MachineMachine /stream - tagged with consumerism http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron text@machinemachine.net The London Riots: On Consumerism coming Home to Roost http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/08/the-london-riots-on-consumerism-coming-home-to-roost/ These are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers.
Revolutions are not staple products of social inequality; but minefields are. Minefields are areas filled with randomly scattered explosives: one can be pretty sure that some of them, some time, will explode – but one can’t say with any degree of certainty which ones and when. Social revolutions being focused and targeted affairs, one can possibly do something to locate them and defuse in time. Not the minefield-type explosions, though. In case of the minefields laid out by soldiers of one army you can… ]]> Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:32:53 -0700 http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/08/the-london-riots-on-consumerism-coming-home-to-roost/ Adam Curtis on 'Mad Men' http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/08/madison_avenue.html The widespread fascination with the Mad Men series is far more than just simple nostalgia. It is about how we feel about ourselves and our society today. In Mad Men we watch a group of people who live in a prosperous society that offers happiness and order like never before in history and yet are full of anxiety and unease. They feel there is something more, something beyond. And they feel stuck. I think we are fascinated because we have a lurking feeling that we are living in a very similar time. A time that, despite all the great forces… ]]> Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:55:00 -0700 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/08/madison_avenue.html On Being in Japan and Elsewhere http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/09/on-being-in-japan-and-elsewhere.html

by Daniel Rourke

Japan. That's where I am. With the rice-triangles and the tatami-mats and row upon row of vending machines. In a country where serving others is paramount, and where holidays are something that other people do, I find myself being served - on holiday... I am the ultimate gaijin 1 and every ticket I buy and photo I take seems to confirm this. I came to see Japan. But now I realise that the culture of seeing has been commodified into an experience in itself, and perhaps not an…

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