DNFed before the end of the first part.

Nathan never describes fascism, and occasionally uses it interchangeably with totalitarianism. The book reads as if he discovered the concept of leftist politics six months before writing this book. As a leftist myself, I take serious issue with white American men using "fascist" to describe things they don't like. While early signs of fascism deserve to be taken seriously, there is a way to do such without trivializing a word that embodies the structural murder of millions of people in the past century alone.

There is so much more nuance to the American political structure that can be thoughtfully analyzed through the history of images aside from "Trump is stupid." If anything, the fact that Nathan doesn't fully interrogate the systemic causes rather than spouting generalized talking points is a detriment to the advancement of leftist thought in the global West.

CW: anti-Black & anti-brown racism

Nathan's writing gets too uncomfortably personal in places. I did not need to know that he used to filter out Black and brown men in his porn searches, and that further reflection helped him to improve his politics through who he wanted to watch fuck. I don't think any Black and brown people needed to read this unnecessary and potentially triggering confession, either.

Some wonderful thoughts are presented here, inspired by the writings of Sontag and Arendt. Much of it is unfortunately lost in a buzz of GRE words and commas. I would save time and read On Photography and On Totalitarianism by these authors, respectively.