Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
A passionate defense of local politics in an age dominated by global media empires. Concern over the present state of the world--its tensions and disparities--fosters in many people the uneasy combination of two sensations: urgency and powerlessness. We feel that something must be done before it is too late, but we have little idea of what we as individuals, or as families, or as groups of friends, can possibly do to stem the tide. This book explores the choices we have. It considers the options for civil society, and for the individual within today's political culture. It offers a strong critique of the prevailing model of modernity in developed countries, a model which is being exported and imposed on the rest of the world. The solution lies in our own hands. We need to rethink the choices we make on a day-to-day basis: the ways we use our time, the family lives we live, the sorts of goods and services we consume, the quality of democracy we are able to exercise. The individual, the local, and the global are inextricably intertwined, in positive as well as in negative ways. Passivity and indifference at the individual level contribute greatly to collective dismay at the condition of the world.… (more)
User reviews
In fact Ginsborg's entire understanding of media seems outdated. He talks about the subversive influence and power of advertising - and then uses cigarette advertising, and a study of London households in the 1950s to back up his points. He speaks of advertising as trying to create an idealised and one dimensional view of the family in a way that suggests he hasn't watched much TV in the last 10 years. He dismisses claims that advertising is not as effective as once it was by asking why corporations would spend billions of dollars on something that doesn't work. The answer to which is of course that good advertising can still be very effective and influential, but that consumers are no longer much influenced by mediocre campaigns. And as in so much of life, there is a lot of mediocrity around in advertising.
Three other points that irked me. Firstly, throughout the book he divides the world into "North" and "South" rather than more generally accepted terminologies such as "Rich and Poor", "Developed vs Under developed" etc. I agree that the accepted divisions are problematic but how "North vs "South" is an improvement, I don't know. Is Australia part of the (poor) South? Are China and Russia part of the (rich) North? Or is he really just talking about Europe? Its all very unclear. Secondly, he uses novels, rather than sociologal or anthropological studies to illustrate his points about various societies. American consumerism - see "The Corrections". Indian village life? See the early works of Anita Desai. And thirdly, its all very well to talk about ethical trade, and few would disagree that a daily payment of 31 cents to a Honduran garment worker is exploitative. But at what point does the exploitation end? Is $3.00 a day exploitative? $30.00? $300.00? And what happens to the garment worker if he or she can't even get 31c? And what happens to the community if the trade goes elsewhere? There is no attempt to deal with such issues
All in all disappointing and woolly headed