Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (Paperback)

~ Joseph Heath (Author), Andrew Potter (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

So-called rebellion not only perpetuates the market economy, it's the economy's biggest driving factor. So argue Canadian philosophy professors Heath and Potter; in their world, you can't "sell out" or be "co-opted," because you're already participating in the market, where rebellion is just another word for relentless innovation, fashion and cool. With sharp humor, the two make a solid case for consumerism being motivated by competitiveness rather than conformity, while pointing out the hypocrisies and shortcomings of "alternative" lifestyles, like the fascination with ancient non-Western medicine as somehow nobler and purer than modern science. Their theoretical underpinnings range from critiques of Freud to French postmodernism, and they layer their philosophical arguments with personal experience (though the use of "I" without identifying the writer as either Heath or Potter becomes irritating). The authors tear into veterans of the '60s counterculture repeatedly, and blaming the "all or nothing" approach of would-be radicals who drop out for holding back progress. The arguments are familiar, but Heath and Potter's sustained scrutiny of the premises from a market perspective freshens them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Although a more fitting title for this book might be Why Counter Culture Becomes Consumer Culture, the authors adeptly and succinctly sum up 200 years of consumer culture. Within the first few chapters, this book enlightens us enough to accomplish its goal while being quite an infectious read as well as inspiration to forge ahead to analyze how average lifestyle decisions affect the big picture of capitalism. (The book should not be read without some note taking and, later, examining many of the references to books, movies, and music.) Heath and Potter seek to make us realize how our lifestyles and spending habits reverberate throughout every facet of our lives. The lesson is, if one wants to participate in the consumer culture, continue with the current lifestyle, but if one desires to be a genuine rebel, move to the forest and become a hunter-gatherer like our ancestors (and Ted Kaczynski). Ed Dwyer
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006074586X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060745868
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Witty, January 21, 2005

By	California reader (California) - See all my reviews

A brilliant, witty critique of the counterculture and how it has diverted our energies from pursuing effective political solutions to our social problems and redirected them into silly, self-indulgent, self-defeating gestures of pseudo-rebellion. Very similar to what Thomas Frank and his crew of wits at The Baffler are saying, only more incisive and analytical. Heath and Potter are masters of lucid exposition (for example, I've never read a more elegant description of the Prisoner's Dilemma than theirs) who use Thorstein Veblen's economic theories to pull the whole lid off the notion of commodified "dissent".

My only quarrel with the book is that 1) it is light on prescription (the authors content themselves with brief, general calls for more regulation to control the worst excesses of corporate behavior); and 2) it doesn't always address the strongest arguments against corporate hegemony (the authors are content to argue that Walmart isn't so bad, because it offers low prices and friendly service, but they don't mention anything about its underhanded business practices or its devastating effect on local economies).

Nevertheless, this is the most persuasive and thoroughgoing critique I've yet read on the sad fraud that is the counterculture.

89 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant book, but within limits, January 8, 2005

By	Gigi - See all my reviews

A good book to consider in tandem with this one is James Masterson's "The Search for the Real Self." Masterson's thesis is that those with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders have never really had support for the development of real, authentic, core selves. It's but a small leap from there to Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism." The idea is that many, and perhaps most, Americans today have that pervasive sense of emptiness, a lack of self.

One of the authors of "Nation of Rebels" admits to having been a punk rocker rebel in a prior phase of life. He then goes on to say that that phase was, he realized upon reflection, an example of the false rebellion that the book talks about. But then, disturbingly, it becomes apparent as one reads the book, that Heath and Potter assume the same lack of self in all members of todays "nation of rebels." In other words, all consumption is based upon false, status, pseudo-rebellious tendencies.

The problem here is that the authors assume that no one buys a BMW in order to have an exciting driving experience, but only to impress the neighbors. They assume that no one buys a home theater in order to simply enjoy movies, but only to have the latest "thing." They would assume that no 20 year old would quit college simply because it wasn't right for him or her, and that the only conceivable reason would be a false sense of rebellion against parents, society, or whatnot.

In other words, they truly seem to believe what they posit early in the book: that real, authentic selves do not exist. In anyone. Talk about psychological projection outward from their own inner circumstances on a doozy of a scale! To that extent, as brilliant as this book is, I suspect that the authors are playing at being deeper, more serious social activists, and are playing at being Canadian philosophy professors, in the same exact way that one of them once played at being a rebel.

The second limitation of the book is the assumption that the authors make that "progressive" politics are a given. If you disagree with that premise, as conservatives, moderates, and many of the countercultural-type liberals that Heath and Potter are attacking in this book would surely do, then the authors have nothing for you. The book collapses into a battle between the authors as Ralph Nader-like diligent old-style liberals, and the standard liberal of the Clinton or Kerry variety. As such, the true audience for this book becomes, in all likelihood, the conservative reader-as-voyeur, as such standard liberal icons as Marcuse, Ellul, Mumford, Laing, Baudrillard, Foucault, and on and on are cleaned and gutted with profound gusto.

I sense this is an important book, and is a bomb thrown into a crowded room. I'm not sure what the results are, or what they will be further down the road. I look forward to how other readers respond.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory reading for all considering themselves part of the counterculture, March 1, 2006

By	Justin Bean "Post-college Twenty-something wh... (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nation of Rebels is one of those books that left me thinking 'wow, everything I know is wrong'. If you can excuse the hyperbole, what I mean is that this book, which is clearly written and pleasurable to read despite tackling complex economic and philosophical issues (from Marx and Bourdieu to Freud and Hobbes), severely challlenged the foundation upon which I had built my understanding of the intersection of politics, culture, globalization, and capitalism. One must have an open mind coming into this book, and it helps to know the arguments made by the present countercultural elite (such as Naomi Klein in No Logo), although the authors do an excellent job of setting up their position by explaining the opposition.

The authors make excellent use of popular culture, from American Beauty and Fight Club to Star Trek, to explain the implications of their argument. What is the authors' argument? In simplest terms, the authors argue that what we consider 'counterculture' is little more than a harmful illusion that has detracted from worthwhile political activism in the name of individualistic, utopian-fueled ballyhoo. Since the sixties, especially in the UNited States, rebels, activists, and leftists have opted out of direct political activism because, according to the countercultural critique, the entire 'system' is corrupt and therefore activism cannot take place within it, but must take place without it. The authors explain beautifully why this thought process of so damaging to making actual societal change, and that the efforts of the left to make the world a better place (which is what we claim as our mission, right?) has ultimately been misdirected.

This is a highly entertaining and thought provoking book written by two philosophy professors, and for anyone interested in current events surrounding political activism, radicalism, and anticonsumerism, this book is mandatory reading. If you have read Klein's No Logo, you MUST read this book if you want to consider yourself the least bit informed on what is ultimately an issue much more complicated than most anticonsumerists and 'culture jammers' would like us to believe.