Nation of Rebels : Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Witty
Review: A brilliant, witty critique of the counterculture and how it has diverted our energies from pursuing effective political solutions to our social problems and redirected them into silly, self-indulgent, self-defeating gestures of pseudo-rebellion. Very similar to what Thomas Frank and his crew of wits at The Baffler are saying, only more incisive and analytical. Heath and Potter are masters of lucid exposition (for example, I've never read a more elegant description of the Prisoner's Dilemma than theirs) who use Thorstein Veblen's economic theories to pull the whole lid off the notion of commodified "dissent".

My only quarrel with the book is that 1) it is light on prescription (the authors content themselves with brief, general calls for more regulation to control the worst excesses of corporate behavior); and 2) it doesn't always address the strongest arguments against corporate hegemony (the authors are content to argue that Walmart isn't so bad, because it offers low prices and friendly service, but they don't mention anything about its underhanded business practices or its devastating effect on local economies).

Nevertheless, this is the most persuasive and thoroughgoing critique I've yet read on the sad fraud that is the counterculture.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant book, but within limits
Review: A good book to consider in tandem with this one is James Masterson's "The Search for the Real Self." Masterson's thesis is that those with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders have never really had support for the development of real, authentic, core selves. It's but a small leap from there to Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism." The idea is that many, and perhaps most, Americans today have that pervasive sense of emptiness, a lack of self.

One of the authors of "Nation of Rebels" admits to having been a punk rocker rebel in a prior phase of life. He then goes on to say that that phase was, he realized upon reflection, an example of the false rebellion that the book talks about. But then, disturbingly, it becomes apparent as one reads the book, that Heath and Potter assume the same lack of self in all members of todays "nation of rebels." In other words, all consumption is based upon false, status, pseudo-rebellious tendencies.

The problem here is that the authors assume that no one buys a BMW in order to have an exciting driving experience, but only to impress the neighbors. They assume that no one buys a home theater in order to simply enjoy movies, but only to have the latest "thing." They would assume that no 20 year old would quit college simply because it wasn't right for him or her, and that the only conceivable reason would be a false sense of rebellion against parents, society, or whatnot.

In other words, they truly seem to believe what they posit early in the book: that real, authentic selves do not exist. In anyone. Talk about psychological projection outward from their own inner circumstances on a doozy of a scale! To that extent, as brilliant as this book is, I suspect that the authors are playing at being deeper, more serious social activists, and are playing at being Canadian philosophy professors, in the same exact way that one of them once played at being a rebel.

The second limitation of the book is the assumption that the authors make that "progressive" politics are a given. If you disagree with that premise, as conservatives, moderates, and many of the countercultural-type liberals that Heath and Potter are attacking in this book would surely do, then the authors have nothing for you. The book collapses into a battle between the authors as Ralph Nader-like diligent old-style liberals, and the standard liberal of the Clinton or Kerry variety. As such, the true audience for this book becomes, in all likelihood, the conservative reader-as-voyeur, as such standard liberal icons as Marcuse, Ellul, Mumford, Laing, Baudrillard, Foucault, and on and on are cleaned and gutted with profound gusto.

I sense this is an important book, and is a bomb thrown into a crowded room. I'm not sure what the results are, or what they will be further down the road. I look forward to how other readers respond.

Rating:
Summary: good on the left and right
Review: Brilliant critique of counterculture ideology and how it actually feeds, strengthens, and most importantly, lies at the heart of capitalism rather than subverts it. The two philosophy professors use theories from Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class and Peirre Bordeau's notion of aesthetic value and taste as well as citing a variety of contemporary media examples such as Fight Club, American Beauty, and Naomi Klein's NO Logo. Their main argument is that the values of counterculture that were and still are seen as subversive to the evils of capitalism and that see capitalism as evil in itself are really the cause of so many of the evils in the market system. By automatically seeing anything mainstream as coercive, conformist, and just for the "masses," anti-consumerism is nothing more than a reworking of anti-mass society. Thus counter culture is nothing more than anti-mass society, where sub-cultures continually emerge and get taken into the mainstream, only to be "thrown away" by those who cannot stand to like anything many other people like. New genre's and "groundbreaking" work is continually occuring as this counterculture ideology drives this prisoner's dilemma in a race to the bottom. Wealthy capitalist nations reach a stage where basic, necessary goods are provided and what becomes important is positional goods that provide status. The problem with positional goods, of which status is one (based upon different criteria, e.g. the city you live in, sartorial tastes, restaruants, employment, etc) is that they are a zero sum game. Food can be produced to feed everyone, but what gives one thing status, or cool, proportionally makes something else, not cool. The fact that one restaurant is hot makes another one not, precisely because people are seeking diferentiation. And for a moment they have it, whether it be new music or cars, its confers a status of cool upon the consumer because they have "gotten it" whereas others are just conforming with the masses. They use music as a perfect example of non-mainstream conferring status upon the listener. Hal Niedzviecki searches for the ultimate "unco-optable" music, which he finds in Braino, with "staccato blasts that unnerve the scattered chattering poseurs and scare the unprepared," and later he admits it to be just "awkward, painful noise."

This critique seems so far left it is right. It attacked many of the ideas I have become to unknowingly embrace just because they were leftist and a bit rebellious. The counterculture values make it easy to seem rebellious to the wrongs of the system while at the same time having fun. But this book takes a very practical approach, and while I disagree with some of their arguments about the ills of advertising, I agree with their take on countercultre theory. While they do address the pharmaceautical industry and some of its problems, I don't think they consider the impact advertising has had on the drugs they sell. I think the enormous rise in the sale of pharma's drugs coinciding with their ability to advertise and their gigantic increase in advertising is somewhat detrimental to their disregard of the affects of advertising. I have not read Naomi Klein's No Logo, but this book seems to do a very balanced job of discrediting it. They make Klein out to be a pretentious liberal concerned with status and a much more fervent driver of competitive consumption than most of the people she may blame for being "branded."
The book also offers some more practical solutions to problems they argue are market failures that can be corrected. They offer many reforms that many reject because they just do not seem rebellious enough and are only reforms, whereas counterculture is concerned with subversiveness, and many times, dissent for the sake of dissent,which Heath and Potter call deviance. Some of the reforms include eliminating advertising as a deductable tax expense (or cut the deduction back), reducing the deductions for entertainment, and pollution credits and penalties. The broader idea is to internalize many of the costs that are now externalized. For example, many negative externalities such as pollution, for which everyone pays, are not incurred by the consumer of a product. This is a market failure and can thus be corrected by government regulation.
This book is by far the best of 2004 (and a latecomer it is) and should be read by those on the left seeking a critique of many of their views and on the right because the traditional dichotomy on these types of issues is just not relevant anymore. There is more room for agreement than people admit.

Rating:
Summary: Nation of Posers...
Review: Finally, a book that honestly looks at the shallow reasoning that has plagued the American Left (and other so-called 'left-wing' groups in other countries). Both authors use examples from Canada, US, and the western world in general to good effect as to how 'rebels' of society are really just scouts for the new trends and fads of consumer culture, whether they know it or not. Heath and Potter also deconstruct the myth that advertising is made primarily to 'program' people to buy products when in reality producers create more ads for an already-popular brand or product connected with it in order to claim their large stake in the market.
If any progressive change that benefits people as a whole is expected, people have to become active participants in the polticial legislative scene. Sure it is tough, work-intensive, and inglamorous. But people really want to clean-up the environment, stop corruption within business and the government, and solve other major problems, they will need to roll up their sleeves and get to work. However most people would rather just do the 'fun' bits of rebellion such as drugs, funky clothing, progressive music, film, art, and other expressive mediums. Rebels are so caught up in just showing off their their avant-garde expressions of individuality they easily lose sight of the cause they were fighting for. This critique can apply to both liberals and Neo-Conservatives within the US political system, mainly because both sides advocate extreme points of view that don't take a middle road that can fix this country up when it needs help the most. Particularly since many Neocons today used to be liberals a couple decades ago and many liberals today used to be yesterday's conservatives. We do not need to overthrow the government to get paradise (radicals) and we do not need to turn the government into a psudeo-totalitarian regime in order to set the country right(conservatives).
In regards to capitalism both authors agree the system has merits but it is far from perfect in its current form. Current counter-culture movements do more harm towards institutional efforts that have potential to bring more good to developing nations in the future. The WTO protests are one example that the authors go into detail over the point that the 'keep it or lose it' mentality makes current radical movements counter-productive.
The book itself is not only detailed, even, and well-written, but quite humorous as well. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the exoticization of the east as some sort of anti-materialist wonderland when in reality East Asia is just as materialist and competitive as we are. They also argue that the influence of East Asian pop culture items and goods is just as strong as the spread of American ones. So much for the "Americanization" of the world.
It's good to see a well-reasoned analysis like the one in "Nation of Rebels" on the state of modern society, particularly since politics and public discourse in general is so polarized. This is a must-read for anyone who is fed up with the ideological blowhards that dominate public opinion (Although counter-cultural narcissism is not a new thing).

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I found this book to be quite interesting, as it is the first leftist critique of radical anti-capitalism that I have come upon written for a popular audience. The authors seem to have some very good ideas and manage point out serious problems in the thinking of popular leftists like Naomi Klein and Michael Moore, while also debunking political movements like Deep Ecology and cyber-libertarianism. Nonetheless, I have mixed feelings as to the value of this book simply because it does a poor job of arguing a viable leftist alternative. The chapter entitled 'Conclusions,' in fact, consists mostly of a further critique of Klein's book 'No Logo,' rather than an attenpt to condense the rest of the book's insights into a meaningful plan of action.

The constant use of broad overgeneralizations and straw-man arguments throughout the text also gave me the sinking feeling that these bright professors may not be as distant from certain conservative talk radio hosts as I would have hoped... Another reviewer on this site mentioned that this book may actually be more useful politically for conservatives than liberals, and sadly I have to agree.

Rating:
Summary: bold and important, but imperfect
Review: The critical reader should note, of course, after recovering from the unbalancing effects of having all of her liberal sacred cows slaughtered and turned to jerky, that the authors of this insightful book are -- call to arms for the progressive movement to roll up its sleeves and focus on legislative and policy solutions rather than vague and self-defeating cultural dissent aside -- professors of philosophy, who have written an effective work of cultural criticism, but they fail (nor does it seem to really be their intention) to offer much in the way of specific practical solutions themselves.

this is, perhaps, largely because they understand that if they wrote a policy-heavy manual about how to make the practical (and, as they acknowledge, largely undramatic) reforms to the market to better reflect principles of social justice and sustainability, their major intended audience -- all those who are self-identified as members of the 'counterculture' -- would almost surely never bother to pick up the book.

the intention is noble and important. and i believe the authors understand the paradox -- they must speak to all of those ex-punks and vaguely political hipsters, all the artists and musicians and hippies and bicyclists, all the zinesters and skaters and anarchists and transformationists, and acknowledge the feeling that has made all of those people commit so much energy towards staking their "individualist" ground against the homogonizing forces of stooge governments and the marketing machine -- and, before offering legislation in earnest, convince them to come back to the fold and find it in themselves to see the social contract not as a restraint on their individual spirits, but as the mechanism by which the practical progress we are all wishing for might actually be achieved.