The Age of Grievance by Frank Bruni

The Age of Grievance Reviews

• 
  John Amory

  I need everyone to read this book, delete at least one social media app from their phones, and chill the hell out.
• 
  Alison

  Thanks to Frank Bruni, Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, and Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this book. The Age of Grievance is a smart, well-reasoned discussion of the role that grievance has played and continues to play in the politics and daily lives of Americans. I particularly appreciated the last chapter, where Bruni suggests that humility in our political leaders, journalists, activists, and ourselves, might be the key to future improvement in our grievance-obsessed culture. He concludes that “[i]t’s not too late to turn around,” and I sincerely hope he’s right about that. The Age of Grievance is a thought-provoking read — highly recommend.
• 
  Jay

  Great read for anyone, like myself, who is a centrist and trying to figure out why the hell so many people on both ideological extremes are aggrieved. Bruni looks at many different prisms that breed extremism and are leading society to a cultural abyss.
  
  Bruni offers solutions to tone down grievance culture - but for politicians, big tech, news sources, and the top 1% --- what's the incentive? He does recommend a couple good options for readers.
  
  It makes me glad that GoodReads is the only social media I use and I don't own a TV.
  
  Highly recommend this book for anyone who reads or listened to talks by Jonathan Haidt, Johann Kari, and especially Thomas Frank.
• 
  Ann

  I always appreciate a book that shows me a different way to look at things. In particular, I’m taking the final chapter on humility to heart.
• 
  Tim O'Neill

  Books like these tend to suffer from two problems. Firstly, they are of a certain political and social moment and so tend to age quickly. The references and examples become dated and what seems topical and insightful now rapidly seems like yesterday's urgency. Given this one is still new(ish), that's not yet the case. Perhaps in a couple of years things will improve and this will seem like a quaint warning . I suspect, however, it won't.
  
  Secondly, by laying out the evidence for the problemj, the authors of this kind of book can end up with a lopsided affair: heavy on the problems and light on any solution . And often the solutions presented can be so idealistic that the book that presents them can be weighed down by issues they are meant to solve. Some of Bruni's solutions for the grievance wars of recent US politics - such as building parks and public spaces that cross social and cultrual borders to get people of different backgrounds mingling - seem very nice but highly naive. Yet the final section on how greater humility in a political world of strident and dogmatic certainty is, in fact, worth the price of wading through the mire of all the problems the book details.
  
  I suppose the world will see in November 2024 whether the US is prepared to turn away from the toxicity of grievance or if it will embrace it even more.
• 
  Angie Boyter

  4+++
  A timely, thoughtful, very well researched book that should be required reading for everyone nursing grievances, in other words, for everyone.
  That being said, I might have DNFed it in the first chapter as Bruni kept citing the excesses of the Right, which are admittedly colorful, while seemingly ignoring their equivalent wrongs on the Left! I persisted, however, due to the very positive review by my Goodreads friend Bruce Katz, which is worth your attention. The author does take the Left to task as the book proceeds, and I would call the overall writing fairly well balanced. Unfortunately, I gotta acknowledge that Trump-style activity does make for interesting reading. I was left with a big desire to chat with the author further!
  This will be a definite nomination for my Sunday Philosopers book group.
• 
  Renae Reints

  2.5 stars? I love Frank Bruni, I read his newsletter regularly and I happen to agree with the vast majority of his perspectives shared both in that weekly email and in this book. But I just don't know if this needed to be a book.
  
  It's 200+ pages detailing analysis of why and examples of how we're so painfully aggrieved as a society today. He writes about the loss of our ability to connect with those who disagree with us, and how that self-centered single-mindedness (and a whole lot of valid reasons for being aggrieved) feeds destructive cancel culture and this mess of an American political system.
  
  It's a good study of our time. It's interesting. I underlined a lot. But at times it has so many examples of how messed up things are (in both political parties, tho one is more inclined to violence than the other, he notes) that I felt drowned by it all. I wish more time had been spent on the solutions, which are buried at the end, only in the last two chapters. I would also love to know how many times the word "grievance" is written, because I swear it must be as many times as pages in the book.
  
  Anyways. Still a Bruni fan, and these ideas are worth sharing and discussing. But (dare I say it, on Goodreads of all places) articles and newsletters are perhaps a better medium than books for sharing and discussing these ideas at the vast scale needed to enact the change he outlines. Though maybe sitting with the book helps the ideas sink in better? Who knows, maybe I'm just airing my grievance.
• 
  Emmet Sullivan

  Took me until about halfway through to really grasp the thesis, but once I did, I came to realize that Bruni is on to something. Yes, at one level this is a book that’s basically a compilation of dumb and deranged things people with extreme political beliefs have done in the past handful of years. But the analytical lense Bruni deploys - that much of those deranged things, coming from both sides of the political spectrum, can be viewed as essentially a pissing contest of who is more wronged/oppressed/etc. - is clever.
  
  It might seem like a trite observation that idiots on the left and right do dumb shit. But Bruni proposes that a lot of this dumb shit are not merely acts of political disagreement, but rather a disastrous (and occasionally violent) combination of pity party and temper tantrum.
  
  His writing style is convincing and level headed. His criticisms of both the left and right are blunt and often scathing. There’s some sarcasm and wit sprinkled throughout, and the whole book has an aura of “can you, dear reader, believe how pitiful we are?” but without belittling the undoubtedly serious topics he addresses. Smart and enjoyable through the end.
• 
  Amanda

  Nailed it.
• 
  Justine Wares

  I’m tired of this grandpa
• 
  Robert Sims

  An important book that taught me a lot about myself that I did not want to learn. It wasn’t “enjoyable” as much as it was incredibly informative.
• 
  Meg Roberts

  Required reading!!!!
• 
  Beth Peninger

  United States Publication: April 30, 2024
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this advanced reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.
  
  We are in the golden age of grievance. Bruce Handy wrote in June 2023, "With anger now the defining emotion of our own times, an in splenetic tribute to the previous century's Roaring 20s, I suggest we dub the current decade the Raging 20s." Frank Bruni concurs. Among many of his insights into this age of grievance is that the aggrieved set our culture wars in motion and escalated them. We are in an era of mass immaturity. (Chapter 2) The groundwork for it was laid through social media platforms, lack of civic studies, the breakdown of government through political partying in-fighting, and the human desire to hold on to a grudge and refuse to cede wrong thinking. Our stubborn hold on cognitive dissonance has fueled this age of grievances. And lest you think Bruni shines the spotlight on the many sins of the Republican party fueling this fire, he swings the spotlight over to the Democratic party as well. Nobody can escape the reality, we are all culpable - regardless of our political leanings, religious or not affiliations, whether we put the toilet paper roll on over or under, etc. (By the way, the only correct way to put on the toilet paper roll is over.)
  
  Bruni traces the history of grievance. From its useful and positive uses to its damaging and dangerous ones. He compares grievance then and now and how it has changed in tone and in action. Grievance then served a larger purpose and got some things done, like forming a new country. Grievance now? It serves no real purpose; all it does is give space for loud voices that have no real complaints, only personal affronts. These loud voices are trying to make national news that can lead to events like January 6, 2021. And terrifyingly, they are succeeding. "Almost no cultural event, no bit of news, no topic of national conversation is roped off from grievance, by which I mean a complaint or concern that should or could be a modest point of dispute, negotiable with businesslike diction and businesslike decorum, but is blown up wildly out of proportion." (Chapter 3)
  
  But, as Bruni gives evidence, the age of grievance has become addicting and dangerous - both physically and mentally. Scientific studies show how and why grievance turns the rational into the irrational, "....brain imaging studies show that harboring a grievance (a perceived wrong or injustice, real or imagined) activates the same neural reward circuitry as narcotics....[and] what your brain wants to do with that grievance - how it both extends the high and brings it to its most satisfying conclusion - is retaliate. To be clear, the retaliation doesn't need to be physically violent - an unkind word, or tweet, can also be very gratifying." (James Kimmel, Jr., lecturer at Yale University School of Medicine, Chapter 3) This leads to a string of revenge and punishment behaviors from the person, or persons, who see themselves as oppressed because of their grievances.
  
  Chapter 4 finds Bruni going waaaaay back to when the grumblings started and how they transformed into grievances. It's noted that in 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, observed a perpetually unsatisfied yearning in Americans, who, he said, "are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess." Now, instead of merely being unsatisfied, we have escalated those yearnings into grievances, and we are looking for someone to blame. He also explores the other contributing factors to this current age of grievance: climate change, increased income inequality, and self-aggrandizing behaviors that lead to widening disparities in all facets of life - income, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preferences, to name a few. The progress America is used to making and enjoying has come to a screeching halt, and with it, the optimism we collectively had. The grievances of this current age "affect how, every day, we interact or fail to interact with one another. They affect the stories we tell about ourselves and our world, ratcheting up the subjectivity of those narratives and corrupting the truth of them. They skew our perspectives. They skew us." (Chapter 8)
  
  So, what to do? How can we, individually, quit participating in this age of grievance? Bruni prescribes a few hopeful remedies at the conclusion of the book. (Chapters 9 and 10) Frank Bruni, himself, is a beacon of hope and optimism, able to loosen the grip on his own cognitive dissonance and see things for what they are, not for what he may perceive them to be. In his gracious way, he leads us down that path as well.
• 
  Kathryn Bashaar

  For about the first two-thirds, I was feeling like this was going to be a 2-star read for me or 3 stars at best. The first several chapters are just example after example of how grievance has gone out of control in our country over about the past twenty years or so. I started thinking, yeah, buddy, we know, tell us something new.
  
  Then he writes about how social media super-charged grievance and cancelling, which we also already knew.
  
  But the last few chapters really redeemed this book for me. Bruni ties our grievance economy to real violence, including in the halls of Congress. And he makes the bold point that some grievances are more serious than others. He cites, for example, Tucker Carlson’s bizarre obsession with the green M&M. He also quotes someone who implied that her “weird lunch” with her male employer was equivalent to a rape. Microaggressions may be hurtful, but they are not the same as job discrimination, redlining, physical aggression, marriage discrimination, etc. Not long ago, that would have gone without saying. Now it is courageous to say it, and someone will surely complain loudly about how aggrieved it makes them feel to have their grievance belittled.
  
  Bruni also suggests some ways to tone down our culture of grievance. Some of them are simple and personal: get to know your neighbors. Some are harder and political. End gerrymandering. Implement ranked-choice voting. Allow independents to vote in primaries. Make it easier to vote. Fund a national service program that would bring together young people from different parts of our country. Design cities so that people encounter each other more. He cites some governors who have managed to get things done in a bipartisan way: Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts.
  
  Finally, Bruni urges us to re-learn humility. Neither side of our political divide has all the answers. No advocacy group can be certain that their particular cause should be our most urgent priority. For God’s sake, can we learn to listen to each other again? And can we do it without taking offense at every little thing?
  
  One point I wish that Bruni had touched on a little more is rationality over emotion. Feelings are legitimate, but any good therapist will tell you that they have to be modulated with reason. Too many people nowadays are quite certain that what they feel is the last word on everything. Bruni does cite the excellent work of Jonathan Rauch on this topic in his book
  The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. But I would have liked to see fewer examples at the beginning of this book and a little more treatment of rationality and truth-seeking at the end.
  
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• 
  Gary Moreau

  Frank Bruni can write. He is one of the most lucid authors of his generation and that alone is good reason to read this book. Whether you agree with him or not, it is a pleasant and informative read. It flows with insight.
  
  The theme is one of political division defined by grievance, but it goes beyond the typical divide between left and right and speaks to the foundational politics of anger and revenge that fuels both sides of the inevitable debate. We are beyond polarized. Disagreement has disappeared from our discourse. We hate. Nothing short of crushing our opponents will calm us down. Or so we think.
  
  As I read, I couldn’t help but think back to my own parents. Now deceased, both were the children of immigrants, both were born in the 1920s, and both served in the US Navy during WWII. I was born in the 1950s and one of the things I remember most vividly about them is that neither believed in institutional politics. To this day, I have no idea which political party either one affiliated with, and not once would they even admit publicly who they voted for in a presidential election, although both believed in civic duty and were sure to vote in all of them.
  
  To them, WWII and the Cold War that followed were all about ridding the world of tribal politics. Germany and the USSR were both defined by their institutional political parties. They had fought, in their minds, to free the world of such polarized thinking. The beauty of the US political system, to them, was that our politics was built around individuals, not ideologies. What little they spoke about politicians, they spoke about the person, not their agenda.
  
  At one point Bruni speaks of China and muses his astonishment that so many Americans, in years past, already believed that the Chinese economy was bigger than our own, which it’s not. Now retired and living in the Midwest, I lived in China for 14 years working for an American company there. And upon my return I was struck by how laser-focused Americans are on the CCP. The Chinese aren’t. They seldom talk about the Party, but not because they are forbidden to. Their priorities are just elsewhere. As Bruni posed his question it occurred to me that if you asked the question of which economy was bigger to the average Chinese they would simply stare in bewilderment as to why you were asking such an irrelevant question. If forced, I am sure they all would have answered correctly – the US.
  
  One of Bruni’s conclusions is that the current culture of anger, grievance, and revenge prevents any meaningful discussion of the real issues we all face. He’s right. We have forgotten the universal truth that all of reality is a duality. There are two sides to everything. The Chinese call it yin and yang, but the concept has long been built into the American worldview, until recently. Sports is a duality that historically defined the American psyche in a balance of the celebration of both victory and sportsmanship. Now there is only one correct side and a side that must be obliterated.
  
  While the topics are serious and could result in reader melancholy, Bruni does bring a refreshing humor to the discussion. In discussing West Virginia’s absurd attempt to enable everyone to police illegal voting, for example, he writes: “But I was above all baffled: How do you spot illegal voting? Do you use binoculars, as with bird-watching? ‘Look, sweetheart, there’s an American goldfinch – and there’s a Honduran migrant with a stack of fraudulent ballets in his backpack!’” If we stop laughing, we will surely fail.
  
  Bruni is realistic but there is always an underlying optimism of the truly inquisitive mind. I am struggling to remain so. The political strategy used by both sides today is self-reinforcing. As a blogger and writer who often finds myself seeing validity in both sides of every issue, I know firsthand that it is difficult to thread the needle of duality, and if you try, no one will buy your books or read your newsletters. Grievance? I’m sure. Reality is a duality.
  
  Bruni closes the book with a call for humility all around. And I couldn’t agree more. Having lived in the corporate world of business for almost fifty years I believe with all my heart that the key and only criterion for leadership of any kind is humility. One building block of that is acceptance of the Buddhist truth that all of life is suffering. I am not a Buddhist, and I don’t mean suffering in the sense of pain or oppression. I mean suffering in the sense of seeing ourselves in the right perspective, the duality of individuality and the need for collective obligation.
  
  A timely book, superbly written. I highly recommend it, whichever uniform you wear.
  
• 
  Brian Meyer

  [4.25] Log it as an eerie coincidence. I finished Bruni’s intriguing deep-dive into societal polarization and unbridled anger only hours before the first assassination attempt of a U.S. presidential candidate in decades. It is rare when I begin a book with my inner voice grumbling, “You probably won’t finish it.” I wondered if a book-length examination of our grievance culture that weaves together some previous newspaper columns would be overdose at a time when I often turn to books as an escape from our tumultuous times. But I soon realized that there were so many enlightening concepts to unpack and ponder that Bruni’s work would not end up on the DNF list.
  
  The book’s promotional blurb and author interviews assert that Bruni takes aim at both sides of the political spectrum. This is a fair assertion, but more admonitions seem to be directed at the MAGA right.
  
  The author doesn’t ignore the reality that addressing grievances has had positive impacts throughout history. Consider the civil rights movement. But he argues that toxic politics, the internet, AI and other forces have fueled an era of “extreme aggrievement.” The danger, he maintains, is that “grievance is the enemy of perspective, proportionality and nuance."
  
  In an interview in the Columbia Journalism Review, Bruni urges the media to avoid using tired playbooks that can lead to oversimplifying complex political issues. “Dicing and slicing political coverage sends this message that we’re in different camps that maybe compete against one another, rather than that we’re all Americans, ultimately in the same boat,” he says.
  
  Bruni skillfully explores the dangers of confirmation bias, stressing the importance of training ourselves to consume “balanced news diets so we resist the temptation to overstuff ourselves with information that feeds our existing biases and misconceptions.”
  
  The book is well-written, thoroughly researched and incredibly timely.
• 
  Carol

  This is the book I needed to read. I am a person who prioritizes justice. I feel morally compelled to speak for those who are denied justice. However, I'm also worn out by dealing with people who feel they've been unjustly treated over the smallest things. In his wisdom, Frank Bruni also recognizes that we've all grown almost addicted to feeling aggrieved.
  
  With all possible objectivity, Bruni examines the plethora of grievances that permeate American society today, from both sides of the political spectrum and through all areas of endeavor. He points out that we originated as a country based on a grievance against those who exerted unjust powers over us, and that subsequently we crafted a constitution that allows for the airing of grievances and redress of them through a judicial system. He also emphasizes that we are less able to address true injustices and grievances effectively, when we're beset with multitudes of loud and angry grievances from those who cannot let go of the idea that they're being personally wronged at every turn. When our candidates and elected officials are focused only on grievance and not on a vison for a better future for us all, we are lost. His is a voice asking for less angry confrontation and more problem solving through reasonable human connection.
  
  
• 
  Lauren Eichler

  This book is definitely not something I would normally pick up, but after hearing Frank Bruni talk at an author event, I decided to give it a try. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really liked the approach and the engaging writing style. I also appreciated the somewhat neutral political stance he takes in the sense of pointing out pros and cons on both sides of American politics. At times the book challenged my thinking and I definitely didn’t agree with everything and I 100% think that was the point of this book. It made me reevaluate how I view politics and my mentality about the current state of the country. I also really appreciate that he offered solutions to some of the problems he brought up because too often we focus on all the negative without recognizing what we can actually do about it which is very depressing. This book is jam packed with information and I’m definitely going to need to reread it to fully understand all the points he brought up. I highly recommend anyone who is voting in this country to read this book!
• 
  Kirk

  Tough subject, well researched and written. I’ve read Bruni’s NYT column frequently and like his perspective and writing style. Was nice to hear this in his voice on audiobook. The book does an excellent job of looking at how politics and politicians (both sides - pretty balanced look at the issues) have devolved to be more performative and less productive. And that social media has amplified all of that in ways that human nature makes it hard to change. Thankfully, he offers a couple of chapters of examples and ideas for changing it. It’s both tough to hear and hopeful, if we’re willing to fight the pull of grievance and rebuild the social contract. We don’t have to agree, just need to be more aware and less reactionary.
• 
  Colleen

  A fantastic and pretty wide-ranging mediation on the complaint culture that seems to be inescapable anymore. I appreciated how the thesis statement essentially ended up being that people possess a marked lack of humility these days and that something as simple as taking a step back, having a moment of self-reflection, and reevaluating how good you actually have it before speaking/posting would go a long way to facilitating the attitude adjustment most Americans need right now.
• 
  Kyle

  I can’t disagree with the fundamental argument that we live in an era of grievance driven politics on right and left. But, he goes from decrying the excesses of leftist college students to those of the President of the United States backed by his entire party without an adequate discussion of the difference in degree and kind between these grievances then it undermines its own argument. Overall a fairly shallow book that relies on anecdotes.
• 
  Susan

  This is a book like The Divider; important, yet hard to read. Scholarly, and reads like a sociology text at times. I love Frank Bruni and everything he stands for. Trump’s guilty verdict transpired while I was reading, which only intensified the point of this book. Bruni posits that humility is the answer/opposite of grievance; I agree.
• 
  Pat Herndon

  I love the way Frank Bruni writes. I love the way Frank Bruni thinks. He is such a clearheaded observer whose writing indicates an innate kindness. He sees a way to a better, kinder, more productive future. Please read this book and see if you agree.
• 
  Taylor Douglas

  An essential read for anyone trying to navigate the current political and social climate.
• 
  Laurie (bookaddictpnw)

  4.5 stars - must read for anyone planning on voting this November as well as anyone who’s interested in a kinder, more humble America. Bruni is simply a beautiful writer with a golden pen.
• 
  Cris

  I am disappointed in this book. When an individual does a book that has so much potential as this one I still expect people not to be bias. Shame on me I guess.