Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America

Rating:
Summary: I'm All Fired Up to Jam Mother Culture!
Review: If Daniel Quinn's Ishmael brought out the thoughtful part of my rebellion against Mother Culture, this book gives me a real kick in the rear to get out and do something. I think the book is rich, diverse and concise, and organized well enough to make clear the author's reason for writing it. After reading this book I'm all fired up, wired and inspired! There is hope for life beyond the shopping paradigm!

Rating:
Summary: Didactic and dogmatic
Review: It was torcherous trying to finish this book. First, let me be clear, and say I agree 150% with the author's agenda and basic analysis. However, his choice of style demands too much from the reader. Long diatribes do little to engage the average reader that is unaware of the dominant social and political role that corporations play in our society. Instead of catch-phrases and cliches, the author would better serve the reader by dishing out a deeper analysis of the problem. Kudos to him for offering a plan of revolution, but he overestmates the future movements' powers and of his book. The rantings and raving of this author, although correct, are simply a detail in the larger problem of capitalism as practiced in America. I would avoid this book and read One World: Ready or Not for a better understanding of globalization and the cultural dominance of the corporation.

Rating:
Summary: Good Heart, Superficial Mind
Review: Kalle Lasn is adept at marketing. He's got flair with the shocking image and the powerful sound bite. However, he's not a great analytic thinker, and his glosses in CULTURE JAM often are superficial.

His main points are valid ones, nevertheless, and much of his advice in the "Summer" section of the book is sound. His broadbrush dismissals of both feminism and The Left are not.

This book is a quick read, has its heart in the right place, and certainly says much which is accurate about our American consumer culture and our obsessions with materialism and image. If you have never thought about how stupid it is to watch four or more hours of television per day, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: A radical manifesto for the mental environment
Review: Kalle Lasn is my hero for showing us how to win our souls back from blandized corportate substitute culture. (Do you suppose the protesters in Seattle who smashed a *bucks and a Mickey D's were anti-globalists or culture jammers?)

Rating:
Summary: Finally! To be woken from a post-consumerist slumber!
Review: Kalle Lasn's book is clever, funny and sparklingly insightful. He is talking about the way the world can be, unmediated by the forces of marketing, and in touch with what counts. This is a handbook for revolution of the funnest kind!

Rating:
Summary: Culture Jam- an Eye Opener
Review: Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam is a harsh and unforgiving reality check on the progression of American commercialism and, as a consequence, the decline of culture and community in the United States. By articulating the evils of television, advertising, and the media, Lasn illustrates to the reader the ways in which these technologies have warped and ravaged the brains of our generation. Arguing that these by-products of modernity are imbibed deep within our `culture', Lasn argues that the commercialist trend that Americans have so entrenched themselves within will inevitably damage the minds and spirits of our future as well, and lead to our eventual demise. Both chilling and insightful, Culture Jam is not only a narrative of the effects of commercialism, but one also of the loss of community that Americans have experienced as a result of the deep preoccupation we have developed with brand names through the mind numbing message we are fed constantly by the media and each other: buy, buy, buy.
By further illuminating the innumerable other evils of the multi-million dollar brand that is American, Lasn explains to the reader how concentrated corporate control, loss of a sense of real self, and the overriding emphasis we put on brand names, has led to the complete fall of the great American Dream. Caring about nothing, less what we own, and unable to even communicate with our loved ones without the comfortable buzz of our brand name electronic devices surrounding us, American's have become unable to settle with enough, and instead, yearn for the proverbial MORE. Lasn concludes with a challenge to the reader to deny this branding of America and break free from the bonds of consumerism and media.
What I thought to be a somewhat abrasive and self righteous attitude at the beginning of the book, I came to realize was merely an outrage over the state of America today and a deep and sincere appeal to the reader to join in this outrage in order to care enough to make a change. The harsh truth that, yes, "We, the people, have lost control" could be the wake up call that we need in order to begin to reject the serious crisis of mind controlling consumerism and understand that it truly shapes and dictates our very lives (71). Lasn wholeheartedly succeeds in his quest to jolt the reader out of his passive state of acceptance and to start the flow of dialogue about change and hope for a different future.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but definitely not the best
Review: Lasn begins the book Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America with several chapters devoted to the problems of American culture. We watch too much television. We have become desensitized to violence. We buy wholeheartedly into what corporate America tells us we should eat, wear, look like, be. We are a nation that interacts with the world through the "virtual" lenses of our cameras, our computers, our televisions. We have become disconnected from the natural world. While the list he lays out is nice, it's a relatively familiar litany of complaints about American consumerism.

However, the solutions that he offers later in the book seem to contradict each other. One of his main arguments is that our lives should be spent seeking and engaging in authentic gestures. On page 106, Lasn says "Living in the moment, pursuing the authentic gesture, living close to the edge -- call it what you will -- when it's genuine, it's the force that makes life worth living." Although I agree that much of our lives are inauthentic and dictated by corporate America, authenticity as a goal leaves a lot of room for scary interpretation. What if "living on the edge" for me is murder or rape? What if the thing that makes me feel most alive is setting my neighbor's house on fire? Is it fair to trample on the rights of others in our quest for authenticity? It's a little unsettling to me that Lasn's statement, whether he intended this or not, could be interpreted as advocating a society full of amoral chaos.

In addition, Lasn seems to contradict himself in the next section of his book. Lasn offers the reader many ideas of how they can take on corporate America. On page 149, Lasn informs us that "The real lesson here is that no battle is too small." Lasn teaches us how to fight back against the 1-800 headquarters of our bank when we are told that we will no longer be able to call our local branch directly. Lasn offers an example of how we can attack the Nike sponsorship of our university hockey team. The problem is not that these things are not worth doing (although one could question just how important a battle with the bank is when our president is about to send us to war). The problem is that Lasn seemed to be saying in the previous section that we should be striving for an authentic experience. What's authentic about replicating an experience that one read about in his book? And why is blindly following Lasn's ideas more authentic than blindly following American consumerism?

Although there are some inconsistencies and some of his statements are misguided, I believe Lasn's heart is in the right place. The reader gets the sense that he is very committed to his beliefs and his desire to effect positive change on the American culture. He's right that America needs changing, but I didn't find reason to believe that he's found a viable path to this change.

Rating:
Summary: Provocative and motivating!
Review: Lasn has written an eloquent diatribe against the corporate state, and his impact may ultimately rank up there with Paul Hawken's trailblazing "The Ecology of Commerce." He points out a key fact regarding rhe evolution of the corporate state: the Supreme Court ruling over 100 years ago that gave corporations similar rights as individuals, and he rightly condemns the owners of TV stations and networks for refusing to air counter-commercials. His discussion of memes is also extremely useful. He doesn't provide much detailed analysis, however, nor a mathematical underpinning for such analysis as he does provide (no book can be all things to all people).

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but definitely not the best
Review: Okay, so Kalle Lasn is a bit over the edge sometimes. But honestly people, would you rather have someone who was a bit idealistic & had not only a strong vision but their heart in the right place OR some crusty chap who didn't bother to question or rally the masses? i'll cast my vote for the first, thanks. Kalle Lasn is just that. Perhaps there are some loopholes in his presentation and arguments, but who cares? He is one of the few who is speaking out against what the rest of us are being brainwashed by. So buy the book & learn a little--but don't buy the book... unless you want to feel counter-productive once you start reading it.

Rating:
Summary: I'll take mine with idealism on the side
Review: Okay, so Kalle Lasn is a bit over the edge sometimes. But honestly people, would you rather have someone who was a bit idealistic & had not only a strong vision but their heart in the right place OR some crusty chap who didn't bother to question or rally the masses? i'll cast my vote for the first, thanks. Kalle Lasn is just that. Perhaps there are some loopholes in his presentation and arguments, but who cares? He is one of the few who is speaking out against what the rest of us are being brainwashed by. So buy the book & learn a little--but don't buy the book... unless you want to feel counter-productive once you start reading it.