Tag Archives: Thomas Frank

writing for love or money? or rank?

Writing for love or money. Obviously, not everyone is Franz Kafka who leaves instructions to have their manuscripts torched after their demise. Given the current legal wrangling over the cache of Kafka papers, maybe Max Brod should have been a … Continue reading

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What is real: where the rubber hits the road

It was never meant to simply go from A to B. The automobile is the symbol par-excellence of the consumer society. For most, it is a measure of our standing on the social and economic scale and the strongest indicator … Continue reading

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mailer: writer with a loud hailer

Norman Mailer’s The White Negro from 1957.The search for rebels of his generation led to the hipster.   A prophetic inquiry into violence and rebellion? Or a basic re-packaging of his Harvard education into its logical extension which was a … Continue reading

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“I pledge allegiance…”

Are we Rome in decline, a dying society? One may doubt that we have reached that point of dissolution, where in the phrase of Giovanni Battista Vico men “finally go mad and waste their substance.” One may doubt the ultimately … Continue reading

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blissful idleness

Perhaps the greatest of all social revolutions, and one of enormous economic consequences not that profoundly explored, began in the eighteenth-century,when Europe grew not only rich enough to support a large class of non-workers, but also began to organize the … Continue reading

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Paradox: searches for paradise

Where would you rather be? On a spacecraft heading towards a lifeless moon or planet or aboard a bouncing raft constructed as in ancient times? An unabashed romantic. But, complete escape is impossible though the very attempt has its infectious … Continue reading

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wearing a mask that grins and lies

We often have a sometimes contradictory and ambiguous relationship to popular culture. In one way, its potentially powerful means to share knowledge and criticize consumer society across different boundaries in an oppositional and sometimes subversive manner. However, against this backdrop, … Continue reading

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hallmark of a fake authenticity

There are just some things more important than money. That may be a heresy in America, but its truth… Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com ): A while back I wrote about ‘fake psych’ (or as i like to call it, “hallmark … Continue reading

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breaking the rules: puffs of dissent

Although Edward Bernays ingeniously transformed a part of cigarette advertising into a feminist symbol with his “torches of freedom” campaign, cigarettes have always been a man’s prerogative, an inexpensive privilege to help the male define his identity. Where for women … Continue reading

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when the revolution comes…

Joseph Heath put it very superbly. The modern condition, modern marketing and how criticism of mass society ends up increasing the cycle of consumerism. How books like “No Logo” by Naomi Klein actually make us more brand conscious and how … Continue reading

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