Internet and Social Control

[pynchonoid]

A good way to learn how to counter, oppose,
neutralize, or otherwise deal with an oppressive
institution is to understand, in detail, how it works,
and make that information widely available.

The princples and tactics discussed in _Firebrands_
not only help brand managers induce customers to
remain loyal to their brands, forsaking all others --
they can also be used by people who'd like to counter
the efforts of corporations to colonize and control.

It may not be as exciting a project as, say,
interpreting Pynchon in a way that lends support to
the Bush Administration's foreign and domestic
policies, but it wasn't a bad day's work either. 

Mackin:
> > Doug is talking about a book called Firebrands
> that he mentioned in an
> > earlier post. I was curious about this and found
> there actually was such
> > a book with Doug's name on the cover as co-author.
>  See
> >
> >
>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072124490/ref=lib_rd_ss_TFCV/002-6863494-7817659?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader&img=1#reader-link
> >
>
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072124490/ref=lib_rd_ss_TFCV/002-6863494-7817659?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader&img=1#reader-link>
> >
> > However this discovery raised more questions than
> it answered.  Looking
> > only as far as the preface,  including "why I
> wrote this  book," and the
> > back cover, the book is obviously aimed at
> corporate marketing types and
> > is concerned primarily if not totally with better
> and more efficient
> > ways of leading consumers into buying increasing
> numbers of products
> > whether they need them or not. In other words its
> aim is to make rich
> > capitalists even richer.  What's wrong with that
> you may ask. Well,
> > nothing is particularly wrong with it. But the
> question crying out for
> > an answer is how could our Doug. after his
> association with Michael
> > Moon, who is some kind of marketing guru (with an
> overlay of religion
> > and Max Weber) and  the obvious driving force
> behind the book and its
> > philosophy, turn so rabidly anti-capitalist?  Was
> it guilt or just
> > somethimg Michael said?
> >
> > Of course the book has nothing to do with
> government control.
> >
> > P.


It's not about the P-list either, nor does
_Firebrands_ address an infinitely long list of things
you might mention.  But what it does cover -- how
brand managers can use the Internet to win customer
loyalty -- it treats very well. 

What has steadily, insidiously improved since then, of
course, making humanist arguments almost irrelevant,
is the technology. We must not be too distracted by
the clunkiness of the means of surveillance current in
Winston Smith's era. In "our" 1984, after all, the
integrated circuit chip was less than a decade old,
and almost embarrassingly primitive next to the
wonders of computer technology circa 2003, most
notably the internet, a development that promises
social control on a scale those quaint old
20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could
only dream about. 
--Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_







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