Re: Michael Berube on Thomas Frank

[Michael Hoover <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> lnp3@xxxxxxxxx 09/18/04 9:39 AM >>>
Michael Berube is a cruise-missile leftist who can be quite interesting
when he stays off topics like Yugoslavia, how to protest the war in
Iraq,
etc. His take on Thomas Frank is an example of him at his best:
http://www.michaelberube.com/EE/index.php
He makes a very interesting point that Frank's thesis grows out of his
early preoccupations in Baffler Magazine, namely that big business
encourages faux rebelliousness in order to sell commodities. Basically,
he
explains the rightward shift in Kansas and elsewhere as a reaction to
MTV
et al. Here's something from a Salon interview with Frank that Berube
uses
to illustrate his point:
---
Salon: You have a whole critique of pop culture that is difficult to
summarize, but let's talk more about your sympathy with the right-wing
activists. When they bemoan how coarse and cheap pop culture has become,

you almost seem to agree, or at least to feel that they have a certain
kind
of point.

Frank: Well, look. I should say this: I started out as a punk rocker,
and
we try to deal with cultural dissent, genuinely shocking things, at the
Baffler. But as I have written about many, many times, so much of the
shockery that surrounds us is not genuine. There's no avant-garde about
it.
It's not the real thing, it's a watered-down capitalist projection.
You've
seen this argument before, "the commodification of dissent."
<<<<<>>>>>

according to former situationist/art historian t. j. clark, the
avant-garde is an unabashed form of social climbing...

future gang of four/ers jon king and andy gill as well as several future
mekons studied with clark at universty of leeds...   michael hoover




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