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September 24, 2004 at 12:36 pm

We can change the world!

The first two sentences of Kalle Lasn‘s, Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America™ are:

The book you’re holding carries a message that your first instinct will be to distrust. That message is, We can change the world.

I’ve had Culture Jam sitting on my bookshelf since it was published in 1999, but I never took the time to open it — my allegiance to the whole Culture Jammer ideal was already set at the time and I’ve always considered myself fairly learned on the concepts there within.

Well, why did I buy the book then?

For a few reasons. First, I was teaching a multimedia class at the time and the class text that I chose was, Jamming the Media: A Citizen’s Guide Reclaiming the Tools of Communication, by Gareth Branwyn (if you are into “media hacking” and would like a great guide to minimalist media tomfoolery and the history of multimedia in general, you should read this). I also told my class to read Neal Stephenson‘s The Diamond Age and K. Eric Drexler‘s Engine of Creation. In any case, I wasn’t going to let this class fall into the realm of “average experience” for anyone. So, I bought Culture Jam as reference for the class — which I never ended up using. The second reason that I bought Culture Jam was because I thought I might someday have reason to give it to someone who was interested in the subject of chenging our culture through media. This hasn’t happened yet. Lastly, I just always thought it would look cool on a coffee table.

I’m between books right now. I just finished Free Culture By Lawrence Lessig and I’m anticipating purchasing my next work of fiction. Free Culture was a great read, if not a little bit out-dated. Still I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in the history (and future, of course) of communications in our culture. Some of you may remember a recent Blog entry of mine that was inspired by this book (and don’t worry, I am conjuring up a followup entry — with pictures — so stay tuned).

Words can be inspiring and insightful and motivate us to action. I like books because of this. Books can also remind us of ideals and goals and feelings that maybe we sometimes forget about during “regular life.” As I read those first to lines of Lasn’s book this morning — however overstated or overheard they may be — I was inspired. I remember all of the things I was thinking about back in 1999 and all of the things I wanted to motivate others to think about.

In 1999, I was leaving a hectic lifestyle to return to school. I was teaching at the college that I got my first degree from in 1992. And I wanted to change the world. How? I didn’t know. But some of these books gave me a pretty good glimpse.

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