Rating: 
Summary: Good Place To Start
Review: "Culture Jam" is a great place to start for anyone who is suddenly finding themselves "awakened" in this world of corrupt consumerism. It has many valid arguments as to what is wrong and some good suggestions on how to strike back at the institution that is destroying us. However, it would be wrong for this to be the only step you take into researching culture jamming. There are many other, more specific journals of exploration out there. This is a good overview of the whole movement.
Rating:
Summary: Good Place To Start
Review: "Culture Jam" is a great place to start for anyone who is suddenly finding themselves "awakened" in this world of corrupt consumerism. It has many valid arguments as to what is wrong and some good suggestions on how to strike back at the institution that is destroying us. However, it would be wrong for this to be the only step you take into researching culture jamming. There are many other, more specific journals of exploration out there. This is a good overview of the whole movement.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative and motivating!
Review: A brilliant diagnosis of what's wrong with the consumer-capitalist lifestyle, and what we can do to opt out of the madness -- one jammer at a time. With the same energy and passion that can be found in the pages of Adbusters, this book is a call to action for anyone who's ever felt beaten down by "The Man". Lasn conveys his unique vision of turning the system against itself in a way that can inspire even the most jaded and cynical consumers to rediscover their idealism and become activist-citizens once again. Viva la revolucion!
Rating: 
Summary: Culture Jammers of the World, Unite!
Review: A brilliant diagnosis of what's wrong with the consumer-capitalist lifestyle, and what we can do to opt out of the madness -- one jammer at a time. With the same energy and passion that can be found in the pages of Adbusters, this book is a call to action for anyone who's ever felt beaten down by "The Man". Lasn conveys his unique vision of turning the system against itself in a way that can inspire even the most jaded and cynical consumers to rediscover their idealism and become activist-citizens once again. Viva la revolucion!
Rating:
Summary: a starting point for living consciously
Review: As a founder of the Adbusters organization and prominent activist himself, Kalle Lasn examines modern American society, media, and corporations and just how intertwined they all are in his 1999 work Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America.
Written in an interesting narrative style, Lasn describes many of the afflictions today's typical American suffer from and how we have become so accustomed to finding salvation in many different ways, essentially, in Corporate America.
He then delves further and demonstrates how Corporate America is not here for us, to provide us with all of the latest and greatest, but rather how it shapes us and exploits us.
All the while, he proposes that, due to the constraints of modern society, we are so disconnected from nature and the world at large that we are much more psychologically and physically affected than we may even be aware.
Lasn acknowledges the discouragement that many have when fighting for a change in society, but he offers up the fundamental idea behind this next revolution as "culture jamming" and provides some hope.
Culture Jam offers up new perspectives that are not always readily made to us in this society; the bottom line Lasn conveys is that we need to fight fire with fire and anybody can contribute, even in the most seemingly miniscule way.
Rating:
Summary: Rich and Thoughty
Review: Having followed Adbusters.org (Lasn's organization) for a number of years I was pleased to see this book consolodate, organize, expand and clarify a number of the articles from the last couple of years worth of AdBusters magazine. It is not a "self-help" book to teach you how to particiapate in the next WTO protest. For a manual like that you will need to pick up something like Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."What you can expect. A book that is rich in imagery, metaphor and illustration. It is backed up by 214 end notes (that range in credibility). I would suspect that: a) those actively engaged in downshifting will find it a rich and thoughty re-enforcement for decisions already made, b) those moderate consumers with the dull recognition that something is not quite right with our corporation saturated environment will find it a provocative reading that will contribute to a range of subtle to significant mental and/or life changes, c) those radicals committed to the overthrow of corporate america will find it either disappointing (for not going far enough) or as permission to use bent coins in vending machines, and d) those not wanting to think about themes of environment, corporate responsibility and media saturation will find it excellent fodder for re-enforcing stereotypes of "those wacko liberal leftists" In my case, it was gentle yet challenging prose with enough in the book for me to question, debate or aspire to learn more about. I was glad that it was not simply preaching to my previously self-realized reality.
Rating:
Summary: A vitally important message for today's world culture
Review: I currently live in Japan where I have seen the dark side of the American Cultural Machine. Thousands of years of tradition have been swallowed up in a couple years by a dominant American system that uses insidious and underhanded techniques to sell its products and become rich. This is a wonderful attack on the current dominant paradigm- Work Work Work Buy Buy Buy(and if this continues unabated we are asking for a global environmental nightmare). I am not an environmentalist but this book uses solid arguments and puts forth interesting ideas. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. It will give you a chance against the mega-corporations. Take back your mind and free will! This book is fun, interesting, and it could one day be seen as the book that started the newest counter culture: The Anti-consumer.
Rating: 
Summary: No Culture Shock for me!
Review: I found Culture Jam a good reference to the culture shock many Americans go through each day. The main argument refers to our lives as consumer and therefore media driven.
In reading Kalle Lasn's book, my eyes were opened by how consumer and media driven our lives are. Although, I already knew of this aspect as a consumer, the examples given had much reflection on what I consider an average middle class American life.
I wish that there were more information that did not reflect a great amount on the examples given. In this I mean that the author should give examples of the outside world.
Lasn opened the book with "Autumn", to assess the current damages of our consumer driven lives. The point that if we cut nature out of our lives that our spirits die is right on in a sense. When we totally rely on materialistic things, we do indeed lose our spirituality. We indeed have also become more virtual rather that relying on our "real" lives.
Classifying advertisements as "mental pollutants" was also a good analogy. We go through the motions of work everyday to earn money for the products we see advertised everyday in the media. Our lives are totally shaped by the media.
Huge corporations have become dominate by serving their own interests when they consistently put their products on the airwaves. But haven't those interests become our interests? Why isn't this explained? I think it is a major part of why we are like we are as consumers.
I didn't agree with the concept of the Situationists in the "Spring" section of the book. Why do they think the spectacle has been kidnapped? This is never really explained and doesn't bring any clear meaning to the page. By the way, the whole Situationists theory, if you can call it that, is a farce. I couldn't even read through this part in the book. It's just repeating itself over and over again.
I also did not find any meaning in the "We are not" sections of the book. Look at what we are for once. I don't really care for some negativity with no backup. It is just too much. If you really would care to look into it, everything still has the same meaning, it just depends how each individual looks at it. Why do we keep blaming others for the uncertainty and change? I am still cool!
The close of the book seemed to ramble on about thinking and doing things for yourself, which I feel left a lot of ends untied. I think the ending was just a way to get more pages in the book and very unhelpful. I think we can figure out on our own that we must "demarketise" our lives in order to be a greater society.
Rating:
Summary: No Culture Shock for me!
Review: I found Culture Jam a good reference to the culture shock many Americans go through each day. The main argument refers to our lives as consumer and therefore media driven.
In reading Kalle Lasn's book, my eyes were opened by how consumer and media driven our lives are. Although, I already knew of this aspect as a consumer, the examples given had much reflection on what I consider an average middle class American life.
I wish that there were more information that did not reflect a great amount on the examples given. In this I mean that the author should give examples of the outside world.
Lasn opened the book with "Autumn", to assess the current damages of our consumer driven lives. The point that if we cut nature out of our lives that our spirits die is right on in a sense. When we totally rely on materialistic things, we do indeed lose our spirituality. We indeed have also become more virtual rather that relying on our "real" lives.
Classifying advertisements as "mental pollutants" was also a good analogy. We go through the motions of work everyday to earn money for the products we see advertised everyday in the media. Our lives are totally shaped by the media.
Huge corporations have become dominate by serving their own interests when they consistently put their products on the airwaves. But haven't those interests become our interests? Why isn't this explained? I think it is a major part of why we are like we are as consumers.
I didn't agree with the concept of the Situationists in the "Spring" section of the book. Why do they think the spectacle has been kidnapped? This is never really explained and doesn't bring any clear meaning to the page. By the way, the whole Situationists theory, if you can call it that, is a farce. I couldn't even read through this part in the book. It's just repeating itself over and over again.
I also did not find any meaning in the "We are not" sections of the book. Look at what we are for once. I don't really care for some negativity with no backup. It is just too much. If you really would care to look into it, everything still has the same meaning, it just depends how each individual looks at it. Why do we keep blaming others for the uncertainty and change? I am still cool!
The close of the book seemed to ramble on about thinking and doing things for yourself, which I feel left a lot of ends untied. I think the ending was just a way to get more pages in the book and very unhelpful. I think we can figure out on our own that we must "demarketise" our lives in order to be a greater society.
Rating:
Summary: A lot of ranting and raving, but not for the conservatives
Review: I picked up an advance copy, and found Culture Jam to be an interesting anti-establishment book. Lasn offers some interesting ideas and ways to jam corporate procedure, but the ranting and raving against the multi-nationals almost seemed too much. It could have done with some editing. I forsee a problem with his insistence that the airwaves are public and the networks should allow him to run his anti-commericals. If they run his commericals, then by the same token the networks would be required to allow propaganda-type commercials put out by various hate-speech groups as well. And that would surely put the anti-defamation leagues in a tizzy, wouldn't it? I agree that there is too much power spread among the corporations, but I fear the cancer is too deep to cut out without killing the patient. The only way to fix it, IMHO, is to chuck the system and start over. And if you think the corporations are too powerful now, just try to chuck them out or limit their expansion. You'll be stoned upon the altar of commerce.
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