Kalle Lasn, founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation and Powershift Advertising Agency, is as counterculture as they come. After reading this inspiring book, some might deem him anti-American, certainly anti-American-Dream, with the goal of moving America backward, not forward. But his vision speaks directly to the heart of the ugly underbelly of American promise – the hidden costs of over-consumption. Although in the end, I don’t think Lasn is arguing for backward movement at all (but rather a new kind of forward); perhaps a few steps back will save us from crashing to our demise in the future.
Culture Jammers, as Lasn describes them, are a diverse and “loose global network of media activists who see [themselves] as the advance shock troops of the most significant social movement of the next twenty years. [Their] aim is to topple existing power structures and forge major adjustments to the way we will live in the twenty-first century.” (p. xi). He develops his thesis on the following insights:
America is no longer a country. It’s a multitrillion-dollar brand.
American culture is no longer created by the people.
A free, authentic life is no longer possible in America…we ourselves have been branded.
Our mass media dispense a kind of Huxleyan “soma” – a perverted sense of cool.
American cool is a global pandemic.
The Earth can no longer support the lifestyle of the coolhunting American-style consumer.
With these realizations, Lasn uses a metaphor of the seasons to flesh out the need to culture jam and some practical ways to do it.
Autumn: Lasn starts by assessing the current damages to the “ecology of our minds,” mental pollutants and information viruses we deal with daily: constant noise, media jolts that grab our attention, excessive violence and sexualization, corporate advertising, media fixation, the erosion of empathy, information overload, disinformation and loss of infodiversity. Somewhat like the Manchurian Candidate, we are preprogrammed with corporate messages to satisfy our hunger with a Big Mac, our drowsiness with Starbucks, our depression with Prozac and our emptiness by turning on the TV (p. 41).
Winter: Next, Lasn roughs out the problem of extreme consumerism of America. He takes a critical yet insightful look at the American Dream. “Dreams,” he says, “by definition, are supposed to be unique and imaginative. Yet the bulk of the population is dreaming the same dream. It’s a dream of wealth, power, fame, plenty of sex and exciting recreational opportunities. What does it mean when a whole culture dreams the same dream?” (p. 57). Lasn then takes an even harder look at corporations, and still an even harder look at our broader economic system, arguing that our current expansionist growth policies are short-sighted and doomed to failure in our world of scarce resources.
Spring: Next, Lasn explores the possibilities for renewal. Here he develops specific ideas for practical, actual impact. Taking cues from the European Situationists of the 1950s, he draws on modern revolutionaries’ effective ways of breaking out of the mass-culture trance. He then builds the components of those beginning movements into more detailed and risky actions: find leverage points in societal problems and apply pressure, “subvertise” prominent ad campaigns by purchasing airtime with opposite messages, jam the internet with virtual protests, sit-ins, petitions and gripe sites. With an eye on future generations, Lasn urges his readers to “pinch” corporate industry from above (with hard-hitting media thrusts) and below (with grassroots organization).
Summer: Finally, Lasn shares his glimpse of what could happen if the American revolutionary impulse reignites. He encourages the reader to reframe an issue so that the person, not the corporation, is the sovereign entity. He calls for increased corporate accountability, but in novel ways – rewriting the rules of incorporation, for example, so that every shareholder assumes partial liability for collateral damage to bystanders or harms to the environment. He calls for the “uncooling” of consumption, fast food, fashion, cars and the spectacle of it all. Finally, and perhaps flowing like a current throughout, he calls us to question the “disturbing lack of democracy at the heart of our mass media” (p. 189).
I think Lasn’s is a book I will want to read again – when I need a good kick in the pants and a reminder that change is possible and is a reasonable goal. Perhaps we are David against Goliath, but the fight against the extreme consumerism of our culture is a battle that needs to be fought; creatively, strategically, and consistently. I had begun to question the underbelly of capitalism and corporate control, but my inquiries only ended in sighs of defeat as I headed the nearest Starbucks for a pick-me-up. Lasn offers hope for the wary revolutionaries at heart. He dares us to dream again and acts as a solid example of how we can subvert the message of corporate America while using their same methods, thus turning their strategy on its head. I deeply appreciate his quantification of capitalism without limits, its true cost to our freedom and sustainability. Truly, “America, the great liberator, is in desperate need of being liberated from itself – from its own excesses and arrogance” (p. 61). I, for one, am ready for a new season in American history.
Lord, save us from ourselves, and give us courage to live according to the Kingdom of God.
Christian scholars seem to know a lot about God. Non-Christian scholars seem to know a lot about the world. Neither seems to know much about the other…and something seems wrong with this picture.
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