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Summary: Disparaging dissent:(Mis)Reading cultural studies
Review: In an attempt to delineate 'authentic alternativity' from 'inauthentic alternativity,' "Commodify Your Dissent" reduces cultural studies to an open-ended exercise of corporate culture dissection and commodified (re)propagation. Throughout this anti-cultural studies tirade, the authors conflate cultural studies and the culture industry under the rubric of mass media commodification. In an attempt to de-legitimize the (anti) discipline of cultural studies,the authors disparage academics for their appropriation and reification of the language and politics of business. Furthermore,they argue that popular culture is the enemy-its sole purpose being profit, commodification, and empty promises. For the authors, the only recourse is "whether or not we comprehend, we resist, we evade the all invasive embrace" (of business interests).This supposition is misleading. The authors misread cultural studies as a vapid form of populist deconstruction: A static academic game of truth or dare. They neglect to see cultural studies as a political struggle, a strategic intellectual practice of intervention that (re)constructs itself over and over again, depending on the context. They negate the pedagogical component of cultural studies by disparaging "academic elitism," and celebrating " real world" alternative dissent. On a positive note, some essays raise important issues and questions concerning the authenticity of alternative and rebellious youth culture, the recording industry, Tarantino's depoliticized and decontexualized films, urban de-culturalization, and the commodification of public spaces.
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Summary: American self-doubt at its best.
Review: There are few things less entertaining than the rich and sucessful whining about the dreadfullnes of it all, so one might imagine that this book would be a pain to read. Not so, it is a gem.While it is certianly true that US citizens lead the world in having more of everything than they could possibly want or need and being *so* upset about it, the writers of The Baffler have a genuine gripe: that dissent has become one lifestyle choice amongst many, with a thriving support industry. The best sections of the book are the ads and market report promoting a dissent products and services company; all too credible. This collection provides a very valuable insight into the Amrican psyche: I would heartily recommend it to any Europeans who were wondering just what is is that the Americans are complaining about all the time.
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Summary: A book for the young, frustrated, Johnny-dissenter
Review: This book is fresh and energetic. With a call to action, a credo of discontent, and sharp, sparkling prose, cultural criticism has never been as motivating or enlightening as it is in Commodify Your Dissent.
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Summary: Insiteful and funny
Review: This collection of essays provides a gutsy, incisive, and energetic critique of American consumer culture that surpasses and even ridicules the limp, flaccid, self-referential verbiage that academics try to pass off as a "radical", and "critical" examination of culture and power. "Commodify Your Dissent" is a series of critical essays, or "salvos" as the authors prefer to call them, that were printed in The Baffler during the 90's largely in response to the hypocrisy, and gluttony of the America's expanding techno-consumer culture. Using lucid, forthright language, direct examples, and actual critical thinking (not the mental self-gratification generated by tenured radicals) the authors demonstrate how corporate America has commercialized the concept of revolution and employed it along marketing and production guidelines that are-guess what-conformist and conservative. In the 90's culture, as these essays so aptly demonstrate, "free thinking, revolution" and "breaking the rules" really amounted to a double-speak ideology centered around buying more gadgets and helping companies to make more money, a process that was reinforced in words and letters by such "radical" cultural critics as Camille Paglia. This book is bound to anger a lot of readers because, it's gutsy, direct, and ruthless in its battering of the misused tropes and recycled clichés that enable legions of consumers, workers, and managers to feel like they're breaking the rules when in fact they are merely conforming to and reinforcing them. I know it's a hard fact to face, but buying a recycled pair of bell-bottoms is not an act of rebellion.
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Summary: A source of independent and original thought.
Review: This is a thought provoking collection of essays. Some very powerful and disturbing insights, such as proletarianization of the managerial class, are articulated. Cynicism is thick at times, such as this statement that leadership is "the systematic exploitation of the weakness of others." Some offered solutions are sophomoric. Yet I'll be contacting the journal to subscribe. There are few sources of truly original and independent thought and this is definitevely one.
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Summary: The perfect date - smart, funny, inspiring and cheap
Review: With topics from the lottery, the music industry, and the co-opting of rebellion, all in layman's [sic] terms, this book is a bargain at twice the price. Forget what critics have said: From solid reasons against cultural studies (which tends to look at what college professors consider "alternative," aka Lauryn Hill instead of Chopin), to how corporations control what you read and hear and how to fight back, and the fact that this can all be communicated in simple language makes this brilliant gem so much more precious.
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