Product Description

In this wide-ranging and perceptive work of cultural criticism, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the most important myth that dominates much of radical political, economic, and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture -- a world outside of the consumer-dominated world that encompasses us -- pervades everything from the antiglobalization movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that mocking or simply hoping the "system" will collapse, the authors argue, is not only counterproductive but has helped to create the very consumer society radicals oppose.

In a lively blend of pop culture, history, and philosophical analysis, Heath and Potter offer a startlingly clear picture of what a concern for social justice might look like without the confusion of the counterculture obsession with being different.

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Product Details

Publisher	Harper Paperbacks
ISBN	006074586X
Format	Paperback
Author	Joseph Heath,Andrew Potter
EAN	9780060745868
Label	Harper Paperbacks
Dewey Decimal Number	306
Studio	Harper Paperbacks
Number Of Pages	368
Title	Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture
Release Date	2004-12-14
Publication Date	2005-01-01
Manufacturer	Harper Paperbacks

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Customer Reviews

A must-read for activists, nonprofit workers (with a thick skin)

Review by M. MCCAMBRIDGE, 2010-03-18

A wildly amusing send-up of many forms of self-righteous behavior, this book has one brilliant and simple point that changes the way I perceive the world:

I used to imagine the world was divided into people who pursued money (bad) and people who pursued principles (good).

However this book makes the persuasive point that once bare minimum threshhold of material wealth is achieved (basically indoor plumbing), money is just one of many means to achieve status, and that ALL people are vulnerable to being seduced by status. In some communities/subcultures, status is achieved by driving a gargantuan SUV and working at the top law firm. In other communities, status is achieved by riding a fixed-gear bicycle and working at the hippest organic food co-op.

The point is: just because you don't make any money doesn't mean you aren't in a rat-race for status. Your natural human vulnerability to status-seeking may actually get in the way of the principles for which you are so nobly eschewing wealth. Rebels of all causes should read this book and apply its cautionary tales to your own goals. Borrow its razor wit to rid yourself of self-aggrandizement that impedes your agility and effectiveness.

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Not impressed

Review by Travis Perry, 2010-01-22

I tried to read all the way through this book, I couldn't do it. These guys used entire haystacks to create all these straw men. I was extremely offended by their claim that conformity isn't perpetuated by mainstream media outlets, not something you would get away with telling to someone who just recovered from anorexia, or bulimia, who put themselves through endless amounts of physical stress because they thought they were fat and ugly in comparison to the models thrown on every tv show and magazine who try to tell you what real women should look like. Maybe I should also go tell every kid who ever got bullied because he didnt wear designer clothes and look cool that the bruises and emotional scars they got had nothing to do with being peer pressured into fitting into a mass marketed image. Then after that, I will proceed to inform them that the tens of thousands of commercials they have hawked at them every year from every street corner to radio station to tv set has absolutely no effect on how they perceive the culture they inhabit, how to relate to that culture, and construct themselves accordingly to make a living within that culture.

Yeah, fight club and the matrix were popular, but it didnt strike a big enough influence on the cultural meme pool as make a hefty amount of the population burn down every corporate office in the name of anarcho-primitivism (i also wonder whether the populace got the message or not, I've met people who liked fight club solely because they thought brad pitt was hot). These forms of media paled in comparison to say the pamphlets passed around by the founders of colonial america that helped spark the american revolution, or even ice-t's body count song 'cop killer' that helped spark the LA riots.

Yes products are sold on the pitch of rebellion, but a large percentage of these 'rebellious products' are not products of rebellious people (and arguably not bought by them either), but capitalists trying to get a grip on any kind of movement they think will make them a dollar- its well known that they do this with every kind of subculture with musical style and fashion (hence the loud angry uproar of the indie rock, punk, and hip hop movements that feel there culture was stolen from them). They wouldnt be monopolies if they didn't now would they?

Many counterculture people are hyper aware of all of this, and this is that catch 22 of having an ideology parallel to the dominant cultures dogma. You can be an anti-nazi jew trapped in nazi germany, but youll have to eat, drink, and sleep of the property nazi germany claims to own. You might be an atheist in 15th century europe, and if you dont pretend to like the catholic church you'll be jailed, torured, or maybe even put to death. You can be an anti-war protester in the 60s, but when your time comes, and they catch you, your ass will get drafted and you'll be forced to go to a warzone. Does that make any of the above hypocrites? No. It makes them unfortunate. The same goes for the counter culture: you can be an anti-capitalist who strongly believes that this corporatist government is not only wrong but unholy, but as long as they have tainted every source of water except theirs and have a monopoly on all the land and tax you for a place to stay... You know where i'm going with this.

In conclusion: not a good book at all. Nothing new here. Nothing enlightening either. In fact its a rather disingenuous attempt to try to can a chunk of values, beliefs, people, and movements all into one (very messy and vague) category that the average conservative can feel comfortable rejecting. Even if they don't know what they're condemning.

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You can almost hear Lars sing: "Hot Topic IS NOT punk rock" as the theme for this fabulous book

Review by Cha Lau, 2009-11-21

This book is like sitting with your best friend discussing Freud, Hobbs, Rouseau and the decline of western civilization all in one great evening. Do we have an innate desire to conform or are we repressed seething underneath our thinly veiled smiles? What does it mean to be "cool"? Why does capitalism and consumerism fit nicely into the cash cow of rebellion. What is counter culture and what is revolutionary? If "Alternative" music becomes "Mainstream" then is it still "Alternative"? Questions, and other thought provoking subjects like these, are jam packed in this volume. You get it all in this finely written, entertaining, and enlightening book. My vote for best book of the year!

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Logical and powerful.

Review by G. Gray, 2008-12-30

Nation of Rebels is definitely something for anyone born in the 80s or 90s to pick up.
Having said that, the book is an excellent examination of the countercultural ideals our society assumes in this era. I specifically recommend this book for my generation because we have grown up in a world in which we view mass society and globalization as evils without doubt. We have ingrained in our brains by the baby-boomers (who now run society) so many of the notions that made obvious failures in the rebellious times of the 60s and 70s, and yet we still hold many of their ideas as common sense.

By uncovering these fallacy of these common ideals, Heath and Potter allow the reader to have a deeper understand of what is truly causing consumerism (which is ironically the drive to be rebellious), why we have notions of cool (which are simply modern class divisions), and a hodgepodge of countercultural thinking we assume.

This book really opened my eyes to a lot of thinking. Our culture is countercultural. We are a nation of rebels. So we must realistically examine it, for the better of all of us. This book is good for that.

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when everybody's a rebel, nobody's a rebel

Review by Caraculiambro, 2008-05-27

This is a book about the counterculture movement by two Canadian culture critics. It actually helped me do a lot of growing up.

That's a bit embarrassing for me to admit, since I'm writing this in middle age, by which time life is supposed to have smacked one's various immaturities and ideological obtusenesses out of you one way or another.

But no. We all have various idiocies lingering under the surface, left over from our younger years, many times having gotten lodged deep inside our craniums during our college years, or as a result of having spent our lives immersed in pop culture.

I have a lot fewer illusions after reading this book.

What illusions am I talking about? Oh, you know, the standard liberal package of ideas, such as that commerce is fundamentally evil; that ideally, we should all be living off the land; global corporations are the summit of iniquity, American values are imperialistic; those who bum around Europe with a Frisbee and a guitar are more in touch with their true natures; underground music is by definition more authentic; anything for the masses is to be eschewed, "despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible," (F. Dyson). That kind of stuff.

I would say that what this book is, broadly, is an attack on the Sixties and on radical leftists generally. But that's by implication: what the authors would probably claim is that this book is an exposure of the origins and fundamental silliness of such ideas as the anti-globalization movement, and how claims to countercultural legitimacy are really just the same game all over again.

An excellent job. Probably the best book I've read in the last two years.

There are, by the way, a couple of other books floating around out there on much the same theme. There's Diana West's recently minted "The Death of the Grown-Up," which is a good read but not revelatory, like this one was. Another one I admired tremendously was Thomas Sowell's "The Vision of the Anointed," written in the 90s.

Yes, it's not often that a book helps you become more (there's no other word for it) mature. Immediately more serious and realistic, I mean. Heath and Potter's book did this by means of systematically taking some of my most cherished but unexamined ideas out for a ride, and either exposing their contradictions or seeing where they would logically take one.

This book did what it set out to do: it brings such ideas out into the open for a good whacking.

As Judge Louis Brandeis is supposed to have said, "Sometimes sunlight is the best disinfectant."

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