<p>Just after posting disparaging remarks about the low quality of scholarly articles on literary topics, I read one (albeit on film) that reminded me why reading scholarly articles is sometimes fun and stimulating. If I hadn't read "Reality is What You Can Get Away With: Fantastic Imaginings, Rebellion and Control in Terry Gilliam's <em>Brazil</em>"*, I would never have encountered this marvelous Gilliam quote (with which I agree wholeheartedly):</p>
<p class="quote">America bombards you with dreams and deprives you of your own.</p>
<p>I would also never have known that Salman Rushdie wrote an essay about <em>Brazil</em>, so I would not have gone looking for "The Location of <em>Brazil</em>" and would thus not be enjoying his book of essays, <em>Imaginary Homelands</em>, now. 
<p>This article afforded another interesting discovery through a brief discussion of Herbert Marcuse's <em>One Dimensional Man</em>. I had a passing familiarity with the name Marcuse but had no idea that his work included insights like these:</p>
<p class="quote">...technologically advanced societies are able to completely eliminate conflict through the assimilation of previously dissident voices or forces [<a href="http:http://www.tcfrank.com/commodify.html" target="_blank">commodify your dissent</a>**]. This is achieved partly through the creation of affluence, which in turn creates freedom from material want. Such freedom...is therefore transformed into a mechanism for producing servitude. In addressing this apparently paradoxical situation&mdash;i.e., that in satisfying the needs of humanity the dominant classes may subjugate them&mdash;Marcuse identifies false and true needs, the former being 'those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression.' (101)<p>
<p>This from a book written in 1964, a book that I certainly should read. This matter of (relative) affluence leading to complacency has been on my mind for some time. The production and perpetuation of "false needs," as far as I can tell, is the driving force in American culture. These ideas are so neatly articulated in the article. I'm glad I read it. Whether my schoolchildren will have derived similar enjoyment I won't be able to say until after tomorrow's class.</p>
<p class="note">*Wheeler, Ben. "Reality is What You Can Get Away With: Fantastic Imaginings, Rebellion and Control in Terry Gilliam's <em>Brazil</em>." <em>Critical Survey</em>. 17.1(2005): 95-108.</p>
<p class="note">**For some real commodification of dissent go to the <a href="https://secure.adbusters.org/orders/" target="_blank">"Culture Shop"</a>. Gag.</p>