Culture Jam

Lets start jamming.

A few years ago the notion of "jamming" culture arose, from Kalle Lasn's book Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge and Why We Must. An alternate title for this book is Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America.

This post was inspired by the end of my observance of "Buy Nothing Day", which is now two days observed on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. Observing this was easy for me, it is a time when the shops are crowded and the traffic is unbearable. I loathe shopping, simply because the American tradition of shopping is so grotesque. If I lived in Europe, I would be able to meander the streets and shops of some small city center, stopping to sip coffee at a quaint cafe, enjoying the personal treatment from the shops, perhaps having a meal at a locally owned restaurant. In that environment I would get out and do more shopping than I do now, but I would still avoid the crowded times. In the U.S, shopping is such a bland, ugly, unethical task, it's easy for me "voluntarily" avoid that distraction.

"Jamming" differs from voluntary simplicity movements in consciously opposing modern popular culture, essentially created by corporations to stoke consumption -- of corporate logo apparel, unhealthy food and habits, exploitative entertainment, competitive sports, etc. The idea is that by withdrawing from consumption and the use of what drives the moneyed economy of profit one could pursue an authentic life of simplicity and frugality. Simplicity is not merely a subjective phenomenon or a matter of personal taste. The premise is that the individual succeeds best (and the world benefits) when conscious of the sources of the products he or she consumes.

Being conscious of simplicity and the degree of change it brings in the world as well as to the individual is a useful model for solitaries like myself, who already have a psychological disposition for what young people call "jamming."