prophecies
of the world’s end have existed for centuries. It is easy to believe the worst and see one’s own time as the end times. That
said, societies have fallen—ancient Rome being only the best-known example. In some cases, disease (such as the Black
Death), famine, and war have been the culprits. However, the Roman Empire, on which The Hunger Games is based, fell
apart in large part due to fault lines within the society itself. In many ways, the Barbarian invasion was merely the coup de
grace. \»,imagesGeorge Packer’s National Book Award winning nonfiction book title The Unwinding: An Inner History of
the New America explores the kind of fault lines that threaten to bring down the American Empire today. Packer examines
four decades of U.S. history through the lives of various people who inhabit different places in the society, as well as
through two metropolitan areas with revealing trajectories. His principal personages are Jeff Connaughton, an ambitious
Alabama native who in college became an admirer of Senator Joe Biden; Dean Price, the son of an itinerant North Carolina
preacher and grandson of a tobacco farmer who wanted a more solid life than his ne’er-do-well, alcoholic father; and
Tammy Thomas, an African-American mother and organizer in Youngstown, Ohio who witnessed and tried to reverse the
implosion of her city after multiple factory closings. The two metropolitan areas are Silicon Valley (where e-commerce
entrepreneur and deep-pocketed Libertarian Peter Theil emerges as a principal personage) and Tampa, Florida, one of the
principal locations of the housing boom and bust associated with the mortgage crisis. In the four decades between the mid-
1970s and the present, manufacturing disappeared, energy prices skyrocketed, and wealth became concentrated in the hands
of fewer people who then used it to gain greater influence in the political system. Good ideas—such as Dean Price’s plan to
use waste cooking oil to fuel school buses in rural North Carolina—failed because of bad political will. Bad policies that
undermined families and communities and contributed to environmental destruction—for instance, the deregulation of the
banking and mortgage industry that led to the creation of Florida “boomburgs” far from amenities and jobs and inhabited by
people who could not pay their mortgages—flourished because a handful of powerful people made huge amounts of money.
Among the stories of his main figures, Packer profiles members of the elite whose careers exemplify the decades in which
they made their mark. For the 1980s, he offers the “rags to riches” stories of Oprah Winfrey and Sam Walton. The 1990s saw
the rise of the gangster/entertainer Jay-Z and the disruptive right-wing political leader Newt Gingrich. Among more recent
political figures profiled are the architect of financial deregulation Robert Rubin, along with Elizabeth Warren, who, in the
next Democratic administration, sought to reverse the damage. In all, Packer offers a portrait of a country that is losing a
common sense of purpose. As the rich grow richer and the poor, poorer, winners isolate themselves from the losers and kick
the ladder of upward mobility out from behind them. Entrepreneur Thiel and political operative/lobbyist Connaughton, who
rose from modest circumstances, inhabit a rarefied world made up of people just like them. (Ultimately, Connaughton
becomes so disillusioned that he goes into self-imposed exile in Costa Rica and writes a book denouncing the very policies
of deregulation that he promoted as a lobbyist.) At the same time, Thomas watches as every neighborhood in her hometown
succumbs in turn to poverty, crime, and family breakdown; the best she can do is save her children by giving them an
education and making sure they move elsewhere. Packer doesn’t tell the reader what to think; the beauty of his book is its
ability to get readers to understand and empathize with all of the people he profiles. In this way, readers connect with people
who fail to connect with each other in the four-decade process of “unwinding.” Sharing our stories in this can serve as a
starting point to reclaim our common future as we see our fellow citizens—regardless of class or race—as people with the
same desires, dreams, and challenges that we have.
