> I am actually shocked by the number of people on this list who equate
> creativity and freedom with their potential to consume. These same
> people then go on to say that there is no brainwashing going on in
> this country. I'm afraid you'll have to put me on the LBO "crank" list
> with Carrol and Woj because until I am able to articulate my way past
> shock, that's where I belong.
I think she means me. But I'd have to say that Joanna (and others) are making somewhat promiscuous use of the term "consume." Let me give you an example. If I say that we have a wide variety of books, movies, recordings, newspapers, magazines and the like available to us, that's desccribing something _very good_. It means that those of us who like to read, or appreciate music, or admire films or drama or whatever, can indulge our aesthetic tastes to a phenomenal degree. What intelligent person wouldn't want to have millions of books available for the reading?
But once we apply the term "consume," suddenly, the picture changes. No longer are we in a reader's paradise, where Dickens and Thackeray and Austen are just as available as King or Rushdie or Rowling. Suddenly we are merely "consumers," gluttonously feeding on shiny new products without a care in the world or even the wit to recognize our squalid behavior.
What I find amusing about Joanna's comment above is her reference to "brainwashing." Tell me, Joanna; what would an "un-brainwashed" person be doing with his or her leisure time? Boning up on the latest Amnesty International reports? Studying the Eighteenth Brumaire? Deconstructing the strategies of discourse permissible within the boundaries of dominant ideology?