Culture Jam [Paperback]

This is not really a how-to guide for the activist, it is more to stimulate thought about certain issues and get you to pay attention and start thinking for yourself. I already agree with much of the author's critique on modern life, but would not choose the same responses necessarily that he has or recommends. A lot of the "memes" were great, "obsession for men" is hilarious and has been fun to pass along, also "we used to identify ourselves by our religion or political affiliation, but now we identify ourselves with the type of consumer we are, that is what kind of clothes we wear, the make of car we drive, etc. is what defines us as people", another one I enjoy repeating.

But read it for yourself, there's a little something in this for everyone to think about.

In the opening introduction Lasn makes some rather remarkable statements: "For us feminism has run out of steam" p.xii; he then goes on to state "The old political battles......- black versus white, Left versus Right, male versus female - will fade into the background" p.xvi. This is an ignorantly optimistic conjecture in a world where aparthied still existed in Africa's largest economy less than a generation ago, a world where the vast majority of women are denied the same political rights as men and in the U.S. where they don't even have a universal healthcare system. Lasn seems to suffer from the same illusions as his heros the situationists, that somehow, in the West at least, basic human needs have all been satisfied i.e. freedom from poverty, hunger and homelessness. This may not be a wild idea in Canada where Lasn and Adbusters are based. Consistently touted by the U.N. as the best country in the world in which to live, Canada's reputation for higher standards of living is in part due to the pioneering campaigns of noted left-wingers like Tommy Douglas. Douglas, a former premier of Saskatchewan brought in a cheap and affordable healthcare system for his province in the 1960's, which soon spread throughout the rest of Canada thereafter.

It is true to say that much of the time identity politics operates in a postmodern culture obsessed with diversity in and of itself, rather than any notion of universal revolution. A position which plays into the hands of largely right-wing libertarians who see greater diversity as an opportunity to develop new markets. But to believe that gender, race and class are no longer issues that affect the first world gives those on the right too much comfort.

Other dubious assertions include Lasn's belief that daily exposure to media violence shapes the way we feel about crime and punishment "even though I can't prove it with hard facts" p.18

On the more postive side of the book, there's an interesting piece on how we in the West are increasingly finding it more difficult to appreciate our immediate surroundings without framing it with a camera viewfinder. Lasn also uses the example of a poet who read his poems at parties and no one listened to him, but when he played recordings of himself, everyone listened (shades of David Cronenberg's 1982 film 'Videodrome').

Where Lasn is at his strongest is in his study of the development of corporate power under American law. The 1886 ruling by the Supreme Court in the U.S. which granted the private corporation the rights of a 'natural person' under the U.S. Constitution, has had profound effects on American political and economic culture since then. Unlike most individuals, corporations have huge financial resources and as a consequence have a much greater say in the running of the economy, greater stamina in the courts and greater access to the media (which they probably own anyway) than any individual could hope to have. Globalization is the effective spread of this corporate disease throughout the rest of the world.

Another important area that Lasn tackles is how we measure prosperity. Classical economists seem to believe that there is no shortage to the Earth's natural resources and even if we did deplete all of them we should still be able to develop the technology to provide for everyone on the planet. The problem with classical economics is that it is not a science i.e. it is not concerned with an understanding of nature, but simply with an understanding of models. The best example of which is the concept of GDP, which increases everytime money is put into the economy for whatever reason; war, illness, cleaning up environmental damage and so on. A better way of measuring prosperity would be the ISEW (Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) which takes into account factors such as pollution, depletion of nonrenewable resources and industrial related health costs.

Despite his attacks on the traditional Left, Lasn seems perfectly happy to hold true to explicitly Marxist sentiments such as living not as an object of history but as a subject: "That's about as good a working definition of the culture jammers ethos as you'll ever hope to find" p.100. Lasn also makes a welcome attack on the Slacker generation whose disdain for any kind of earnestness in politics has become the apathetic norm. We should use our irreverance pointedly but a surfeit of irony contributes to social corrosion and a general malaise in putting the effort in.

It is in the media world where corporate power has its most obvious influence, especially in the U.S. It's almost impossible to find objective news on American commercial T.V. The only reason that CNN runs Adbusters' commercials for Buy Nothing Day is that Ted Turner likes to think of himself as a bit of a liberal in comparison to his arch-nemesis Rupert Murdoch. Lasn's difficulty in getting airtime elsewhere for his Adbustes' commercials shows an open ideological bias at work within media conglomerates, whose primary function is not to provide news but to sell advertising space.

Lasn's tract is useful in highlighting the increasing hegemony of corporate power in America. Although his lefty-bashing has less impact for many of us in Europe where left-wing governments can still initiate large and meaningful changes. However, American foreign policy influences the whole world and 'Culture Jam' makes us more aware of the forces that shape it.

In the opening introduction Lasn makes some rather remarkable statements: "For us feminism has run out of steam" p.xii; he then goes on to state "The old political battles......- black versus white, Left versus Right, male versus female - will fade into the background" p.xvi. This is an ignorantly optimistic conjecture in a world where aparthied still existed in Africa's largest economy less than a generation ago, a world where the vast majority of women are denied the same political rights as men and in the U.S. where they don't even have a universal healthcare system. Lasn seems to suffer from the same illusions as his heros the situationists, that somehow, in the West at least, basic human needs have all been satisfied i.e. freedom from poverty, hunger and homelessness. This may not be a wild idea in Canada where Lasn and Adbusters are based. Consistently touted by the U.N. as the best country in the world in which to live, Canada's reputation for higher standards of living is in part due to the pioneering campaigns of noted left-wingers like Tommy Douglas. Douglas, a former premier of Saskatchewan brought in a cheap and affordable healthcare system for his province in the 1960's, which soon spread throughout the rest of Canada thereafter.

It is true to say that much of the time identity politics operates in a postmodern culture obsessed with diversity in and of itself, rather than any notion of universal revolution. A position which plays into the hands of largely right-wing libertarians who see greater diversity as an opportunity to develop new markets. But to believe that gender, race and class are no longer issues that affect the first world gives those on the right too much comfort.

Other dubious assertions include Lasn's belief that daily exposure to media violence shapes the way we feel about crime and punishment "even though I can't prove it with hard facts" p.18

On the more postive side of the book, there's an interesting piece on how we in the West are increasingly finding it more difficult to appreciate our immediate surroundings without framing it with a camera viewfinder. Lasn also uses the example of a poet who read his poems at parties and no one listened to him, but when he played recordings of himself, everyone listened (shades of David Cronenberg's 1982 film 'Videodrome').

Where Lasn is at his strongest is in his study of the development of corporate power under American law. The 1886 ruling by the Supreme Court in the U.S. which granted the private corporation the rights of a 'natural person' under the U.S. Constitution, has had profound effects on American political and economic culture since then. Unlike most individuals, corporations have huge financial resources and as a consequence have a much greater say in the running of the economy, greater stamina in the courts and greater access to the media (which they probably own anyway) than any individual could hope to have. Globalization is the effective spread of this corporate disease throughout the rest of the world.

Another important area that Lasn tackles is how we measure prosperity. Classical economists seem to believe that there is no shortage to the Earth's natural resources and even if we did deplete all of them we should still be able to develop the technology to provide for everyone on the planet. The problem with classical economics is that it is not a science i.e. it is not concerned with an understanding of nature, but simply with an understanding of models. The best example of which is the concept of GDP, which increases everytime money is put into the economy for whatever reason; war, illness, cleaning up environmental damage and so on. A better way of measuring prosperity would be the ISEW (Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) which takes into account factors such as pollution, depletion of nonrenewable resources and industrial related health costs.

Despite his attacks on the traditional Left, Lasn seems perfectly happy to hold true to explicitly Marxist sentiments such as living not as an object of history but as a subject: "That's about as good a working definition of the culture jammers ethos as you'll ever hope to find" p.100. Lasn also makes a welcome attack on the Slacker generation whose disdain for any kind of earnestness in politics has become the apathetic norm. We should use our irreverance pointedly but a surfeit of irony contributes to social corrosion and a general malaise in putting the effort in.

It is in the media world where corporate power has its most obvious influence, especially in the U.S. It's almost impossible to find objective news on American commercial T.V. The only reason that CNN runs Adbusters' commercials for Buy Nothing Day is that Ted Turner likes to think of himself as a bit of a liberal in comparison to his arch-nemesis Rupert Murdoch. Lasn's difficulty in getting airtime elsewhere for his Adbustes' commercials shows an open ideological bias at work within media conglomerates, whose primary function is not to provide news but to sell advertising space.

Lasn's tract is useful in highlighting the increasing hegemony of corporate power in America. Although his lefty-bashing has less impact for many of us in Europe where left-wing governments can still initiate large and meaningful changes. However, American foreign policy influences the whole world and 'Culture Jam' makes us more aware of the forces that shape it.