| Benjamin Geer on 14 Nov 2000 22:02:56 -0000 |
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| Re: <nettime> No Logo is a good Logo |
On Mon, Nov 13, 2000 at 06:23:53PM -0000, matt king wrote: > Naomi (Calvin) Klein's book "No Logo", is being promoted rather > heavily here in the UK, and perhaps globally. Her anti corporate > capitalist stance is something I have strong sympathies with. > > However I feel that the promotion of her work in the media has been > given a one-dimensional branding all of its own. It seems that this > book with its large flat coffee table form will become another piece > of christmas present gloss that is talked about rather than read (I > probably wont read it). I think that if you read it, you would realise that it's exactly the opposite of what you think it is. In reality, it's a lucid, biting critique of branding and its effects on society. Far from being self-aggrandising, Klein's analysis of the origins of the anti-capitalist movement shows remarkable humility: she faces up not only to the folly of her youthful brand worship, but to the naivete of leftists like herself who, during the culture wars of the 1980's, believed that everything would be all right if they could just get the media to show positive images of women, blacks, and homosexuals. (The media were happy to comply; meanwhile, corporations were busy turning schools and universities into brand shrines, censoring any research that would be embarrassing to them, hiring third-world populations at starvation wages, etc.) She then ties together all the issues that led to the anti-WTO protests in Seattle (which occurred after the book was written). I think that this book deserves all the favourable press it can get, and that it can only have a salutary influence on the anti-capitalist movement. Not only is Klein's historical analysis very solid, and supported by copious research, she is also doing an excellent job of identifying common goals and useful strategies in a very heterogeneous social movement. Any newspaper editor who has the courage to publish an article about _No Logo_ should be praised for doing so. -- Benjamin Geer http://www.btinternet.com/~amisuk/bg # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]