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Awkwardness
Argues that the awkwardness of our age is a key to understanding human experience.
89 pages, Paperback
First published November 16, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 18, 2023
me gustó mucho. esta sencillo y usa cosas pop que no ubico xq no vi the office, pero me mama que la gente vea la teoría en cosas normales. me gusta su teoría!! ligero y entendible.
December 31, 2021
Epic essay... finally somebody who takes cringe and awkwardness seriously. Also, can't believe the essay was actually very insightful, considering how it approaches highly protected notions such as cringe and awkwardness. Any other analysis of cringe easily tends to becoming cringey ( maybe because we treat memes and cringe in a cult-like respect).
January 3, 2011
The machinery of social engagement is greased by the application of a sort of non-engagement -- the rules and conventions, explicit and implicit, that bound and steer our interactions. But these rulesets are not always shared, they are not always followed, they fall into decline, and sometimes they simply don't apply. Kotsko calls these gaps awkwardness, and he argues that it is the defining mood of our time. He starts by establishing a typology of awkwardness, walks his framework through three examples from TV and film, and ends by sketching out a radical politics grounded in an embrace of awkwardness.
Mostly, it works. This 89-page pamphlet is clearly and straightforwardly presented, but stylistically, it's most akin to the college paper, with that genre's clumsy locutions in the vein of "in this chapter, I will argue that...", excesses in need of editing (i.e., "Heidegger's groundbreaking work Being and Time", a couple completely irrelevant references to The Wire), and a general lack of fluidity. This is disappointing, considering some of the wonderfully deadpan bits that Kotsko has produced for years at The Weblog (and on the other hand, the worst of all genres is the internet book review). But because it introduces such a useful model for looking at any number of topics -- right-wing populist resentment in contemporary American politics is an easy one, and there's a T.S. Eliot paper just waiting to be written -- I'd love for the book to be widely read. And if all my friends read it, then I don't have to explain it to them, which just goes to show that it will be some time before I can fully take the lessons of the book to heart.
Mostly, it works. This 89-page pamphlet is clearly and straightforwardly presented, but stylistically, it's most akin to the college paper, with that genre's clumsy locutions in the vein of "in this chapter, I will argue that...", excesses in need of editing (i.e., "Heidegger's groundbreaking work Being and Time", a couple completely irrelevant references to The Wire), and a general lack of fluidity. This is disappointing, considering some of the wonderfully deadpan bits that Kotsko has produced for years at The Weblog (and on the other hand, the worst of all genres is the internet book review). But because it introduces such a useful model for looking at any number of topics -- right-wing populist resentment in contemporary American politics is an easy one, and there's a T.S. Eliot paper just waiting to be written -- I'd love for the book to be widely read. And if all my friends read it, then I don't have to explain it to them, which just goes to show that it will be some time before I can fully take the lessons of the book to heart.
April 7, 2023
A fabulous essay on the promise and peril of awkwardness. The readings of Heidegger make some tricky concepts accessible and the analysis of a Pauline community of awkwardness persuasively reconstructs, with contemporary examples, a novel interpretation of Romans. Kotsko's writing style also deserves praise, in particular for its sympathetic and non-reductive presentation of cultural materials.
***
Take two. One more thing. The reading of Larry David is a masterpiece. Who knew that Paul was an autistic Jewish comedian? Adam K. knew.
***
Take two. One more thing. The reading of Larry David is a masterpiece. Who knew that Paul was an autistic Jewish comedian? Adam K. knew.
March 11, 2015
I should write a truly awkward review of this book. It would start, perhaps, with stories about my best friend in high school dating the author’s sister. But it would be largely irrelevant, except perhaps to illustrate the point Kotsko makes at the beginning of this text: we live in an age of awkwardness. It’s become a recognizable and indeed ubiquitous social symptom. Our generation seems to find itself almost daily in social situations in which we don’t know the appropriate roles or cues to follow. We live awkwardly, sometimes painfully so. Paradoxically though, this very fact is celebrated in popular media-- or at least, used as the centerpiece for the forms of television comedy the analysis of which make up the backbone of Kotsko’s cultural exploration.
Kotsko begins his short, cogent, and ultimately encouraging examination of awkwardness with a brief philosophical reflection on awkwardness and a historical survey aimed at explaining its origins. Philosophically, Kotsko represents awkwardness in terms of Heidegger’s insight that relationship is fundamental to our existence. Kotsko argues awkwardness should be understood as a breakdown in social norms, analogous in human relationships to the breakdown in norms Heidegger analyzed related to boredom and death. Historically, Kotsko finds the origins of our awkward age in the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. Briefly, the argument is that though these social upheavals did away with many of the constrictive social norms governing relationships (whether between classes, genders, or races), they did nothing to replace them. People learned the importance of cultural sensitivity and the dangers of political incorrectness, but rather than liberation the result was fear of offending by saying the wrong thing. By our generation, people quite simply don’t know how to response appropriately to many social situations. In the 1990s, the cultural recourse was retreat into irony-- simply saying thing that weren’t meant-- which leads us to Seinfeld.
The thing that makes Kotsko’s cultural examination so compelling is that it is a lens to understand television shows and films we’ve all seen in a broader social context (or, alternatively, using these shows to understand that broader context). This analysis of television comedy is the meat of his work. Kotsko proposes to examined three forms of awkwardness using three popular television or movie examples. The first of these is “everyday awkwardness,” the awkwardness of the workplace, exemplified in The Office. Kotsko here contrasts the American version with the British to argue that everyday awkwardness is not, as often perceived, simply the presence of inherently awkward people. This is the premise of the American version, where Dwight and Michael are “intrinsically” awkward, whereas Pam and Jim are completely normal. The genius of the British version, Kotsko argues, is that it illustrates that awkwardness is something created by the work environment itself. In this analysis, Ricky Gervais’s character in the British version is the creation of this white-collar environment in which roles, responsibility, and motivations are unclear, not an aberration.
The second form of awkwardness Kotsko explores is "cultural awkwardness." Whereas everyday awkwardness arises from a work environment that cannot provide a stable social order, cultural awkwardness comes from cultural establishments themselves that fail to do so, particularly the idea of marriage and family. The lens he choses here are the films of Judd Apatow. Apatow movies such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up focus on the awkward transition from an extended adolescence or stunted adulthood into the (perceived) healthy, actualized maturity of a committed relationship. What these films illustrate though is that even this pillar of American values has become an awkward transition-- one so difficult, Apatow seems to suggest, it can only be successfully navigated by the equally awkward male bonding or “bromance” functioning as a release valve to compensate for this difficulty.
Finally, Kotsko examines the work of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm as an example of what he refers to as "radical awkwardness," the awkwardness that arises when social norms break down entirely, primarily through interactions between different social groups or classes with overlapping or contradictory social norms. Larry is a Jewish man from New York interacting with successful Hollywood stars, and much of the awkward comedy from this show, Kotsko relates, comes from Larry trying and failing to integrate into these social structures. This is also where Kotsko makes his most audacious claim about awkwardness: that it can help us understand St. Paul’s instructions to the Romans regarding the law and the relationship between Jews and Gentiles living in community in the early Christian church.
Rather than flee from awkwardness or try to eliminate it by allowing one group to assimilate the social structures of another, Kotsko says we should understand St. Paul’s instructions as an appeal for a community in which awkwardness is embraced because it forces us to accept others as they are with all the messy awkwardness this entails. Instead of shunning or avoided awkwardness, Kotsko concludes, using a particularly powerful illustration from Curb Your Enthusiasm, awkwardness should be embraced. When this happens, he suggests, there can be freedom, acceptance, and joy.
Two points occurred to me that could have been explored further, though their omission does not take away from Kotsko’s central argument. The first is the question of radical awkwardness within families. If awkwardness is the breakdown of social norms, how should we understand the fact that some of the most awkward situations arise between people of shared social and familial backgrounds? Is this simply an example of how radically insufficient these norms have become? Second, it seems that there’s a technological aspect to all this. Is there room in the analysis of awkwardness for technological awkwardness, arising from the growth of devices and communication that have outstripped the ability of social conventions to evolve alongside? The fact that I don't know how to socially interact with someone who seldom raises his or her eyes from a mobile device, for instance, as well as the socially awkward aspects of internet anonymity (or lack thereof) and trolling, seem especially poignant today.
Kotsko begins his short, cogent, and ultimately encouraging examination of awkwardness with a brief philosophical reflection on awkwardness and a historical survey aimed at explaining its origins. Philosophically, Kotsko represents awkwardness in terms of Heidegger’s insight that relationship is fundamental to our existence. Kotsko argues awkwardness should be understood as a breakdown in social norms, analogous in human relationships to the breakdown in norms Heidegger analyzed related to boredom and death. Historically, Kotsko finds the origins of our awkward age in the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. Briefly, the argument is that though these social upheavals did away with many of the constrictive social norms governing relationships (whether between classes, genders, or races), they did nothing to replace them. People learned the importance of cultural sensitivity and the dangers of political incorrectness, but rather than liberation the result was fear of offending by saying the wrong thing. By our generation, people quite simply don’t know how to response appropriately to many social situations. In the 1990s, the cultural recourse was retreat into irony-- simply saying thing that weren’t meant-- which leads us to Seinfeld.
The thing that makes Kotsko’s cultural examination so compelling is that it is a lens to understand television shows and films we’ve all seen in a broader social context (or, alternatively, using these shows to understand that broader context). This analysis of television comedy is the meat of his work. Kotsko proposes to examined three forms of awkwardness using three popular television or movie examples. The first of these is “everyday awkwardness,” the awkwardness of the workplace, exemplified in The Office. Kotsko here contrasts the American version with the British to argue that everyday awkwardness is not, as often perceived, simply the presence of inherently awkward people. This is the premise of the American version, where Dwight and Michael are “intrinsically” awkward, whereas Pam and Jim are completely normal. The genius of the British version, Kotsko argues, is that it illustrates that awkwardness is something created by the work environment itself. In this analysis, Ricky Gervais’s character in the British version is the creation of this white-collar environment in which roles, responsibility, and motivations are unclear, not an aberration.
The second form of awkwardness Kotsko explores is "cultural awkwardness." Whereas everyday awkwardness arises from a work environment that cannot provide a stable social order, cultural awkwardness comes from cultural establishments themselves that fail to do so, particularly the idea of marriage and family. The lens he choses here are the films of Judd Apatow. Apatow movies such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up focus on the awkward transition from an extended adolescence or stunted adulthood into the (perceived) healthy, actualized maturity of a committed relationship. What these films illustrate though is that even this pillar of American values has become an awkward transition-- one so difficult, Apatow seems to suggest, it can only be successfully navigated by the equally awkward male bonding or “bromance” functioning as a release valve to compensate for this difficulty.
Finally, Kotsko examines the work of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm as an example of what he refers to as "radical awkwardness," the awkwardness that arises when social norms break down entirely, primarily through interactions between different social groups or classes with overlapping or contradictory social norms. Larry is a Jewish man from New York interacting with successful Hollywood stars, and much of the awkward comedy from this show, Kotsko relates, comes from Larry trying and failing to integrate into these social structures. This is also where Kotsko makes his most audacious claim about awkwardness: that it can help us understand St. Paul’s instructions to the Romans regarding the law and the relationship between Jews and Gentiles living in community in the early Christian church.
Rather than flee from awkwardness or try to eliminate it by allowing one group to assimilate the social structures of another, Kotsko says we should understand St. Paul’s instructions as an appeal for a community in which awkwardness is embraced because it forces us to accept others as they are with all the messy awkwardness this entails. Instead of shunning or avoided awkwardness, Kotsko concludes, using a particularly powerful illustration from Curb Your Enthusiasm, awkwardness should be embraced. When this happens, he suggests, there can be freedom, acceptance, and joy.
Two points occurred to me that could have been explored further, though their omission does not take away from Kotsko’s central argument. The first is the question of radical awkwardness within families. If awkwardness is the breakdown of social norms, how should we understand the fact that some of the most awkward situations arise between people of shared social and familial backgrounds? Is this simply an example of how radically insufficient these norms have become? Second, it seems that there’s a technological aspect to all this. Is there room in the analysis of awkwardness for technological awkwardness, arising from the growth of devices and communication that have outstripped the ability of social conventions to evolve alongside? The fact that I don't know how to socially interact with someone who seldom raises his or her eyes from a mobile device, for instance, as well as the socially awkward aspects of internet anonymity (or lack thereof) and trolling, seem especially poignant today.
July 12, 2018
Småmorsom.
På en wannabe-Zizekiansk måte forsøker Kotsko å koble "seriøs" filosofi og populærkultur. Med utgangspunkt i Heideggers Væren-begrep og Paulus Romerbrev argumenter forfatteren for hvordan 60-tallets normoppløsning har ført til at fenomenet "awkwardness", og forskjellige måter å takle det på, har preget vestlig kultur de siste tiårene. Ved å vise til The Office (både UK og US), Judd Apatow-filmer og Curb Your Enthusiasm argumenterer han for at heller enn å forsøke å skape en ny samfunnsmessig orden i kjølvannet av 68, bør vi omfavne usikkerheten og ad hoc-mentaliteten som preger situasjonene der normene bryter sammen og awkwardness oppstår. En usikkerhet og ad hoc-metalitet som også egentlig karakteriserer menneskelige relasjoner mer generelt! Weeeird! :P
Og det er et kult poeng! Men argumentasjonen i boken fremstår mer som tilfeldig fylle-vrøvl enn gjennomarbeidet (pop-)filosofi. Jeg sitter igjen med en følelse av at forfatteren er redd for å være for akademisk, noe som er synd: boken er på sitt beste når den eksplisitt drar veksler på Heidegger, dårligst når den gjenforteller scener fra komiserier. Denne boken kunne vært dobbelt så lang - og minst dobbelt så god.
Artig liten trykksak, men ikke så mye mer.
Hihi.
På en wannabe-Zizekiansk måte forsøker Kotsko å koble "seriøs" filosofi og populærkultur. Med utgangspunkt i Heideggers Væren-begrep og Paulus Romerbrev argumenter forfatteren for hvordan 60-tallets normoppløsning har ført til at fenomenet "awkwardness", og forskjellige måter å takle det på, har preget vestlig kultur de siste tiårene. Ved å vise til The Office (både UK og US), Judd Apatow-filmer og Curb Your Enthusiasm argumenterer han for at heller enn å forsøke å skape en ny samfunnsmessig orden i kjølvannet av 68, bør vi omfavne usikkerheten og ad hoc-mentaliteten som preger situasjonene der normene bryter sammen og awkwardness oppstår. En usikkerhet og ad hoc-metalitet som også egentlig karakteriserer menneskelige relasjoner mer generelt! Weeeird! :P
Og det er et kult poeng! Men argumentasjonen i boken fremstår mer som tilfeldig fylle-vrøvl enn gjennomarbeidet (pop-)filosofi. Jeg sitter igjen med en følelse av at forfatteren er redd for å være for akademisk, noe som er synd: boken er på sitt beste når den eksplisitt drar veksler på Heidegger, dårligst når den gjenforteller scener fra komiserier. Denne boken kunne vært dobbelt så lang - og minst dobbelt så god.
Artig liten trykksak, men ikke så mye mer.
Hihi.
January 12, 2022
I really liked this book. Adam Kotsko was already someone I had wanted to read years ago after watching a video where Zizek mentioned Kotsko during a discussion on theology. I read Creepiness first and then about a week later bought Awkwardness..
This book was about as entertaining for me as watching a Youtube video essay on a film or TV series - it’s focused, clear and filled with funny and illuminating examples which ground the philosophical arguments concretely and, for me at least, historically - insofar as Kotsko sketches out changing attitudes (or moods) of awkwardness across decades, across cultures and across TV seasons.
This book also made me, at times, uncomfortable because it forced me to consider male subjectivity. The book made me embarrassed about myself - the feeling reaching a pitch in the third chapter, first section: The Perils of Being an Overgrown Adolescent . Kotsko’s Creepiness also produced this effect on me, seeing, as I did, myself reflected back at me within the unfolding TV show analysis and beneath several of Lacan’s four major diagnostic categories. That was definitely part of my attraction to Creepiness and why I continued forward with this book.
This book was about as entertaining for me as watching a Youtube video essay on a film or TV series - it’s focused, clear and filled with funny and illuminating examples which ground the philosophical arguments concretely and, for me at least, historically - insofar as Kotsko sketches out changing attitudes (or moods) of awkwardness across decades, across cultures and across TV seasons.
This book also made me, at times, uncomfortable because it forced me to consider male subjectivity. The book made me embarrassed about myself - the feeling reaching a pitch in the third chapter, first section: The Perils of Being an Overgrown Adolescent . Kotsko’s Creepiness also produced this effect on me, seeing, as I did, myself reflected back at me within the unfolding TV show analysis and beneath several of Lacan’s four major diagnostic categories. That was definitely part of my attraction to Creepiness and why I continued forward with this book.
April 19, 2022
An absolute masterpiece. A treatise on the philosophical, religious, and political possibilities of human awkwardness. How do the British and American versions of The Office relate to the philosophy of Heidegger? Is Judd Apatow a Hegelian? Is Larry David the modern incarnation of St. Paul the Apostle? Short answer: yes. Read to find out. No frills, plain language; the agony and ecstasy of awkwardness.
March 22, 2019
3.5/5
Ultimately seeing the state of awkwardness as an opportunity for social grace, Kotsko uses media examples to illustrate awkwardness in three forms—the everyday, the cultural, and the radical—and argues that the proper utilization of the latter presents a good solution for combatting social strangeness in ways that offer community inclusion and education rather than exclusion and ostracism.
Ultimately seeing the state of awkwardness as an opportunity for social grace, Kotsko uses media examples to illustrate awkwardness in three forms—the everyday, the cultural, and the radical—and argues that the proper utilization of the latter presents a good solution for combatting social strangeness in ways that offer community inclusion and education rather than exclusion and ostracism.
November 23, 2014
Clever. On a couple of levels.
Adam Kotsko’s book is meant to be a philosophical intervention into contemporary culture—an old-notion of philosophy. As the publisher notes in in its epilogue, the idea of a public intellectual no longer makes sense, given the desiccated meanings of “public” and “intellectual”—most of the public having been turned into private, commercial turf, and intellectual now connoting someone who talks softly on TV, rather than yells. (That’s how David Brooks became an intellectual.)
The series to which this book belongs is meant to reclaim this notion of a public intellectual. I’m skeptical of such a project, but cheer it on, and think it’s a clever attempt.
The book is also clever in its presentation. “Awkwardness” is somewhere between a long article and a short book—the non-fiction equivalent of a novella. The ability to get such pieces printed disappeared, like, forty years ago, maybe thirty, with the decline of magazines and the scaling-back of academic publishing. The current situation, though, with cheap printing, and (especially) the possibility of electronic editions has made such awkwardly (!) lengthed pieces viable again. (Although note I read this book as a physical artifact: I still don’t like e-books.)
That all is the meta-cleverness—or, better, the para-cleverness. The argument the book presents is clever. The book brings philosophical ideas to bear onto current questions about culture, and especially a few of its popular products. I suppose this is in the vein of Zizek, who is cited by Kotsko, and blurbs the back of the book, but I don’t know much about him, beyond the second-hand fighting I hear about him. (Is he a plagiarist? Does he do his own work?) I see it just as much in the tradition of someone like David Foster Wallace or Mark Edmundson. Books such as this one—as opposed to conventional philosophy—appeal to me, because they offer a comprehensive understanding of the current culture, cleverly read out of TV shows and books. Even so, I don’t trust them, or my liking for them.
The books are good to think with, the ideas worth carrying around and testing against the world. But they always seem incomplete. And clever as Kotsko is, his account seems incomplete. (I figure he’d probably agree.)
The argument is that America is, since the late 1990s, afflicted by an intense awkwardness—the social rules that govern are actions are no longer widely shared, and so interactions are fraught. Kitsch identifies three types of awkwardness. The everyday: often associated with particularly awkward individuals, who violate known rules. The cultural: having to do with a loss of shared, middle class norms. And the radical, which is to say the complete lack of commensurable standards. The historical moment was initiated in the 1960s, with the questioning of so many shared ideas—and, more generally, the break down of the covenant between government, labor, and capital to share the wealth (a time when it was possible to have a meaningful public intellectual). The process took a while, and was clearly noticeable by the 1990s (with all the downsizing), and was first met by ‘irony,’ which was a way of highlighting awkwardness, but remaining aloof from it. Eventually, such a pose became unusable, and awkwardness increasingly unavoidable.
Kotsko traces the three forms of awkwardness through three different cultural products—The Office (TV show), Judd Apatow’s movies, and Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. For him, The Office shows that the everyday awkwardness of business life is really cultural awkwardness: the rules for interacting in workplaces are increasingly unclear and likely to lead us into awkward situations; it’s not just Michael Scott, but the very situation of white-collar life.
Apatovian movies show the failure of the 1960s to create new forms of communities and rites of passage—how do boys become men—which is all about cultural awkwardness phasing into radical awkwardness: marriage has its expectations, but there are plenty of social situations without them. And these are what Larry David explores—radical awkwardness. His show is about a world without shared norms—or, at least, a world in which one person does not know those standards.
Kotsko ends with a hope for the future that is different from the publisher’s. He’s not trying to go back—to a time when the public intellectual was possible—but muddle forward. The key is to resign ourselves to awkwardness, that we might be vulnerable with every social interaction. He compares this to St. Paul’s creation of the Christian community, attempting to bring together very many different groups, all with different standards, and having them unite.
It’s a utopic ending, and a nice bow on the package. The entire argument is smart, and clever—but just a little too perfect. There are plenty of countervailing forces that Kotsko does not engage—he does mention the continued presence of irony, but there’s also earnestness, and meanness and anger—the whole gamut of human emotion—on display in American popular culture. The argument is too short to prove that awkwardness has some privileged place in our culture. It is too neat life is more messy.
Still, it’s a good book to think on.
Adam Kotsko’s book is meant to be a philosophical intervention into contemporary culture—an old-notion of philosophy. As the publisher notes in in its epilogue, the idea of a public intellectual no longer makes sense, given the desiccated meanings of “public” and “intellectual”—most of the public having been turned into private, commercial turf, and intellectual now connoting someone who talks softly on TV, rather than yells. (That’s how David Brooks became an intellectual.)
The series to which this book belongs is meant to reclaim this notion of a public intellectual. I’m skeptical of such a project, but cheer it on, and think it’s a clever attempt.
The book is also clever in its presentation. “Awkwardness” is somewhere between a long article and a short book—the non-fiction equivalent of a novella. The ability to get such pieces printed disappeared, like, forty years ago, maybe thirty, with the decline of magazines and the scaling-back of academic publishing. The current situation, though, with cheap printing, and (especially) the possibility of electronic editions has made such awkwardly (!) lengthed pieces viable again. (Although note I read this book as a physical artifact: I still don’t like e-books.)
That all is the meta-cleverness—or, better, the para-cleverness. The argument the book presents is clever. The book brings philosophical ideas to bear onto current questions about culture, and especially a few of its popular products. I suppose this is in the vein of Zizek, who is cited by Kotsko, and blurbs the back of the book, but I don’t know much about him, beyond the second-hand fighting I hear about him. (Is he a plagiarist? Does he do his own work?) I see it just as much in the tradition of someone like David Foster Wallace or Mark Edmundson. Books such as this one—as opposed to conventional philosophy—appeal to me, because they offer a comprehensive understanding of the current culture, cleverly read out of TV shows and books. Even so, I don’t trust them, or my liking for them.
The books are good to think with, the ideas worth carrying around and testing against the world. But they always seem incomplete. And clever as Kotsko is, his account seems incomplete. (I figure he’d probably agree.)
The argument is that America is, since the late 1990s, afflicted by an intense awkwardness—the social rules that govern are actions are no longer widely shared, and so interactions are fraught. Kitsch identifies three types of awkwardness. The everyday: often associated with particularly awkward individuals, who violate known rules. The cultural: having to do with a loss of shared, middle class norms. And the radical, which is to say the complete lack of commensurable standards. The historical moment was initiated in the 1960s, with the questioning of so many shared ideas—and, more generally, the break down of the covenant between government, labor, and capital to share the wealth (a time when it was possible to have a meaningful public intellectual). The process took a while, and was clearly noticeable by the 1990s (with all the downsizing), and was first met by ‘irony,’ which was a way of highlighting awkwardness, but remaining aloof from it. Eventually, such a pose became unusable, and awkwardness increasingly unavoidable.
Kotsko traces the three forms of awkwardness through three different cultural products—The Office (TV show), Judd Apatow’s movies, and Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. For him, The Office shows that the everyday awkwardness of business life is really cultural awkwardness: the rules for interacting in workplaces are increasingly unclear and likely to lead us into awkward situations; it’s not just Michael Scott, but the very situation of white-collar life.
Apatovian movies show the failure of the 1960s to create new forms of communities and rites of passage—how do boys become men—which is all about cultural awkwardness phasing into radical awkwardness: marriage has its expectations, but there are plenty of social situations without them. And these are what Larry David explores—radical awkwardness. His show is about a world without shared norms—or, at least, a world in which one person does not know those standards.
Kotsko ends with a hope for the future that is different from the publisher’s. He’s not trying to go back—to a time when the public intellectual was possible—but muddle forward. The key is to resign ourselves to awkwardness, that we might be vulnerable with every social interaction. He compares this to St. Paul’s creation of the Christian community, attempting to bring together very many different groups, all with different standards, and having them unite.
It’s a utopic ending, and a nice bow on the package. The entire argument is smart, and clever—but just a little too perfect. There are plenty of countervailing forces that Kotsko does not engage—he does mention the continued presence of irony, but there’s also earnestness, and meanness and anger—the whole gamut of human emotion—on display in American popular culture. The argument is too short to prove that awkwardness has some privileged place in our culture. It is too neat life is more messy.
Still, it’s a good book to think on.
August 1, 2022
Harps on pop culture as a pastor would- and not nearly enough discussion on what I thought it was going to discuss
April 3, 2015
Kotsko use of Hiedeggar to understand awkwardness is very interesting and I think fruitful; but I think Kotsko's application of awkwardness as a mood like anxiety or boredom falls short and needs something more (see Mary Cappello's 《Awkward: A Detour》(2007) for that something magically more). Moreover, having read his 《Creepiness》 as well, it is hard to except what he has to say about the awkward individual and everyday awkwardness (both of which are not well shown in his anslyses) since his understanding of creepiness in dependent on Freud. Kotsko's writing is clear, and he is easy to read; but I dont think awkwardness needs to be explained solely through normative language. This said, I think Kotsko's founding of awkwardness on normative relativity is itself problematic.
January 1, 2011
Adam Kotsko's essay takes a look at Awkwardness in television and film. Dealing with The Office (contrasting UK and US versions), Judd Apatow's films and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Kotsko attempts to classify and analyze awkwardness as a phenomenom, trying to explain why the past decade may have been so particularly fertile for awkwardness in comedy. Over 90 pages Kotsko's exposition is wonderfully clear and culminates with an outline of awkwardness as a force for good: a kind of step towards a utopia of tolerance and uncomfortable fellowship.
January 11, 2018
some fairly rigorous analysis of contemporary society viewed through the lens of critically acclaimed comedy (Curb, UK Office). essentially an essay - it's insightful, sometimes radical and persuasive
April 17, 2016
This brief essay is a funny and trenchant pop-cultural commentary, but ultimately it is plagued by taking its own radicalism too seriously and becomes awkward at times.
Shelved as 'considering'
May 26, 2011
July 2, 2012
I definitely dug this. Awkwardness as a vehicle of human grace. There's something there. I need to keep thinking about this...
September 19, 2012
Marred only by my lack of familiarity with the television shows used as many of the examples.
December 27, 2012
I expected this to be a fun, quick read. It was certainly that, but ended up being a more substantial cultural reflection than I had imagined as well.
June 10, 2015
Immensely enjoyable, and the final chapter in particular - comparing Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm with St Paul - was particularly fantastic.
August 9, 2017
Great!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews