Ad Vice.

AuthorVirkkala, Timothy
PositionBrief Article - Review

Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say, by Douglas Rushkoff, New York: Riverhead Books, 321 pages, $24.95

Once upon a time, Douglas Rushkoff thought the Internet and other new media were going to unleash the power of individuals over institutions. He wrote books promoting this dream, most famously Media Virus (1994), and made a name for himself as a cyberutopian. Then the Establishment invaded the Net and turned Rushkoff's liberatory tool to its own ends, littering the Web and his beloved e-mail inbox with that ugly thing, commerce. Admen and P.R. flacks even had the gall to try to use him and his ideas for their own nefarious ends.

So in 1998, Rushkoff signed on to the "Technorealist" movement, which aims, in his words, "to support the mindful development of cyberculture beyond the priorities set by business interests" while avoiding "neo-Luddite" hysteria. Dashed hopes and all, Rushkoff remains a prophet, but one closer in spirit to Jeremiah than to Moses. In Coercion, he purports to reveal not a promised land but our most grievous faults. His theme is how professional "coercers" make suckers of us all.

For those of us who use the word coercion in its conventional sense--that is, as the use or threat of force--the questions about Rushkoff's book start with its title. He is actually writing about the many methods of base rhetoric, of unwholesome persuasion: indirection, trickery, deceit. He is not describing systems of social control that carefully conceal the threat of force behind, say, noble-sounding rhetoric; that is, he is not talking about politics. He is talking about commerce. But sellers "threaten" us, at worst, by withholding an enticement.

At one point, amusingly, Rushkoff slips into the standard use of the word, with a reference to the CIA's "noncoercive interrogation" techniques. Why does Rushkoff bring this up? To explain how salespeople use similar techniques as part of their "coercion." Here and elsewhere, Rushkoff demonstrates that his peculiar use of a common word disables him. There is a continuum from coercion proper, through coercion loosely conceived as he thinks of it, to plain, honest persuasion. By misusing one word, he defeats his whole enterprise. "The fact is," he states without irony, "everything is coercive. Except, of course, those CIA interrogation techniques.

So Rushkoff's villains are admen and marketers. They gain our compliance not with threats of jail or death but with jingles, point-of-sale racks...

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