Culture and transformation

This book could be interesting: Transformation. A forthcoming book by Grant McCracken, who now, writes a little about his book:

This book argues that there’s a new cultural regime, one that is, I believe, changing how we define the individual, the self, our culture and our economy.

He jumps right into the discussion about how commerce and pop culture has influenced our lives until today.

The academics and the essayists insisted that popular culture was a corruption, that the consumer was a dupe, that something had gone terribly wrong now that capital and commerce had been allowed to interfere with culture.

He counters that argument, saying:

Popular culture got steadily better. We did not dumb down and out. TV improved. […] The parts of culture not touched by commerce, well, many of them descended into self absorption and incoherence. As Tyler Cowen pointed out, commerce is actually good for culture. Go figure. Shakespeare did.

This could turn out to be a very interesting read!