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First Pages of Life, Inc. Posted Online
Douglas Rushkoff, author of Playing the Future: What We Can Learn from Digital Kids and Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, understands the power of media, and particularly new media. To prove it yet again, he has released the opening pages (and teases that he may release the whole thing) from his new book, titled Life, Inc., to his website. So far, it’s shaping up to be a great read, as Rushkoff explores the question: When did the world become a corporation, and what can we do about it? Here’s a brief excerpt, written after the author’s mugging and the media storm that followed:
Like Californians surprised when a wildfire or coyote disrupts the “natural” lifestyle they imagined they’d enjoy out in the country, we “pioneer,” “colonize,” and “gentrify” at our peril, utterly oblivious to the social costs of our expansion until one comes back to bite us in the ass-or mug us on the stoop. And while it’s easy to blame the larger institutions and social trends leading us into these traps, our own choices and behaviors-however influenced-are ultimately responsible for whatever befalls us.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, is just a microcosm of the slippery slope upon which so many of us are finding ourselves these days. We live in a landscape tilted toward a set of behaviors and a way of making choices that go against our own better judgment, as well as our collective self- interest. Instead of collaborating with each other to ensure the best prospects for us all, we pursue short- term advantages over seemingly fixed resources through which we can compete more effectively against one another. In short, instead of acting like people, we act like corporations. When faced with a local mugging, the community of Park Slope first thought to protect its brand instead of its people.
You can read the full opening pages of the book here, and, if you can’t wait for more parts to be published, pick up the whole thing from Amazon.
