Nation of Rebels

iPod's are cool. So is hanging out at CCD and Barista. Watching F1 is for the knowledgeable and different and if you watch cricket, you are just a conformist, being manipulated by the media and the sponsors of the game.
It is this kind of "counter-culture" thinking that Heath and Potter question in their book titled "Nation of Rebels". They take you though the arguments given by the counter-culture activists(like hippies etc.) for using organic food, environmentally friendly cars etc. Then they very lucidly explain how these arguments are not what they are put out to be. That is to say that the very desire of humans to be different is the cause of consumerism.
Let's take F1 and cricket, for instance. People watch F1 because they think that cricket is too much sponsors and too little fun. So, to be different, let's watch F1. Whereas the matter of fact is that F1 is so highly dependent of sponsors that the chances of that being manipulated is much higher. However, such arguments are never put against F1 purely because it is different.
Nation of Rebels is like the blue pill in this matrix of too many ideas. For once, one is put face to face with plausible explanations for the way things are. Why people watch totally non-sensical soap operas and why fashion comes and goes? How are we being manipulated not just by the big corporations but also by activist organisations(and probably more so)? These are some questions that we all probably never think of but when faced with the explanations, the answers seem so glaring and the questions so important that none of them can be ignored. So I suggest to anyone who has the will to learn about the bitter realities of this world to read this book.