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
