“Thus with the ‘alternative’ face lift, ‘rebellion’ continues to perform its traditional function of justifying the economy’s ever-accelerating cycles of obsolescence with admirable efficiency . . . Ever since the 1960s hip has been the native tongue of advertising, ‘antiestablishment’ the vocabulary by which we are taught to cast off our old possessions and buy …
Satire As Prophecy
“We are Bible people, and we name our churches Bible churches, and we go to Bible studies, although Bibles are increasingly rare at them, and our holy hardware stores make megabucks selling study Bibles for ‘whatever ails ya.’ But the problem with making up titles of such Bible versions to illustrate a point here is …
Social Totemization
“Brands are also a handy device for papering over nasty ambiguities like how things are made and what product is ‘right’ for a person’s socioeconomic standing and lifestyle. This strategy has been taken to ridiculous extremes, as in the case of sunglasses, hiking shoes, water, beer, and countless other cases where the most everyday products …
Top to Bottom, Front to Back
“So before there can be any kind of restoration of national dignity in the civil realm, there must absolutely be a reformation in the Church — top to bottom, stem to stern, from the front of the face to the back of the head. Modern evangelicalism is not the solution to America’s problems, modern evangelicalism …
What Television Sees
“They were both aspects of the advertised life, an emerging mode of being in which advertising not only occupies every last negotiable public terrain, but in which it penetrates the cognitive process, invading consciousness to such a point that one expects and looks for advertising, learns to lead life as an ad, to think like …
41 Kinds of Tylenol
“This premise leads business writers to emphasize rapid product introduction as a key to corporate success. According to Peters, healthy corporations are roiling hives of gutsy executives called ‘product champions,’ each one enraptured by a delphic vision of superficial novelty — perhaps of a soft drink with an advanced sweetner or unprecedented hue . . …
Rejecting Affectation
“But in the same way, simple reaction back is not reformation either. Some die-hard traditionalist defenders of orthodusty have no more understanding of what they are doing than do the contemporary worship dervishes. And this is why we need the simple honesty of satire. Pietism is an inadequate protector of piety, which is why pietism …
Water From the Cartesian Well
“However, while the temptation has been present a long time, succumbing to the temptation as a way of life is the fruit of modern rationalism. And while we do not wish to blame everything on Descartes, who is, for example, not directly responsible for the Spice Girls, we may certainly mark the ascendancy of Cartesian …
As Ever, the Logic
“For all the tattoos, Details message is no different than any other lifestyle magazine: Who you are depends on what you consume, and how hip you are depends on how enthusiastically you keep up with the new. Nonconformity may be the language, but fashion is, as ever, the logic.” [Frank and Weiland, editors, Commodify Your …
Lawn Sprinklers for Jesus
“My wife and I were recently on vacation, and being strangers in a strange land, we sought out a place to worship while there. We picked a place that, judging by the name, seemed safe enough. But the service started out with a thumping worship band playing some up-beat pep rally songs. One of these …