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Better Together
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Is consumerism a spiritual dead end? Isn't it true that mere things can never make us happy? Why, no, says James B. Twitchell, in a sequel of sorts to his popular Adcult USA. We are what we buy, says Twitchell, and we like what we buy. After food and shelter, the next step in the needs hierarchy is self-actualization--and in contemporary society, what better way to self-actualize than to co-opt the mojo of recognizable name brands? The semiotics of purchase are important, he argues: durable goods make us comfortable, provide us with a sense of security in an age when religion no longer works the way it was designed to. The new high priests are celebrities who hawk basketball shoes, cars, telecommunications infrastructures, Carnival cruises, cosmetics, nicotine patches, and medications. Shopping, in this sense, may even be the ultimate act of self-identification with the divine principle. Radical though it may be, the hypothesis of Lead Us into Temptation is strongly supported by the evidence. Never before has the science of selling been so well understood, the market's ability to measure consumer satisfaction so complete. Read Twitchell and weep--or better yet, go shopping. --Patrizia DiLucchio
From Publishers Weekly
Chronicling America's increasing absorption in materialism, "the most shallow of the twentieth-century's various isms," Twitchell (Adcult) examines the cycle of conspicuous consumption. Comparing the influence of contemporary marketing and advertising to that of the Renaissance-era Catholic church, Twitchell, who is a professor of English at the University of Florida, contends that both "sell peace of mind either in this world or the next." He finds celebrity spokespersons such as Michael Jordan "priests" of marketing, the subject of "hagiography" in television commercials that are "an almost perfect mimic of religious parable[s]," which pay for sitcoms that instruct Americans in "how branded objects are dovetailed together to form a coherent pattern of selfhood, a lifestyle." Twitchell runs out of steam (and metaphors) halfway through the book as he discusses the evolution of branding and how shopping has become integral to the construction of the modern self, charging that infomercials and home shopping networks are the ultimate conspiracy, with their one-sided, two-dimensional falsely "interactive" setup. Though illuminated by some bright ideas, Twitchell's academese and arch stance make for some strained arguments. (June) FYI: This is the final volume in the nonfiction trilogy that began with Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America and Adcult: The Triumph of Advertising in America.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Is consumerism a spiritual dead end? Isn't it true that mere things can never make us happy? Why, no, says James B. Twitchell, in a sequel of sorts to his popular Adcult USA. We are what we buy, says Twitchell, and we like what we buy. After food and shelter, the next step in the needs hierarchy is self-actualization--and in contemporary society, what better way to self-actualize than to co-opt the mojo of recognizable name brands? The semiotics of purchase are important, he argues: durable goods make us comfortable, provide us with a sense of security in an age when religion no longer works the way it was designed to. The new high priests are celebrities who hawk basketball shoes, cars, telecommunications infrastructures, Carnival cruises, cosmetics, nicotine patches, and medications. Shopping, in this sense, may even be the ultimate act of self-identification with the divine principle. Radical though it may be, the hypothesis of Lead Us into Temptation is strongly supported by the evidence. Never before has the science of selling been so well understood, the market's ability to measure consumer satisfaction so complete. Read Twitchell and weep--or better yet, go shopping. --Patrizia DiLucchio
From Publishers Weekly
Chronicling America's increasing absorption in materialism, "the most shallow of the twentieth-century's various isms," Twitchell (Adcult) examines the cycle of conspicuous consumption. Comparing the influence of contemporary marketing and advertising to that of the Renaissance-era Catholic church, Twitchell, who is a professor of English at the University of Florida, contends that both "sell peace of mind either in this world or the next." He finds celebrity spokespersons such as Michael Jordan "priests" of marketing, the subject of "hagiography" in television commercials that are "an almost perfect mimic of religious parable[s]," which pay for sitcoms that instruct Americans in "how branded objects are dovetailed together to form a coherent pattern of selfhood, a lifestyle." Twitchell runs out of steam (and metaphors) halfway through the book as he discusses the evolution of branding and how shopping has become integral to the construction of the modern self, charging that infomercials and home shopping networks are the ultimate conspiracy, with their one-sided, two-dimensional falsely "interactive" setup. Though illuminated by some bright ideas, Twitchell's academese and arch stance make for some strained arguments. (June) FYI: This is the final volume in the nonfiction trilogy that began with Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America and Adcult: The Triumph of Advertising in America.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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