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calzephyrUnfortunately I have to return this book to the library because it has a hold on it, so I'll have to wait a few weeks before the rest of Benjamin R. Barber's wisdom is revealed. Consumed: How markets corrupt children, infantalize adults and swallow citizens whole
is an extremely slow read, and I made it to the halfway point. It's not due to a dry writing style, but that several premises of Barber reach back into philosophers I never studied in school and economic concepts that are above my head. He's no Naomi Klein!
From what I've read, the larger question that Barber should ask is "When does adulthood begin?" Is a magic number dictated by the state as to when one can vote or buy alcohol? Begin after high school graduation? Are video games really just for children? Is it wrong to be collecting My Little Ponies and like Harry Potter at the age of 30?
"kidults" and "grups" are some of the words that marketers use to describe adults who refuse to act their age, and Barber traces the transformation from a "Protestant work ethic" to the modern day, where people are more consumers than citizens and culture is shaped more by corporations.
He includes a brief economic history of post-Civil War United States to illustrate this point. One of the fallacies of capitalism, according to Marx, is that basically corporations will run out of consumers and product to sell - new markets and new customers must always be found, hence aggressive marketing to children and creation of goods that people don't necessarily need, but are persuaded to want.
That part of the book is probably the most interesting. Barber provides evidence to show that people don't necessarily do what they want, or buy what they need. Why is it that we want what we don't need? For example, I want an iPod, even though my cellphone has an MP3 player. "Why [is] what we want is not realy what we want to want" Barber writes. For example, most people would agree that they want a better environment, but they still want to be able to drive a Hummer and use as many plastic bags as they like.
"Want" is part of the infantalization aspect. As children grow up, marketers replace the relationships they had with family with products instead. One of the new words I learned from his book is lovemarks. The lovemark concept is intended to replace the idea of brands. It's not enough to have a strong brand these days, your customers must also feel some love for it, a feeling beyond simple consumer loyalty. In this part Barber explains the relationship between love and Cheerios :-) Anyway, lovemarks are a new form of marketing BS to manipulate consumers feelings. I probably don't need more My Little Ponies, but Barber would argue that Hasbro has manipulated my feelings of love and nostalgia, which is why I buy them. Kids can't blow a ton of dough on toys, but adults can. At the same time, being a seller or artsy wares, I'm vaguely aware of how I persuade people to buy my cards and magnets - people generally won't buy something they can't be persuaded to like or love.
The parts I didn't get to were finishing up "Totalizing Society" and "Resisting Consumerism". There really is so much to this book that it can't really be summed up in a nut, which is what Barber would probably call a sign of the constant dumbing down of culture. Although he does have some good points, there were times when I disagreed - the arguments for and against low brow or low media are many, after all. I can't agree that video games are a bad thing. After reading for a bit I checked the verso of the title page to see how old Barber was, and I wasn't too surprised - he was born in 1939, so naturally he would have a different perspective on the matter. To be honest, sometimes he sounds like a cranky oldster and a snob in his complaints. I'm sure even the Puritans had their own form of low culture ;-)
It would be fair to say that our lives in the present are so complex that we'll never return to whatever simple times, real or imagined, that exist(ed). It's been 11 years with the internet for me and I really can't remember what I used to do other than work and read and watch TV. Cushy days, living with the folks :-) However, I can agree with Barber's idea that rather than actually "living", we live to consume and then work harder to keep consuming, particularly when we get into debt. And we keep consuming because of forces that are often out of our control. When people grow up with advertising crammed in their faces, they're not going to be able to imagine a time when people went out protesting, visited the neighbours or listened to the radio without multitasking.
is an extremely slow read, and I made it to the halfway point. It's not due to a dry writing style, but that several premises of Barber reach back into philosophers I never studied in school and economic concepts that are above my head. He's no Naomi Klein!From what I've read, the larger question that Barber should ask is "When does adulthood begin?" Is a magic number dictated by the state as to when one can vote or buy alcohol? Begin after high school graduation? Are video games really just for children? Is it wrong to be collecting My Little Ponies and like Harry Potter at the age of 30?
"kidults" and "grups" are some of the words that marketers use to describe adults who refuse to act their age, and Barber traces the transformation from a "Protestant work ethic" to the modern day, where people are more consumers than citizens and culture is shaped more by corporations.
He includes a brief economic history of post-Civil War United States to illustrate this point. One of the fallacies of capitalism, according to Marx, is that basically corporations will run out of consumers and product to sell - new markets and new customers must always be found, hence aggressive marketing to children and creation of goods that people don't necessarily need, but are persuaded to want.
That part of the book is probably the most interesting. Barber provides evidence to show that people don't necessarily do what they want, or buy what they need. Why is it that we want what we don't need? For example, I want an iPod, even though my cellphone has an MP3 player. "Why [is] what we want is not realy what we want to want" Barber writes. For example, most people would agree that they want a better environment, but they still want to be able to drive a Hummer and use as many plastic bags as they like.
"Want" is part of the infantalization aspect. As children grow up, marketers replace the relationships they had with family with products instead. One of the new words I learned from his book is lovemarks. The lovemark concept is intended to replace the idea of brands. It's not enough to have a strong brand these days, your customers must also feel some love for it, a feeling beyond simple consumer loyalty. In this part Barber explains the relationship between love and Cheerios :-) Anyway, lovemarks are a new form of marketing BS to manipulate consumers feelings. I probably don't need more My Little Ponies, but Barber would argue that Hasbro has manipulated my feelings of love and nostalgia, which is why I buy them. Kids can't blow a ton of dough on toys, but adults can. At the same time, being a seller or artsy wares, I'm vaguely aware of how I persuade people to buy my cards and magnets - people generally won't buy something they can't be persuaded to like or love.
The parts I didn't get to were finishing up "Totalizing Society" and "Resisting Consumerism". There really is so much to this book that it can't really be summed up in a nut, which is what Barber would probably call a sign of the constant dumbing down of culture. Although he does have some good points, there were times when I disagreed - the arguments for and against low brow or low media are many, after all. I can't agree that video games are a bad thing. After reading for a bit I checked the verso of the title page to see how old Barber was, and I wasn't too surprised - he was born in 1939, so naturally he would have a different perspective on the matter. To be honest, sometimes he sounds like a cranky oldster and a snob in his complaints. I'm sure even the Puritans had their own form of low culture ;-)
It would be fair to say that our lives in the present are so complex that we'll never return to whatever simple times, real or imagined, that exist(ed). It's been 11 years with the internet for me and I really can't remember what I used to do other than work and read and watch TV. Cushy days, living with the folks :-) However, I can agree with Barber's idea that rather than actually "living", we live to consume and then work harder to keep consuming, particularly when we get into debt. And we keep consuming because of forces that are often out of our control. When people grow up with advertising crammed in their faces, they're not going to be able to imagine a time when people went out protesting, visited the neighbours or listened to the radio without multitasking.
