Rebel Without Applause. - Review - book review

Reason, May, 2000 by Jacob Sullum

Assuming he is not, he may need to rethink his portrait of a monolithic culture that has only one thing to say about the virtues of consumption. But Lasn seems oblivious to the clues that there is something wrong with this picture. He claims mainstream media outlets have shut out his point of view because they're afraid of offending advertisers. "In the former Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government," he says. "In North America today you cannot speak out against the sponsors." Yet he advises would-be culture jammers looking for publicity that "the media are always willing to expose a dirty little secret.

"There is a similar contradiction in Lasn's description of the relationship between consumers and the businesses that cater to them. The corporations "are very attentive" to our desires, he concedes. Yet somehow "we get zero control." Later it becomes clear that Lasn cannot really believe this. "You learn to reward the good with your dollars and time, and punish the bad by refusing to buy in," he writes, urging his readers to use their power as consumers to change the culture. "You never let the corporation forget who is serving whom." This is not a rebellion against capitalism; this is how capitalism works.

From time to time, Lasn implicitly acknowledges that consumers have learned to be critical of what they see and hear. They have become "jaded and media-savvy"; they flip from channel to channel, looking for better options. These do not sound like the mindless drones on which Lasn's critique of "consumer capitalism" depends.

Try as he might to equate consumers with slaves and persuasion with coercion, the truth is that every manifestation of the market that Lasn deplores is a product of individual choices. People like fast food, zippy cars, and violent movies. Lasn does not merely argue against these choices; he insists they are not really choices at ali. His book is suffused with contempt for the mesmerized masses who drink Coke, eat Snickers bars, wear Gap jeans, and aspire to drive BMWs or SUVs.

They may think they're cool, says Lasn, but they're not. "Legitimately cool people instinctively understand that the psychology of subservience--getting corporately seduced--is a chicken-ass way to live," he writes. "It's cool to rebel. But a lot of people who think they're rebelling, aren't." True rebels, in Lasn's view, do un-chickenass things like "jamming a coin into a monopoly newspaper box" and "liberating a billboard in the middle of the night." When they're not busy throwing tantrums at the supermarket.

Senior Editor Jacob Sullum (jsullum@ reason.com) is writing a book on the morality of drug use.