Parenti's new book

March 14, 2006 4:03 PM

Michael Parenti has written a new book called The Culture Struggle and talks about it here.
posted by mickeyz (5 comments total)

The essence of his argument seems to be:

Folk culture is giving way to a corporate market culture. Art, science, medicine, psychiatry, and even marriage have been used as instruments of cultural control across the centuries.

True dat, I would say...although I would change the third word in this Parenti quote to has.

Just one example: a Balinese Gamelan group I played with briefly a long time ago...their Balinese teacher encouraged them to come to Bali (and they did) to show that Westerners dug the music...they didn't have to aspire to be Michael Jackson. (Yes, this was a while ago.)
posted by kozad at 4:56 PM on March 14, 2006

"many parts of culture are being commodified, separated from their group or communal origins, to be packaged and sold to those who can pay for them"

Sounds like a book I once read about.
posted by mischief at 6:16 PM on March 14, 2006

One of the persistent ideological teachings in the United States is that our society is notably free of ideological teachings.

Really? Do people still believe this in the U.S. today? I mean I have my opinions and most certainly my biases, but my perception would be that it is almost universally agreed that this country is ideological by the parameters set in the article. The bone of contention seems to be the specifics of your ideology rather than its existance.
posted by rollbiz at 8:28 PM on March 14, 2006

You don't say? Someone go wake up Adorno.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:41 PM on March 14, 2006

Really? Do people still believe this in the U.S. today?

I don't think that this is true, really. People believe that there is ideology. They just believe it to be a beneficial ideology.
posted by unreason at 5:29 AM on March 15, 2006