Countercultural
While in South Africa I was determined to bring home some good gifts for my family. With the Waterfront Shopping Center just a couple minutes walk away I knew I would have plenty of options. During my first walk through the Waterfront I was amazed to see all the similar stores that I’d find back home. Surely I can’t buy my kids Nike sweatshirts from Cape Town can I? While a lot easier, it seemed as if I’d be selling out by bringing home American name brand gifts from South Africa. I ended up buying my kids flowers from Golden’s shop, and fair trade coffee and tea from the nonprofit places we visited. I felt good about my purchases. I was helping some good individuals and I was buying something they couldn’t get anywhere else.
I enjoyed the intro to Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter’s book, Rebel Sell as they described shared the story of a 2003 Adbusters (a magazine dedicated to anti-consumerism) advertisement offering its own brand of shoes. It was a fun read with some shock-value stories and examples. However, as the book went on I continued to notice Heath and Potter highlight corporations and movements and seem to take relationships out of the conversation. I kept thinking of Golden, his son and daughters, and how my counter consumerist mentality steered me from the “normal” gifts to something different and how that impacts Golden’s family.
I like the movement towards fair trade coffee, non-sweat shop shoes, farmer grown organic vegetables, etc. And I understand Heath and Potter’s point that these counterculture movements have failed to influence the market economy and consumption, but that doesn’t mean these movements are a failure. These movements have had a direct influence on individuals and their lives. Heath & Potter state, “the idea of a counterculture is ultimately based on a mistake. At best, countercultural rebellion is a pseudo-rebellion: a set of dramatic gestures that are devoid of any progressive political or economic consequences and that detract from the urgent task of building a more just society.[1]” Maybe I’m missing the point of this book but not all of us are able to impact the system from the top down. Most of us will be rebels on the ground and that will start with smaller levels of influence in our circles.
Potter and Heath didn’t offer many solutions that resonated with me but they did give me a thought when they said, “Unlike religion, which promised paradise after death, advertising promised paradise right around the next corner: through purchase of a new car, a suburban home or a labor-saving appliance. Consumer goods had become the new opiate…[2]” Jesus is the biggest rebel I know and the message He was teaching is far greater then receiving “paradise after death.” We need to make sure the message of Jesus is clearly shared. Jesus came to offer the abundant life now. Jesus also instructed believers to live a rebel life and not to conform to the world. It was Jesus that said to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Now that’s a rebellious counterculture life.
[1] Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t Be Jammed (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Canada, 2005), 65.
[2] Ibid., 28
About the Author
Nick Martineau
Nick is a pastor at Hope Community Church in Andover, KS, founder of ILoveOrphans.com, and part of the LGP5 cohort.5 responses to “Countercultural”
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Nick, I thought I smelt something funny too surrounding the “failure” of “every” counterculture movement effort. I think they underestimated or just might have missed completely the influence the each “rebellion” created, maybe more as a ripple than a wave but regardless still effected the sea. I love posts that bring back thoughts of Cape Town. I am ready for another visit there:)!
Yeah, what is impossible to quantify is how would things look today, globally speaking, if there had never been any of the “ineffective” counter-culture movements? The dismissiveness of Heath and Potter seems a bit myopic?
J
Nick, all time favorite post. I like how you found a measured way to respond to the consumerism and counter-consumerism culture with measured theologically reflective consumerism. Intentionally or not your experience with ‘buying gifts for the family’ became an experience with contextualizing theology and doing what you believe Jesus commands. Thanks for the example.
Appreciate your insight about how relationships can have an impact to whatever purchases we make. A pastor the other day, prior to the SuperBowl, asked if we knew from where our Seahawks t-shirts originated. Most of us (perhaps all?) did not know. I’m embarrassed to say that I probably supported a sweatshop as a result. Yet, it seems so overwhelming to be conscious of every purchase. But that’s where I think your words are powerful – if we at the very least consider the relationship, perhaps we’re walking in the right direction.
Hey Nick, yes Jesus was the biggest rebel known to man and he did what seems impossible. He changed the world from the bottom up not from the top down so it is possible. What we lack in position in life we should never lack in purpose in life. That always tips the scales no matter where we begin!