Maggie Nelson ‘On Freedom’

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The word freedom can be used in so many ways, sometimes at cross purposes. There are those who defend the freedom to remain unvaccinated, others the freedom to move in the world without excess risk. “Can you think of a more depleted, imprecise, or weaponized word?” writes author and Bay Area native Maggie Nelson in her new essay collection, “On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint”. Nelson probes the idea of freedom in the context of some of the most charged disagreements of our age, including around climate change, sexuality, addiction and more. She joins us to share what freedom means to her and why she sees it as “an unending present practice, something already going on.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:31.6	...
0:36.6	...youed. ... I'm Alexis Madrigal. Welcome to Forum.
0:45.5	Writer Maggie Nelson did not want to author a book about freedom.
0:49.5	Can you think of a more depleted, imprecise, or weaponized words, she writes?
0:53.7	Captured by the right wing, after being a clarion call of the civil rights movement,
0:57.3	the simple, facile version of freedom has been called upon to support even the lamest
1:02.1	opposition to communal care during the pandemic.
1:05.4	And yet, Nelson did write a book about freedom following up her surprise hit memoir,
1:10.0	The Argonauts,
1:11.2	and it's an exploration of how the freedom drive can lead to strange and meaningful parts
1:15.2	of the human experience.
1:17.2	Tackling art, sex, drugs, and climate change, this is, at the very least, a discussion
1:21.1	about freedom that does not require a powdered wig and veneration for Monticello.
	...

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