Literature Synchronicity: Feed and Branded Nation

While on my trip I read Feed (by M. T. Anderson), a novel set in the next century in which media and the internet and pretty much everything are tied directly into people's brains. It's a quick read, and a striking novel about shortened attention spans, corporate dominance of government, loss of ability to communicate complex thoughts (and perhaps even think them), and the consequences of these, such as exploitation of the environment and human labor.

Don't take this as a strong endorsement to go out and read this book. It's decent but not exceptional. The reason I'm blogging about it is because it became more obviously relevant because of two coincidental events.

One is that immediately after finishing this novel, I started to read the other book of the many on my list to read that the library had available. It is Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld (by James B. Twitchell ). It seems as if it speaks directly toward Feed, showing the ways in which both corporations and other organizations (including those that we don't normally think of as trying to advertise or influence our decisions) really do, in many overt and subtle ways, brainwash us and change the way we think about things and indeed the way we think at all. The future Feed postulates is coming true sooner than it or we realize!

Two is my reaction to a recent speech by George W. Bush. In Feed, the brain implants reduced the need for / ability to reason and communicate effectively. In the novel, even the President of the United States, a person one would expect to be smarter than most, bumbles and stumbles and simply confuses many of his speeches. Meanwhile, in the real world George W. made some comments about there not being a need or desire for a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. But in discussing this topic, he really sounded almost as bumbling as the President and most people in Feed. (For his comments, use the above link and search for "timetable." The paragraph starts, "PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you. You've picked up a good American trick" ...)