ADBUSTERS, ADORNO and Application of Critical theory

ADBUSTERS magazine, coupled with the SUN magazine really make me smile. Every issue is well worth what you pay for them. I love the SUN because of the quality of the writing and photographs AND for the fact that they have NO advertisements cluttering up their wonderful pages. ADBUSTERS? Well, you'll have to check them out for yourself.

This though came from their latest edition and I thought it was too great not to post here.

NINE Theses AGAINST CORPORATE RULE:
STOP Buying Politics
STOP Fetishizing Growth
STOP Colonizing Neighborhoods
STOP Selling our Thoughts
STOP Selling off the Poor
STOP Demonizing Peace Workers
STOP Consuming Everything
STOP Privatizing Public Space
START Saying Hello and Listen Like Human Beings (ADBUSTERS, BUY NOTHING DAY)
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I especially enjoy the "fetishizing growth" bit. Reminds me of Lukacs "Commodity Fetishism" that we were briefly introduced to in soc theory last week. It was interesting that the teacher put quite a bit of his lecture in the context of education being commodified to ensure that its true purpose remains to produce the best, most efficient assembly line minds that student loans or your parents can buy. Those are my words, not his but that was his basic point.
Because of this lecture, I picked up a copy of "One-Dimensional Man" from the school library by Mercuse and a collection of "Critical Theory" that has Habermas, Adorno, Horkheimer, Fromm and Lukacs as well. I wish in a way that critical theory was actually taught in a way that allowed students and teachers to engage the theorists/theories IN a critical way. Rather than the read-regurgitate method, I would love to actually see a classroom setting where we had to take a theorist and have a little role playing game where we had to know their main theory well enough to argue it and defend it or critique another's work using it. Boy, you couldn't b.s. your way through that. I doubt you'd be so quick to forget what they said either if you had to actually argue Freud or argue Foucault or use Foucault to critique Freud. I think that would be quite interesting. I have never understood the logic of "learning" theory outside of its application. If you can't see how Marx's critique of capitalism is relevant today, than it is little more to you than print on a page...positively pointless. Punch the timeclock and here's your degree sort of thing. It's funny too that the teacher commented in class about how when he was speaking of Adorno's argument on critical thinking and the authoritarian personality that we were all "scribbling furiously" that I was writing it down, not for future regurgitative purposes but because it was actually an INTERESTING argument that I wanted to remember. I had a friend of mine point out recently that even the "meritocracy" is an illusion to keep people in the proper pecking order. SO the meritocracy of the macro is mirrored in that lovely little microcosm of the university. That's what my friend said. I realize that teachers have alot of pressure (and increasing crap to put up with it seems) beyond the classroom and so expecting someone to come in and do something different might be a tall order. I have known teachers though to do this and the suprise of the students is simply amazing to behold. My Comm 101 teacher had us act as trial lawyers one day to work on persuasive speech and it was great. Another teacher had us analyze a modern film using three literary theorists. For this, I chose "American Beauty" and put Foucault, de Stael, and John Keats in a bar together to discuss it using their theories and wrote it in a play format. This was probably one of my all time favorite assignments because it allowed me to be as creative as I wanted to be.

I've often wondered if we could ever have a modern day American "Frankfurt School" devoted entirely to critical theory and its application. How though does one come up with an ORIGINAL theory anyway? Look at the main theorists we've studied. THEY've all built their arguments upon the works/words of others. So regardless of whether you're a diehard leftist or one who considers themselves devoutly RIGHT, how DO you think critically and apply the theories (shortcomings and all) to current events without sounding as though you've memorized the latest FOX news soundbyte or have listened to CHOMSKY a bit too much. Hmm? In other words, if you're seeking to escape the box entirely, how does one go about it when everything you know and are and understand about this world has been defined in varying relation to that box? So if Adorno is right is the choice really mutated GMO ketchup or simply naked, mutated, GMO, fat-tainted and deep fat fried "freedom" fries as advertised repeatedly on the channel, billboard and sports team of the day or is there really no choice at all but the illusion of choice and exercise in supply and demand as understood and made history and science by propaganda and Pavlov's dogs?