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Title: Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape by John Miller, Ashley Montagu ISBN: 0-8173-0901-2 Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: November, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A powerful and unconventional look at contemporary America
Comment: This is a bold and powerful look at American life outside of political cliches like "evil corporations" and "evil Hollywood," thrown around by PBS / Naderites and conservatives respectively. Even though I am what Miller would consider a conservative, I could very much appreciate his book. It is a diagnosis like no other; it is coming straight from the heart of the beast -- a PR executive who realized the fine line between reality and fiction, advertising / entertainment and real life, and saw how it became uncoscionably blurred in post-Industrial America. I recommend Miller's inter-disciplinary (everything from economic sociology to art theory) book to anyone seeking an irreverent perspective on what at first glance seems to be a wornout subject. Prepare to be shocked!
Rating: 5
Summary: A way forward?
Comment: I am grateful to John Miller for addressing so succinctly, albeit in a somewhat heavy-handed manner (possibly a legacy of his involvement in challenging the outdoor advertising industry?), the changes which have fashioned the current aesthetic climate in which we are struggling to make some sense of our lives. Realization that redefinition of culture, community, acceptance of mutual responsiblility and of pure beauty are needs as essential to our collective well-being as breathing is latent and must, like the Phoenix, arise from the ashes of our self-absorption. Then, perhaps, that gnawing feeling we live with in the pits of our stomachs can be palliated. Egotopia points a way forward. But have culture, community and beauty become luxuries we can no longer afford in an economic democracy? Given our past and current excesses would espousing a more intellectual aesthetic eventually lead to a new era of intolerable elitism? How does this all translate to the world stage?
Rating: 5
Summary: A critical, and sometimes harsh, view of cultural decline
Comment: Miller's Egotopia presents an iconoclastic, highly critical view of modern America. Miller's central thesis is that the suppression of the public individual in favor of the private individual has had drastic consequences on our culture and environment; while Miller's focus is on aesthetics, his argument can be modified to bear on discussions of the environment and ethics as well. To blame for the rise of the private individual, Miller argues, are psychotherapy and neoclassical economics. The former is problematic in that it encourages individuals to satisfy primarily, if not only, their own egos. The latter replaces aesthetic, ethic, and cultural values with strictly economic value. The result of combining these two forces: the New American is taught to increase utility and profit at the expense of beauty, right, and goodness. All forms of value are replaced with economics; and, further, economic value is personal and subjective. The private individual is heralded as the measure of all things, and as a consequence society and culture decline. As a general warning, this book should probably not be read by economists, advertising agents, or "outdoor advertisers". For the rest of us, however, it serves as both an enlightening expose of the true American culture and a call to arms.
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Title: Creating Successful Communities: A Guidebook to Growth Management Strategies by Michael A. Mantell, Stephen Harper ISBN: 1559630140 Publisher: Island Press Pub. Date: December, 1989 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Geography Of Nowhere: The Rise And Declineof America'S Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler ISBN: 0671888250 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 26 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: HOME FROM NOWHERE: REMAKING OUR EVERYDAY WORLD FOR THE 21ST CENTURY by James Howard Kunstler ISBN: 0684837374 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 26 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family by Eleanor D. Payson ISBN: 0972072837 Publisher: Julian Day Publications Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Why Is It Always About You? : The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss ISBN: 0743214285 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 07 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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