The Rebel Sell
|
one of several front covers |
The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed is the name of a popular
non-fiction book written by Canadian authors
Joseph Heath and
Andrew Potter in
2004. The claim of the book is that
counter-cultural movements have failed, and that they all share a common fatal error in the way they understand society. Thus counter-culture is not a threat to "
the system".
(The U.S. release of the book is called
Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture)
Potter and Heath look to many counter-cultural perspectives such as ecological activists,
culture-jammers,
thugs, skateboarders, and
anti-consumerists and draw similarities between all of them. They all perceive the rest of the world (the
mainstream), as oppressed or
brainwashed into
conforming by a larger social force, and society's rules (formal and otherwise) are thought to be suppressive of human nature for this reason. These parallels lead Potter and Heath to conclude that counter-cultural movements are not as unique as they appear.
Hippies and
Yuppies, Potter and Heath claim, are of the same origin; there is less irony in the oft-noted transition by many 1960s hippies to a yuppie lifestyle than many claim, because both lifestyles stand for similar core values, expressed in different ways: one deemed 'alternative,' the other deemed 'mainstream'.
"The system" is not something that seeks conformity, but rather the opposite, it seeks individuality and the competiton for distinction. To support this claim, Potter and Heath look at
American Beauty,
Fight Club,
The Matrix, and
Adbusters, all of which are supposedly counter-cultural, but popular in the mainstream. The capitalist system is not trying to stamp-out individuality, rather, a force of social distinction drives the market; individuals are in constant pursuit to "uncool" each other.
Since conformity isn't something perpetuated by mainstream media, Potter and Heath identify other sources of conformity using work from
Thomas Hobbes and
Sigmund Freud. They describe conformity as often the byproduct of simple market preferences or, alternatively, as an attempt to resolve a collective action problem. For instance, school uniforms curb the unwinnable fashion '
arms race' created between students when no restrictions are in place, and are not a design to stamp out individualism as often portrayed in popular culture. According to Potter and Heath, this is why counter-culture is met with resistance, not because the mainstream is brainwashed into loving social customs, but because social customs provide a safety net saving us from a constant need to recalculate the significance of our surroundings. For example, thanks to rules of traffic, a pedestrian can generally safely stand on a sidewalk, without needing to reevaluate at each instance whether an oncoming bus might stay within its lane or whether it might hit the pedestrian. Thus, rules are by no means inherently oppressive: the undesirability of many facets of society (such as consumerism) are, if anything, caused from the 'bottom up'. The failure to grasp this is an error that Potter and Heath describe all counter-cultural movements falling into.
In the case of consumerism, the book explains that the phenomenon comes largely from competitive consumption in an effort for distinction, and 'rebellion' is an excellent path to distinction. Since most goods depend on exclusivity for their value, especially goods which are said to decry mainstream life, a purchasing '
arms race' is created whenever others begin to follow the same tendencies: if you lag, you become mainstream. Not surprisingly then, the image of rebelliousness or non-conformity has long been a selling point for many products, especially those that begin as 'alternative' products. Far from being 'subversive,' encouraging the purchase of such products (such as
Adbusters' line of running shoes) does nothing more than turn them into 'mainstream' ones. This tendency is very easy to observe in music, for example.
Critically, explain Heath and Potter, most of society's problems (and rules) are traceable to
collective action problems, not traits inherent in cultures as most culture jammers believe, a mistake which leads them to attempt to disrupt the existing social order with very few results. It also allows people to wrongly claim a political element to their lifestyle preferences, or glorify
criminality as a form of
dissent.
The book claims there are few solutions to these collective action problems. The only way to avoid the competition for distinction is to
"pull a Theodore Kaczynski" (live in isolation), and the only way to avoid becoming mainstream is to not be talented.
The Rebel Sell recommends a simple legislative solution to problems such as consumerism, for example, through eliminating tax deductions for advertising. (The notion that top-down solutions are far more effective than the "think globally act locally" grassroots movement of the 1960s is a running theme). The authors also point, however, to the counterculture's tendency to reject institutional solutions, a mistake which merely invites the problem to remain.
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Thomas Frank - an inspiration of the book
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Conspicuous consumption - social distinction
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cool - a major topic in Rebel Sell
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Official Website*
Transcript of a presentation by the authors at the time of the book's release
