---
product_id: 20404003
title: "For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today Paperback – September 12, 2000"
brand: "jedediah purdy"
price: "€ 28.98"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.it/products/20404003-for-common-things-irony-trust-and-commitment-in-america-today
store_origin: IT
region: Italy
---

# For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today Paperback – September 12, 2000

**Brand:** jedediah purdy
**Price:** € 28.98
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today Paperback – September 12, 2000 by jedediah purdy
- **How much does it cost?** € 28.98 with free shipping
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Like it or not, you'll see more of this name.
  

*by J***E on Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 1999*

I'm a bit puzzled here.  I've read forty reviews of this thoughtful and penetrating thesis and I can't recall a single insightful comment, not even  from the pundits at Kirkus and Booklist.  I DO know this:  Purdy went to  HARVARD.  He's from WEST VIRGINIA.  He's YOUNG, God forbid.  And, more  importantly, he's ferociously intelligent and sincere.This book is not a  biography, so why are so many of you concerned about it?  I've a suspicion  that many people feel so threatened by Jed's formidable bio that they  become defensive immediately.  Here's a hint:  Read this book for what it  says.  If the only thing you can remember about it after finishing is that  Jed went to Harvard, you need to learn to read past the jacket blurbs.  Here's another hint:  erudition, social concern, and curiosity are all good  things.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Opie's Examined Life*
  

*by D***H on Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 1999*

Through Plato's pen, Socrates said that an "unexamined life is not worth living." Now through the earnest words of a recent Harvard graduate, a twenty-four-year-old examines our modern lives and offers us a prescription for what ails us.  The ailment is irony, or more finely put, "ironic  detachment." Its chief avatar is the television character Jerry Seinfeld,  who moves in and out of relationships with all the enthusiasm of a jaded,  I've-seen-it-all-and-could-care-less New Yorker, which, of course, he is.  Written by Jedediah Purdy, For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment  in America Today targets an array of cultural arbiters who value cleverness  over curiosity, style over substance, self-awareness over social immersion,  and, above all, the private over the public. For his efforts, Purdy has  reaped scornful reproaches from the very class of ironists he preemptively  criticizes.  As someone more than twice Purdy's age, I am both amazed  and tinged with a bit of envy that a young creature of a West Virginia  hollow could possess so much erudition, wisdom, and perspicacity. I dare  say that most twenty-four-year-olds could not spell Montaigne let alone  quote his magnificent expressions. But Purdy-drawing upon the writings of  the 16th-century French essayist; the observations of Tocqueville (which  serve as epigraphs in Purdy's book); the philosophies of Kant, Rousseau,  and Hegel; the life and words of Wendell Berry; and the profound  experiences of Adam Michnik, the brave Polish dissident who retained his  integrity as his country succumbed to capitalist rot-urges us to reject  ironic detachment in favor of a renewed commitment to the commonweal.  Chief among his detractors is Roger D. Hodge, who offered a scathing  indictment of Purdy's new book in the September issue of Harper's Magazine.  Entitled "Thus Spoke Jedediah: The Distilled Wisdom of a Cornpone Prophet,"  Hodge, with impatient disdain, says that Purdy belongs to "a line of young  Ivy-educated authors whose prose briefly quickened the hearts of the  marketing executives who decide which titles will appear at the front of  book catalogues, in Barnes & Noble display windows, and on the banner  of the Amazon.com home page. And yet how utterly worthless are their books,  stacked on remainder shelves in the basements of used-book stores soon  after their publication, their notoriety worn thin, their authors' careers  all but over."  On the contrary, counters Walter Kirn in Time Magazine.  "Purdy's book is a precocious diatribe against the sort of media-savvy  detachment that passes for intelligence and maturity in the age of  Letterman...It is not the accessible pop polemic some reviewers have made it  out to be but an achingly ambitious manifesto from a very young man who  happens to be, alarmingly often, eloquent beyond his years."  Jedediah  Purdy was raised on a farm and homeschooled by his parents, mostly his  philosophy-trained mother. At the age of 14 he entered New Hampshire's  prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy. From there he matriculated at Harvard,  where he became "obsessed with ethics," quotes Time. Yet he returned to the  family farm at every opportunity to directly experience "the mundane,"  which, as he reminds us in his book, comes from the Latin mundus-`the  world.' He is now studying law and the environment at Yale. In his spare  time, it would appear, he writes best-selling manifestoes.  What are  the "common things" he describes? Essentially they are three  "ecologies"-moral, political, and environmental-which are inextricably  linked and interdependent. Purdy sets these against our zealous, uncritical  embrace of all things private, which, he says, connotes deprivation. He  sharply rebukes management guru Tom Peters, who, in his most recent  incarnation, champions "You.com," the self as marketed product. (Peters,  like his weight, dramatically fluctuates. He used to praise "excellent"  corporations for their respect for and involvement of employees. He  embraced quality and systems, à la Deming and Juran. A couple of years ago,  he recanted. He began to promote virtual companies like Sara Lee, which  have a brand name, relatively few officers, a host of products made by  others, and no loyalties. Today, Peters proclaims the individual über  alles-you are but your résumé, which must constantly be marketed.) The  magazines Wired and Fast Company promote greed and self-absorption, argues  Purdy. Bill Clinton resorts to facile rhetoric in manipulating public  opinion, yet delivers little. Worse, Purdy suggests, the President's  hypocritical behavior exquisitely models ironic detachment, feeding the  growing cynicism toward public institutions.  Purdy, as you have  gathered, is a self-proclaimed progressive, acutely concerned for the  environment and anxious to improve society. Time writes that "his broader  goal is to spur a resurgence in grass-roots public activism." But it's an  activism steeped in reason, nurtured by the mundane, and profoundly  compassionate. It is not "Promethean," he argues. Rather, it draws on our  best public traditions and decides human nature in favor of Rousseau over  Hobbes.  We would surely profit from more young sages like Purdy and  far fewer of what writer Calvin Trillin calls `Sabbath gasbags.' After all,  there are very real problems out there that command our urgent  attention.* After hearing Purdy on NPR's Morning Edition, I could not  resist the image of Ron Howard as Opie. The voice is pure and fresh and  innocent. But the words reveal perceptive sagacity. Given his book's nasty  reception by the ironists he abhors, Purdy may be deterred from writing  another. However, I suspect that he will energetically pursue his  overarching goals. And his splendid portfolio should provide this polymath  with ample opportunity to make a difference in the world.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Must read.
  

*by L***D on Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2023*

Important book.

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*Store origin: IT*
*Last updated: 2026-03-17*