Bill Ayers’s Public Enemy: A Review

I’m the unlikeliest person to look kindly on somebody like Bill Ayers. I’m annoyed by spoiled Daddy’s boys from ultra-rich families who get bored with the “endless superficial pleasures” (Ayers 15) that are theirs by virtue of having been born into immense wealth. Their attempts to liberate the downtrodden they neither understand nor really like from a hunt for the superficial pleasures that the rich revolutionaries find boring are both sad and embarrassing.

This is why I was very surprised at how much I liked both Ayers’s most recent book Public Enemy and its author. The book tells of Ayers’s experiences at the center of the fury unleashed against him as Obama’s terrorist pal during the 2008 presidential campaign. The author also goes back to his life underground as a fugitive from the law in the 1970s. This was the part of the narrative that attracted me the most. After going underground, Ayers found himself living in a crummy little apartment in New York with a small baby and a wife who worked long hours. This ogre of a woman was the embodiment of a traditional husband in the worst sense of the word. Still, Ayers never has a single bad word to say about this scary person.

Somebody had to take care of the baby, and Ayers stayed home with his small son. Eventually, he managed to find a daycare for his son and got a part-time job working at this daycare. Many people would use this opportunity to engage in extensive whining, bemoaning their sad, miserable life with nothing but a miserable part-time job and no prospects. Ayers, however, used his work at the daycare to develop a very interesting system of early childhood education, got an MA, got a PhD, and became a specialist in pedagogy. I really admire people who use even the crappiest life circumstances to advance their personal growth. The joy that Ayers feels when writing about his discovery of pedagogy as a field of knowledge is contagious. Unlike most Liberals I have met, Ayers is not into apocalyptic scenarios and doesn’t engage in tales of gloom and doom. He is an essentially happy person who digs life and never stops learning.

This way of being often translates into the kind of writing that is a little too gushy for my liking.  He talks, for instance, of a “dazzling child-care center” and informs us that he was “paying laser-like attention” to his children. He is also really into alliteration, and I find that very distracting. In the space of only three pages, we encounter “bursting bliss,” “safe and solid,” “explore and experiment,” “feast and fatten,” and “the middle of the muddle of our mish-mash collection.”

Of course, I understand that Ayers’s unwavering optimism is the result of having extremely rich and very well-connected relatives always willing to come to his rescue. I mean, this is a guy who had Dr. Spock paying him house visits whenever his adoptive son got some minor ailment. How likely are you to have a world celebrity offer you pediatric services at home whenever your kid sneezes? I’m guessing not very likely. I have no idea what it might feel like to know that no matter what you do and no matter what trouble you get yourself into, a bunch of millionaire relatives will be there to set everything right. It must be both extremely comforting and horribly debilitating.

It is a miracle that Ayers didn’t live a completely meaningless life with his kind of origins. Usually, millionaire rebels descend into drugs and uselessness by the age of 30. Ayers, however, has done as much as anybody could hope to do to redeem himself from the sin of being a rich revolutionary. If one can do what he did, then anything is possible.

The book is funny, engaging, and I highly recommend it. Ayers is coming to St. Louis to present this book, and I’m definitely going to his presentation.