Dignity (Chris Arnade)

Dignity by Chris Arnade

First of all, it’s very odd that Amazon’s image for this book has it sitting on a weathered table. This is compounded by the book itself which features blurbs from J.D. Vance (now a Republican candidate for Senate), Elizabeth Bruenig, Patrick J. Deneen, Angela Nagle (author of Kill All the Normies), and Tom Cotton (who wrote a NYT Op-Ed advocating for Trump to use the military to quash BLM protests last summer).

It’s essentially a work of gonzo photojournalism. Chris travels the country going to McDonalds, strip mall churches, bodegas, corner stores, bars, VFW, etc. in search of the “back row” of the United States He then takes pictures and riffs on themes that emerge from the stories of the people he talks to. The gist of his position is that the “front row” of the US has disdain for the lives of the “left behind” from the NAFTA era of trade liberalization and manufacturing decline.

All the dualism is really rather tiring, and this certainly comes withing the ballpark of poverty porn. Despite these setbacks and a racial analysis that is… intentionally understated, I appreciate the empathy and respect in this book. I also think it was good for me to have a chance to reflect on my own alienation from some of my roots and disdain that I might have once and sometime still feel for things like religion or fast-food chains.

The photography is not particularly interesting or impressive for the most part, and, in fact, I found all the shots of needles/people shooting up to be in poor taste in the context of this book.