Decius wrote:
An odd thought occurs to me as I contemplate this. How do you kill a scene? How do scenes actually die? Scenes die because they cease to be cool. Because they get coopted by the thing they exist to resist, so that participating in them no longer means what it once did. Because the Gap opens up on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Because the gangster rappers have million dollar video budgets and all drive luxury cars. If there is anything that can take the cultural iconography of radical islam and shuck it of any possible meaning it is our consumer marketing system. Jihadi Cola, indeed.
This idea seems too trite to be reasonable. Its the sort of thing Gibson would use for irony. Maybe you can offer a better one...
Despite their differences, most major world religions warn that attachment to fleeting material objects is an obstacle to spiritual transcendence. Therefore, religious fundamentalists, who try to strictly follow the tenets of divine scripture, ought to care little for worldly possessions like cars and clothing, says Nancy Wong, assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Tech College of Management.
However, fundamentalists actually tend to form strong personal connections with particular product brands, according to a new study conducted by Wong in partnership with Aric Rindfleisch, associate professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and James E. Burroughs, assistant professor of commerce at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Nancy Wong is cute.
