On Sun, 16 Jun 2002, Nathan Newman wrote:
> THe rhetoric may be solid but where do the profits go? Capital is
> incredibly hip to commodifying dissent, as the saying goes.
-Profits aren't just economic. They're symbolic, cultural, political, -social, psychological, etc.
Wait a second-- we can do humpty dumpty with words, but to say that "profits" are social and psychological starts to empty any analysis of material capitialism. Which may be your point, but I think I disagree with it.
I know you aren't opposed to union gains, but I think the lack of sexiness, the kind of boringness in the day-to-day struggle over the wage/capital split makes analyzing cultural theory more sexy for a lot of folks.
-The notion of a pure, unmediated dissent -constantly being swallowed up by Evil Corporate Machines is itself -a piece of ideology: a libertarianism blind to the division of labor which -makes even the smallest gesture of dissent possible in the first place.
I just don't buy that words are ever dissent unto themselves, so unless they are matched to real collective organizing, they are always going to be chewed up by the capitalist machine as product.
It's not that video games are not cultural product worth analyzing-- I'm just not sure any cultural consumption is that prime an issue without a direct connection to actual movements for social change.
-- Nathan Newman