Her’s kind of a relevant tangent — I think of the best bits of pop culture in the corporate-controlled world as being kind of like the works of art created by Renaissance artists bankrolled by nobles and merchants. The “purpose” the Mona Lisa was painted was so some rich guy’s wife could have a pretty picture of herself — but this usually doesn’t factor into most of that painting’s “fans’” appreciation of the Mona Lisa. Now, I’m not gonna call FullMetal Alchemist the Mona Lisa by a long shot, but if I think of “art” in the contemporary age kind of like this, I for one feel better about about “consuming” it. Of course, there are ten thousand questions about the rightness of consumer greed in the face of world poverty and all that, but as far as appreciating the art itself, it works for me.

What I meant to say was that one acts like an adult when one has to, and one actually has fun when one doesn’t have to act like an adult — consumer culture or otherwise.

Our cult of childhood is a sentimental disguise for true homage to the imaginal. (from A Blue Fire, p. 237)

To me this would tie in with consumer culture, too. From personal experience I know there is a real, resonant “inner child” archetype, but I guess our literal culture has connected it too much to the actual period of childhood - with all the impotence this implies - and not paid enough attention to its association with what Rushkoff calls the “elasticity of youth”, and the roots of this elasticity in the creative imagination.