Where the Deer and the Antelope Play
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
By: Nick Offerman
[Nominated for ‘Best Humor’ category of the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge]
The deer and the antelope took a backseat to Offerman’s pretentious politics that were salivating to get their chance to roam on the range.
This book is Nick Offerman sitting atop his high horse, thesaurus in hand, shouting ‘NUANCE’ and ranting about straight white males, racism, money, Republicans, climate change, Covid, and mass-produced beef in between his frequent use of swear words and Aldo Leopold references and infrequent recountings of national parks.
If Chris Pratt or Aubrey Plaza ever write a book, I might need to avoid it because both Nick Offerman’s and Amy Poehler’s (Yes, Please) books were disappointing!
I’m a fan of Ron Swanson. His pyramid of greatness held a prominent position at my desk when I worked. When you read this book you’ll hear Swanson’s voice— Offerman bears a lot of personality resemblance to his Parks and Rec character.
Though I picked this book to fulfill a reading challenge, I was looking forward to humor and the exploration of national parks and nature. I didn’t expect to agree with his politics and would not have minded some of his opinions incorporated into this book.
But man, this book failed on all three accounts:
Lack of Humor
His attempts at humor felt forced and trying-too-hard. His overuse of big and unnecessary words made his attempts at humor quite pretentious. I love words and big vocabularies so for me to be annoyed by his writing style in this way is saying a lot!
His humor either relied on obnoxiously worded sentences, an abundance of swear words, use of millennial slang, or name-dropping that didn’t mean anything to me.
The few parts I found funny were when he was making fun of radio ads and guys who aggressively rev their engines and his chapter called Sedona Blows where he highlights how ‘awful’ Sedona is and how much no one would ever want to visit such a ‘terrible and ugly place.’ I’ve been there, and I agree… Stay away from Sedona.
Lack of Nature
I love nature. I guess probably not as much as Nick Offerman. But I usually prefer vacations with hiking rather than urban tourist traps. I thought I was going to get more anecdotes and information about various National Parks that would remind me why I love to walk in God’s creation.
He says that nature “needs to be meditated on, not an attraction to view from the car.” I agree. Unfortunately, his book didn’t get his memo because there is not much meditation.
The first few chapters were more focused on nature and we hear about a few hikes and a whitewater rafting trip. Another chapter talks about a friend’s small family farm.
But even those chapters were often overshadowed by his ranting rabbit trails. He can’t help himself. I’m pretty sure his politics are more important to him than nature.
Also, he was really annoyed by families on the trails with young kids and their “constant” yelling at their kids to stay on the trail and to stop putting stuff in their mouths. Offerman doesn’t have kids, that is quite obvious. He wants everyone to appreciate nature, but that’s not necessarily an innate trait. If we want to teach our kids to love nature, we have to TAKE them to nature. And the nature of kids is to run off the trail and put everything in their mouth. What does he want from us?!
I found it interesting that he says this: “I appreciate a regular reminder from Mother Nature that, because her power is unfathomable, and her whims unpredictable, she demands the utmost respect. Humans like me who operate deep within the protective shell of civilization can easily forget that we are not ultimately in charge of things on planet Earth.”
Obviously I don’t believe in ‘Mother Nature’ and I don’t know if Offerman believes in God, but he is confirming what the Bible tells us:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1)
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7-10)
Though he may not voice it in these terms, he recognizes that we are finite creatures that should stand in awe and worship our sovereign Creator.
“The disciples were amazed. ‘Who is this man?’ they asked. ‘Even the winds and waves obey him!’” (Matthew 8:27)
The power of nature, which is under the power of God, reveals to us our Creator and that is why nature is so mesmerizing!
Bold and Baseless Politics
This book is exhibit A on why America is so divided.
We do not need to all have the same politics. We have the right to state our opinion and share our thoughts. We need to be able to accept criticism and improve our beliefs where they are weak or misinformed, and we need to be unoffendable when people disagree with us.
But Offerman is operating from a very strong belief that Republicans are all that’s wrong with the world and Democrats are the only ones doing the right things for the right motives. While there are truths to certain remarks he makes, he leaves no grace for anyone who thinks differently than him.
He says, “Most of the intelligent people I run into agree on what are the big-ticket, modern questions to which we should be devoting our collective attention.”
This, among many quotes I could include imply or directly state that those who do not agree with him are idiots.
Yet, not once does he provide any evidence or support for his beliefs. He sounds like a megaphone for the mainstream narrative. He says he avoids Fox and gets his news and information from CNN and NPR and you absolutely know it because he spouts it off to a T.
He mentions the right-wing propaganda machine. And I won’t deny that there is misinformation and manipulation on both sides of the aisle, but it’s a bit ironic that he points out right-wing propaganda while espousing every single belief the left wants people to uphold.
Thaddeus Williams provides three trademarks of propaganda in his book- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. Propaganda:
Offers a highly edited history that paints the most damning picture it can of a given people group
Encourages us to treat individual neighbors as exemplars of their damnable group
Gives us a way to blame all of life’s troubles on that damnable group and its members
Williams points out that these three things were used to oppress black people in history past. But they are being re-employed today. We recognize these marks in the identity groups being constructed. And I definitely see this in Offerman’s portrayal of Republicans, Christians, or straight white males.
Williams reminds us:
“Telling damnable stories about entire people groups, seeing individuals as exemplars of their groups, and blaming the hardness of life on them are really bad ideas.”
Here are just a few problematic things Offerman says in his book:
“The path to justice and equality for all Americans and ultimately all earthlings is going to require all of us safe, white, unoppressed softies to shut the h*** up…”
He thinks to acquire justice and equality for all the earth requires white people to stop talking? That seems pretty illogical. The world is more than America. The injustices happening in the Middle East and India and China will only be fixed if white people shut up? Explain that to me. He should probably take this down a notch.
‘Conservative’ politics (which is a polite term for discriminatory culture… white ethno-state…”
The irony in this book is amazing. He is pro-land-conservation and says, “In so many ways that are referred to as ‘progress’, we happily leave behind such an incredible wealth of accrued human knowledge.” Of course he’s referring to farming practices, yet rejects this idea when it comes to conserving the Constitution. Apparently he doesn’t see how progressive politics leaves behind a wealth of human knowledge and experience. Conserving land=excellent, conserving the Constitution and tradition=discriminatory racism and evil.
“…white culture that has been in power so long has been wrong in almost every way, and finding out what actually is right will require a lot of listening and then the instituting of new ideas.”
‘Wrong in almost every way’? That’s a bold statement. Wrong in a lot of ways, sure. But this is a gross exaggeration. Also, could you explain to me what white culture is?
“[the political party he ascribes to- aka the Democrats] are the ones striving continuously toward an actual democracy while doing its best to ensure every citizen has state-funded health care and have come under fire to see one form of empathy or another delivered to some group that is being victimized in some way. The heart of their efforts is out of compassion. The Republicans are open about their desire to see the liberals suffer pain, violence, or death.”
Here is a classic example of how he attributes anything good to Democrats and gives them pure motives and then attributes everything bad to Republicans and gives them evil motives. But I think we can all agree that the majority of people are pro-justice and pro-human-flourishing. We just disagree on how that is achieved.
Granted there is a lot of inappropriate trash talk and vitriol being slung by BOTH sides. But we cannot paint people with broad strokes and assume the worst of people because of their ‘groups’ that we are wrongly lumping everyone into as if that organizes the world in a healthy and beneficial way.
Here is a fair assessment of the two major political parties given by author, Jonathan Leeman, in his excellent book How the Nations Rage. It’s long but it speaks to our need to see the good in our ‘opposition’ and see places for improvement in ourselves:
“Let me give you my own evaluation of the two main American parties… A biblical strength of the Republican Party is its emphasis on personal responsibility and not looking to government as a service provider. A biblical strength of the Democratic party is its interest in representing the disenfranchised and downcast. An idolatrous trajectory of the Republican Party is its tendency toward an amoral libertarianism, which can function according to the utlilitarian principle of sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. Its good emphasis on individual responsibility can overlook larger structural realities and deny implicit biases. And these blind spots or idolatries—and it can be one or the other—end up leaving behind the poor, the foreigner, or the minority. This is unjust. An idolatrous trajectory of the Democratic party is toward a secular godlessness that literally boos God at its national convention while also treating government as the godlike savior for all of life’s ills. Many in the party have bought into the god of self-definition and self-expression, a religion that denounces and screens out biblical morality. The party’s platform and practices prize the “liberty” of sexuality and lifestyle decisions over the life and liberty of an unborn person.”
Offerman has a lot of ideas of how justice and equality are achieved. He has a lot of thoughts on agriculture and farming. But as with a lot of democratic policies I’ve seen proposed— they look good on paper and they sound pleasant to the ear, but they are not practical or sustainable.
Sure, it would be great if we could all eat organic food and if the animals we are eating didn’t have to live in cages and if the entire country’s agriculture could run like a small family farm. But how can we achieve this? How can we try to stop world hunger and lower the prices of food for those who are pinching pennies if we do that?
There is, indeed, an obsession of money, but Offerman wants to make billionaires pay to “mend our errant industrial methods.” People who want to keep taxing the rich and make them pay more money for everything don’t understand how the economy works. That de-incentivizes people to make money. It’s, again, a little ironic he makes these claims because Hollywood actors get paid millions for their work but they don’t really create new jobs. The Jeff Bezos’ of the world make a lot of money but then they create hundreds of jobs for others to build wealth. Sorry, Nick Offerman, everything can’t be free.
It would be really great if we could live in a world where everyone has lots of money and land and organic food and everything is equal and everyone lives according to this ambiguous sense of ‘decency’ Offerman believes everyone should agree upon. But unlike popular opinion, people are not inherently good. People’s sin nature causes corruption and indecency and taking advantage of others. (If you don’t believe me, have kids. They don’t need to be taught to be selfish or to hit or to take what they want when they want it.) Not to mention, I don’t know how he thinks everyone agrees on what ‘decent’ means.
Communist governments have tried to make all things ‘fair’ and ‘equal’ and we see where that leads to. As much as people seem to adore government mandates these days— they do not promote freedom, they promote dangerous precedents and they kill the economy.
I will be the first to say that I don’t know a whole lot about economics, and far less about agriculture (GMOs and pesticides and such) but there was nothing in this book that did any persuading or convincing. I will keep learning and see if there’s a way to accomplish what Offerman wants to do, but the things he portrayed in this was book were told like this- “We need to do this because it’s right and it should be obvious to you and if you don’t agree you are dumb and you hate people and want to see them cry.”
I think it’s funny that all of these celebrities speak out on complex issues as if we care what they have to say. What credentials do they have to tell us what is going on in the world and how to fix it? They have a big platform and they reach a lot of people but that doesn’t mean we accept what they say as fact. How much studying have they really done?
Truth is not always the loudest or most popular voice.
Offerman offered his opinions but there wasn’t much that told me it was true.
Is There Anything Good?
The cover art, for one!
There’s always SOMETHING you can learn from even the worst books.
What I think is a really interesting thing to reflect on that he touches on in this book, is the insane consumerism that America is drenched in. Everyone used to be producers. Their farms and their homes were their places of work. The industrial revolution brought about factories and work moved outside the home. Technological advancements have made things easier and cheaper but what have we lost along the way?
It doesn’t seem like we can stop technological advancements and it doesn’t seem like we can go back. So how do we live in the world today and still be producers instead of consumers? And how does this fit into a biblical worldview where we have less and less to rely on God for and we start controlling more and more of our life?
Another positive was this quote: “I feel like we can encourage one another to invest in human beings instead of billionaire yachts that remain docked and shockingly expensive hot rods that nobody gets to drive.”
Totally! I recognize the need for governments and the forces of an economy to focus on money, but as individuals, we need to steward our time and resources to help and care for others. Just because I don’t want the government to mandate all chicken farming to be free-range doesn’t mean I expect everyone to fend for themselves.
As the body of Christ, we need to watch out for each other and provide for others when we can. This is a huge role of the church (which I might also add in here that many Democrats would like to take away tax-exempt statuses from churches who will not comply with their ideology and belief system and thus destroy churches and their ability to help others financially, so there’s that to consider.)
So the good takeaways from this book are as follows: love and care for God’s creation which includes both nature and people; and stop buying all the crap you don’t need so people stop making crap we don’t need. (I’m obviously guilty of this one on the regular…)
Conclusion
Offerman shattered the peaceful range and introduced a divisive book that feels rather pointless though it’s clear he believes his thesaurasized words to be utterly important.
If you want to read this book for the humor— it’s scarce. (Thus, it’s nomination for Best Humor is misplaced.)
If you want to read this book for the reflections and descriptions of nature— they’re scarce.
If you want to read this book because you love bold, brash politics that lack grace and support, well, I guess you might enjoy it.
But overall, I can’t think of a reason anyone would want to read this long, misleading, and unnecessary book.
I have heard good things about his book The Greatest Love Story Ever Told and I may try that one. But if it has even half of the coarse language as this book, I will have to pass.
Find a funnier book.
For something that’s actually about nature read Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton.
To figure out your politics read some books that are more scholarly and actually present evidence and intelligent logic to go along with their opinions.
And if you want more Nick Offerman, just watch Parks and Rec and call it good.
P.S. When did ‘lousy’ become a positive adjective??
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