Abstract

This essay critically examines a recent publication in the Idiot’s Guides Series: The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Surviving Iraq (2006). It applies Herbert Marcuse’s critique of the language of capitalism in One-Dimensional Man (1964) to the current war in Iraq and to the cultural products that have arisen simultaneously with the war. Specifically, this essay critiques the style, grammar, word-choice and presentation of Surviving Iraq and illustrates how these communication techniques serve to both normalize the war in readers’ minds and entrench the idea that the reader is able to and even ought to profit from the war. Following Marcuse, it concludes that the conjunction of the discourses of business, politics and fun in the text of Surviving Iraq both justifies a destructive political situation and encourages war-profiteering.