December 12, 2004
The Rebel Sell
Now this is just genius. Joe Heath and Andrew Potter, both philosophy professors at Canadian universities, have published The Rebel Sell (available through Amazon.ca here), and their thesis is as follows:
"[T]he counterculture is not a threat to the "system," it is the system."
The introduction to the book can be found here, and a longer, brilliant excerpt can be found here.
The analysis is brilliant, and the takedown of hipsters (browse through the discussion, you'll see what I mean) is spot on. Someone get me this book.
Dear Ryan:
Thanks for the article. It's very helpful, though there's an air of condescension in the writing that is off-putting (i.e."I'm so hip I see that the hip aren't all that hip".) And it is disappointing that they say the main solution to consumerism is legislation. If (as they say) the root of consumerism is the need to find a distinctive identity it hardly seems that changing the tax code will get down deep enough to deal with the problem. Hauerwas and Willimon would say, I think, that we are open to consumerism because of the decline of 'thick' communities. In a strong 'community of memory and meaning' we get identity through relationships and roles. But individualism makes us psychologically needy for self-definition. That leaves us vulnerable to consumerism. Nothing else but community will innoculate us.
But thanks for the link!
Tim Keller
Posted by: Tim Keller at December 12, 2004 4:11 PMI'd completely agree that the solution to the "problem" of consumerism is not legislation (though I also happen to think that some legislative changes where advertising is concerned wouldn't be a bad thing, though that's a different discussion). But I'd also want to say that the identification of the "counterculture" as merely an aspect of, if not the driving force beind, consumer culture is spot on. I'd also agree with your assessment of the problem, but would want to add the decline of ecclesiological authority structures probably have a lot to do with that.
Posted by: ryan at December 12, 2004 5:25 PMI just finished reading the book yesterday. I've never visited this blog before, I only came across it just now when, out of shear bordom, I googled my own name. Weird coincidence!
Anyway, I thought it was a brilliant book too. However, with respect to the "consumerism/legislation" issue, my impression is that they're not really concerned about consumerism except to the extent that it distracts would-be activists from real social problems. They argue that the counter-culture rebel who chooses to divorce his/herself from what he or he/she perceives as a flawed system is, in fact, contributing nothing to the discourse concerning how such flaws may be remedied! Essentially, they think it's a cop-out, made all the more tragic because those seduced by "the rebel sell" are precisely those who tradtionally made up the base of the progressive left in Canada.
Ryan Davidson
Toronto
whats new about this book commodify your dissent
salvos from the baffler was published in 97 and one market under god by thomas frank in 2000