Product Description

It is perfectly natural and healthy for an individual to want to be appreciated by family, friends, community or peers. This desire can spur us on to personal achievement. It acts as the glue that binds society together. But the need to be special is altogether different. In this book, Peter Whittle highlights the demoralisation and division that come with the modern need to claim uniqueness, regardless of talent or deed. By shouting the loudest, by being the most visible, or simply by thumping people the hardest, the attention seekers destroy the privacy of others and contribute to the fragmentation of public life. Meanwhile real achievement and genuine talent are devalued. With no genuine claim to uniqueness, some wannabes simply emote. They self dramatise. They show off. They demand our attention. Others glorify themselves by rejecting other people around them. Paradoxically, despite all the talk in the media of 'community', there has been a repudiation of our collective identity - whether expressed in nationhood, neighbourliness or even personal roots. Such concepts are seen by the single, soaring self as constricting and confining. And in the breakdown of civic behaviour, in the growth of self-centred, often yobbish posturing, 'respect' has come to acquire an altogether new, rather sinister meaning. In "Look at Me", Peter Whittle explores Britain's runaway obsession with the need to be extraordinary, special or visible. He looks at the many ways in which this obsession manifests itself, across different age groups and economic classes. He goes on to consider how we have come to be in this situation. And finally, he looks at what the future holds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #260080 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 93 pages

Review
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About the Author
Peter Whittle is founder and director of the New Culture Forum. A journalist and broadcaster, he writes regularly for the Sunday Times, for which he is also a film and theatre critic. He has also contributed to The Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Spectator. He is a columnist for the new Standpoint magazine. Peter is a panellist on BBC 2's Newsnight Review, and has been a guest on Radio 4's Moral Maze and Front Row programmes. He appears frequently on Sky News, is a critic for Radio 2's Weekender arts programme, and was the host of the Culture Clash programme on 18 Doughty Street. He has also directed and produced numerous factual programmes for the major TV channels in the UK, as well as for the Fox and USA networks in Los Angeles, where he lived for five years. Subjects have ranged from Elizabeth I to the Hollywood paparazzi. Peter lives in London, and is currently working on a second book.

Customer Reviews

short and to the point
Brilliant - an absolute joy to read. Peter Whittle shoots at all the social sacred cows of New Labour and associated trends. His book is short and intelligent but, as you read it, I recommend having the short and fluffy Sloane Ranger books to hand for some surprising related interest. Whittle's cast of characters are everywhere; in the new (and flawed) Sloane-update: COOLER, FASTER AND MORE EXPENSIVE you'll find "Chav" Sloane, surely a close cousin to Whittle's culture-free Harriet (except Sunday brunch at Tate Modern, of course!), while "Eco" and "Bongo" Sloane could, in their earnest attention to themselves, be vegan dinner-party chums to Whittle's "right on" Marc and Sue. But then dip into the original 1982 SLOANE RANGER HANDBOOK which, with the passing of two decades, has acquired an unexpected poignancy. Whittle's lament at today's obsession with "me" instead of "we" was engraved on every Henry and Caroline's heart. Naturally, they were figures-of-fun (if in a kindly intended sense) - but they were the people who got things done. The people who made jam and chutney to sell at the Village Fete that brought the community together and made a profit for the church spire appeal. Whittle seems to worry that his critics will think him some dinosaur dreaming of olden and better days. Well, olden banking days can now, post Lehman Brothers et al, be seen as better in many ways. But - hey, dude - anything new is, of itself, better (isn't it?).