But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman

[King Bob]

The full title of this is But What If We're Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past and it's a collection of essays thinking about how opinions and theories change over time. He basically says that ideas change a lot over time, and what we believe now won't last. It was entertaining, but I'm not really convinced by some of his arguments. For example, he believes that in the future the great writer of our time will be someone who is unknown now. To me that seems unlikely, because if it's going to be rediscovered it has to be somewhat known already (like the 20th century reevaluation of Moby Dick, where that novel was largely forgotten, but the author was not). Anything too obscure will most likely only be of interest to specialists or be completely lost over time.

I had not read him before, and will probably not again; while it was entertaining, it was pretty much just fluff. And I get the impression he's one of those stoners who thinks he's really smart, but is not.