Re: RE: Re: Dallas Smythe student

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Forstater, Mathew wrote:

> Tom writes:
>
> > The anxiety isn't over pleasure and sensuality per se, but over the
> > commodification of pleasure and sensuality
>
> this is Smythe's view, in my understanding.

Mine too. But in all the analyses of this genre I've seen - and along
with Jhally, I'm thinking of things like Adbusters, the Rev Billy, a
lot of the Pacifica audience - I don't see anything like the careful
distinctions that Mandel makes. What I see in the anti-commercial
gang is just the kind of asceticism that Mandel criticized in
orthodox Marxists, though without the class angle.

My friend Carrie McLaren, who publishes the 'zine StayFree
<http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/index.html>, isn't quite out there
with the hair-shirters, but she does have a streak of it. She was
alarmed to hear that a mutual friend had dyed her hair. I think
dyeing hair is just fine (though I haven't taken it up yet). I'll bet
a lot of the Buy Nothing people don't like makeup either. I'll bet a
lot of PEN-Lers don't approve of makeup or stylish clothes either.

Doug