Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: 'Kleenex-View' and Cultural Devaluation: Merchandise as Ontology in Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985)

with everyday reality. Jack and Murray spend most of their time on campus, too. Marshall McLuhan, Father of Media Theory and author of such books as The Guttenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media, himself a myth-maker and mythical figure as well, says in an interview: -'But

1, the voice perished, 'you've only lived your whole life on a university campus.' -'Well', McLuhan responded, 'if you've lived on a university campus, you know a lot about stupidity. You don't have to go outside the university to understand the human condition.' -There was laughter, - 'You can't always recognize stupidity at first sight

—he continued.

— Or immaturity. Very few people go past the mental age of eleven now. It isn't safe! Why

—they would be alienated from the rest of the world.' (Powe 23) Campus-life and education often trains people for cultural conformity, though the idea to follow the 'establishment' is sometimes rejected by the same intellectuals. According to an influential, though conservative view of the anti-establishment intellectuals in a book entitled The New American Society "Opinion-making institutions can present and diffuse ideologies that justify the dominance of bureaucratic elite and can withhold information that conceals incompetence, malfeasance and self-serving (Bensman-Vidich 285)." At another place in the same book conformity and one-dimensionality, a fundamental notion of Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man is ideologically turned out of its original meaning, when discussing the pre-manufactured experience provided by the mass media and intellectuals turning against it: "The failure of consciousness means simply that individuals fail to recognize the amount of freedom that is available if they would choose to use it (279)." The above quoted views serve as counter-examples that refer to Jack's involvement in the battle of ideologies, makes efforts to see clearly, but he cannot get out of the context of his own life, cannot revolt in a heroic way: he simply goes on searching for possible escapes. After the two images of social and spiritual incubation, i.e. the Supermarket and the Campus, the themes of consumer society and contamination merge, when Babette argues why she needs her daily 195