I don’t object to Don Rumsfeld coming here because he would damage the Stanford brand. I don’t even think he would. But I think the outcry and the indignation is all just a cop-out, an easy dodge that fakes moral outrage while hiding behind pragmatism. It reveals something troubling about the way we see ourselves as students and as people. It says, “We are products of this corporation called Stanford, and we are for sale. We would like the price to be high.”

Good thing the ASSU bill condemning Rumsfeld as a brand-ruiner just failed. Its implication was that we didn’t want the former Secretary because he’s just too unpopular for us to hang out with. It’s not cool to be Rumsfeld these days.

Remember freshman orientation, when we introduced ourselves by endorsing certain products? We talked about our favorite music; we put movie and band posters on our walls. This is the stuff of getting to know each other. Who is cool? How to sort?

Marshall McLuhan, maybe the best-known media scholar of the 20th century, famously declared, “The medium is the message.” He meant that when we transfer information back and forth, the act and method of transferring it can be far more important than the content itself. “The content of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.” The “how” matters more than the “what.” It’s not notable that I endorse Bob Dylan where you endorse Regina Spektor, that I wear American Apparel or that you wear Abercrombie. Rather, what’s interesting is how both our lives are so thoroughly permeated by the act of endorsement.

That branding governs identity is no new insight. But commodification’s advance into the deepest corners of the way we think, identify and operate as human beings is as pernicious as it is relentless. As a Marxist might say, it is no accident that the prime location of presented identity for us — the Facebook profile — is essentially a laundry list of the things that we spend money on: books, movies, music, booze. Even the other sections are often just venues for us to send cultural signals; that line from “The Big Lebowski” speaks loud and clear.

It’s called conspicuous consumption. There’s a book about it, appropriately titled “Conspicuous Consumption,” by Thorstein Veblen. The idea is that the character of our consumption is used to let others know precisely where we stand in society. Veblen was mainly interested in the habits of the wealthy, but the theory applies just as well to college students sending up flares with their Facebook profiles.

Facebook hasn’t been particularly guiltier than any of the other countless, faceless culprits in implementing the commodification of fucking everything. But Mark Zuckerberg has definitely noticed, and he’s trying to cash in. Facebook wants to take those products we’ve chosen as the pillars of our online personalities and put them into our friends’ news feeds: “Gabe likes Bob Dylan. Click here to buy the latest album, ‘Modern Times.’” And there I’d be, grinning, bearded and goofy, next to the “Buy now!” link. Or something to that effect. Committed to privacy, of course, they plan to let users disable this function, which is worth something.

What I mainly resent, though, is the idea, even if I get to opt out. It acknowledges how blurry the line is between personality and taste and looks to exploit it. Facebook is setting out to turn social networks into niche markets, to make the ineffable bonds of friendship and affection legible to corporate peddlers and glib hawkers of marketing snake-oil. I’m looking at you, Malcolm Gladwell.

To quote Margaret Thatcher, “No. No. No.” Death to the salesman. Enough of this implacably rational madness. It’s time to defy the ever-grasping tentacles of brand. No more posters for bands and movies on the walls. I vaguely remember a version of myself identifiable by more than the various things of which I am a money-spending fan.

I don’t give a damn about having a brand-name famous commencement speaker. Let’s have someone who actually has something to say instead. And I don’t oppose the Don Rumsfeld appointment because he’s bad for Stanford’s brand and reputation, but because the man is complicit in unspeakable crimes.

I’m all for music and books and movies, and I’m all for spending money on them. I think they’re great. But when we pay too much attention to what we buy and sell, we start to lose track of the line between the products we like and the people we are. We become packaged. When we can’t or won’t tell the moral difference between “bad for our reputation” and “war criminal in our home,” there’s a problem. At least we know the name of the illness being diagnosed: It’s called selling out.