Mr. Twitchell contends that we are now
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Is it such a terrible thing, he asks, that we have accepted ''these self-evidently ridiculous myths that sacramentalize mass-produced interchangeable objects''? In many respects, yes, he replies, delivering a familiar litany of the consumer culture's ills, and concluding that they constitute ''a one-dimensional world, a micron-thin world, a world low on significance and high on shine.''
Yet, granting all this, Mr. Twitchell also argues that ''commercialism has lessened pain,'' since ''most of us have more pleasure and less discomfort in our lives than most of the people most of the time in all of history,'' and that, in any case, ''much as we love to blame advertising, it has not led us astray.'' He concludes: ''Once we are fed and sheltered, our needs are and have always been cultural, not natural. Until there is some other system to codify and satisfy those needs and yearnings, commercialism -- and the culture it carries with it -- will continue not just to thrive but to triumph.''
These are ideas that Mr. Twitchell has written about before, in previous books of his like ''Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture,'' ''Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America'' and ''Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism.''
