Great Expectations, Little Sense

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Re: # 2 by masadi on February 28, 2006 11:38pm PT

{Like every thing else that is prostituted in corporate capitalism, this can be referred to as the prostitution of the intellect. Men of learning are hired men in today`s world. Men that make no difference and have no power, they are mere tools to further the power of the tyrannous elite. The ones who want to make a difference are blocked out by those that have monopolized access to the masses via the media, i.e. the big corporations.}

At-a-boy, masadi. Now you are talkng. The evil of corporate capitalism is obvious to all, and their shackles will come off the Americans in the 2006 elections, where politcians will work to bring patriarchical system back into American households and America will become more isolated and insulated.

#1 writes <<< You have strong merit in your observation that in today`s world, books are written for their market appeal and not necessarily for any breakthrough ideas they bring forward. >>>

Yes and market appeal itself is cultivated by the onslaught of corporate culture forced upon the masses. Like every thing else that is prostituted in corporate capitalism, this can be referred to as the prostitution of the intellect. Men of learning are hired men in today`s world. Men that make no difference and have no power, they are mere tools to further the power of the tyrannous elite. The ones who want to make a difference are blocked out by those that have monopolized access to the masses via the media, i.e. the big corporations.

Mujtaba - Your write up sort of strayed away from its interesting and very pertinent introduction.

You have strong merit in your observation that in today`s world, books are written for their market appeal and not necessarily for any breakthrough ideas they bring forward.

The science, politics and methodology of how a given book ends up on a ``bestsellers list`` is quite telling. There are at least 150 ``bestseller`` lists in North America alone, with New York Times and Amazon being the most popular. The label ``bestseller``, regardless of which list it belongs to, is sure to contribute to increased selling of that book. Pick a fiction work from your local bookstore and it will most likely have ``bestseller`` stamped on it. A popular misconception is that a book makes it to ``bestseller`` list because it is selling a certain number of copies per week. Quite opposite. A book`s sale numbers before its inclusion in the ``bestseller`` list are just one of the many criterias on which it is measured.

Did ``World is Flat`` deserved on its own literary merit to be on bestseller list, or was it the prominence of the author himself, his publisher`s contacts within the bestseller ``industry``, and his standing in the mafia that closely controls who gets to be on a bestseller list that made the difference? Did ``Freakonomics``, a cheap take on pop-economics, really deserved to be published let along make it to bestseller lists?

There is much more than just a book that is at stake about its inclusion into NY Times bestseller list, or Oprah`s book club. For one thing, it will instantly generate millions for the writer and publisher. But even more importantly, it serves as a filter for what Americans read. Americans are too pressed for time to figure out which book to read and bestseller lists make that job easy for them. Hence Americans thoughts and the framework on how they see their world is formed through the prism of ``bestsellers``.