The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture [Paperback]

This is a brilliant book. For those of us who fancy ourselves "alternative" - but primarily because we imagine we are too smart to get caught in conventional thinking - reading this book is a bit of a humbling experience. The idea that the counterculture is a marketing tool is not exactly original - but Heath and Potter extend that sort of critique in a multitude of directions: complementary medicine, exotic tourism, and a number of dubious pseudo-leftist critiques of 'mass society.'

There are a couple of weak points: I think they are naive about the impact and operations of the WTO, in particular. But on the whole it is extremely insightful. Very enjoyable in particular for the repeated skewering of the smug Naomi Klein...

I found this book disappointing and admirable in almost equal measure.

First the good points. The topic itself is an important one and is addressed with enthusiasm and humour. Puncturing the self-delusions of middle-class lifestyle radicals is a healthy exercise and one that can be much enjoyed. The authors have a good feel for some of the main parameters of popular culture and the counter-cultural elements within it. This allows them to discuss the topic in a way that many young (and not so young) followers of popular culture and its counter-cultural elements will be able to engage with. They make many cogent points about the essential elitism and snobbery at the heart of many 'alternative' consumption patterns. They puncture a lot of balloons and many readers new to this subject will find themselves provoked, rewarded and enlightened in, one hopes, helpful ways. I certainly was and I already know a lot about some of the subjects covered.

Still, the book isn't without its flaws and some of them are major. Firstly, the authors' knowledge of social theory before WW2 is patchy. You would think that very few thinkers before then had tackled the tensions between mass culture and individual freedom. Rousseau is given an airing and the authors are right to locate the ideas of Thorstein Veblen at the heart of their critique. Veblen has much to say that is clearly relevant here. However, it was easy to spot the gaps. To take just one example, John Stuart Mill, in 'On Liberty', dealt with many of the issues addressed here quite differently and much more deeply (mind you, he would have challenged their easy complacency about social conformism). The authors could have profited from deeper thinking and reading. Indeed, this is reflected in the style of their analysis. They make many good points but don't back them up by discussing the evidence for them. They move on too swiftly.

Secondly, the authors set up innumerable straw men as representatives of counter-cultural thinking (over two pages spent deconstructing the plots of 'American Beauty' and 'Pleasantville'? And since when did the Wachowski brothers deserve serious treatment as representatives of counter-cultural thinking? The authors will no doubt counter that these films were popular but that's no valid excuse for not engaging more seriously, instead, with the arguments of counter-cultural theorists rather than the ephemera of its many products). They thus make their task as easy as possible. Actually tackling the ideas of Adorno, Debord, Marcuse and other authors they cite but treat superficially would have made for a less racy book but one more worthy of respect.

I admired their gusto but it too often slipped over into sweeping generalisations. They get carried away with their own self-confidence. The idea that all drunk people become anti-social is particularly laughable. One is inclined to suggest they change their drinking buddies. Their brief use of primatology is superficial and deeply misleading, reflecting a simple lack of depth in their research.

Also, while it is fun and partly justified to have a pop at Naomi Klein they could surely have done so without the snide, juvenile tone adopted in relation to both her and Alanis Morrisette (a straw woman, in this case). Maybe it all gets a bit more personal when you are having a go at fellow Canadians. All this is linked to an inability to see that there might also be something important in the arguments of the more thoughtful critics of modern society. Even Klein's argument, despite their valid criticisms, does have a number of good and strong points, but you wouldn't know it from reading this book. No neutral observer of modern society should be as complacent as these two authors. Their failure to adequately address the influence of the modern mass media, for example, is indicative of the sorts of complacency about such things that rational choice thinking tends to induce in the more shallow of its adherents. If the authors are not in that category - and I suspect they are not, from some brief elements of what they say - then they have done a poor job of demonstrating it here.

All this is a shame. The book leads up to a central argument, finally addressed more fully in the conclusion, about the importance of rational choice politics in tackling market failure. They make a strong case - not just here but at various points throughout the book - for serious, reformist political engagement rather than utopian grandstanding. This is a worthwhile thesis and deserved much more depth. The authors were onto something but didn't do their argument justice.

Just when you think the posties are going to take over the planet, this book makes a compelling case for a return to real politics. I disagree with the reviewer who regards this as a rehashed version of the idea of the 'co-optation' of the cool in the production of mass-culture. Despite the title, I did not understand this book to be arguing that the counter-cultural movement has been "co-opted" by consumerism. Rather, the counter-cultural movement was always the vanguard of consumerism, it was its most perfect manifestation. "Co-option" is the term that people like Naomi Klein use to differentiate her own consumption patterns from the vulgar masses, whereas these guys are arguing that 'co-optation' is really the a keyword for those who are engaged in competitive consumption.
Anyway, I found the political message a refreshing one, and I think, and well worth reading. True enough, it is kind of written in the pop-style of No Logo, but that is perfectly consitent with their own arguments.