Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
That's precisely what I was driving at when I said that Taoism is not
an assertion of individualism but an assumption.  And we can see what
emerges out of that. Both the Sufis and Transcendentalists had "circles
of friends" rather than organizations.  If there was anything to
achieve, it would be achieved organically. It would blossom and spread
without requiring a big push... "you can't push the river" as they say.

Of course, emergence is the big buzz these days. We begin to see
political campaigns like the Dean candidacy emerge out of distributed
processes like the meet-ups and so forth. The biggest antiwar
demonstrations on the planet were organized largely through
decentralized, net-based "word of mouth." But by "organized", I mean
that the word was spread and people were motivated to come.  The actual
detailed organization of events was left to... errrr LEFT to groups
like International Answer, Marxist oriented groups or groups that
wouldn't represent the broad spectrum of march participants.  

So we can see some problems with relying on emergence in political
situations or where there are specific goals.  It can also lead, I
think, to a level of self-delusion where you think your particular flap
of the butterfly wings are going to emerge into some kind of effect.  

So we might say that emergence is perfect for counterculture but
counterculture doesn't resolve everything.

Boy, that's one I've had to restate many times during the course of
this book promotion.  We're not saying "here's the new ideology" (or
the old ideology) that's going to resolve all our problems both
personal and political.  It doesn't even really tell you whether to go
left or right, although it does steer people towards non-authoritarian
versions of either of those tendencies.
  

    
In a McLuhan-esque sense, isn't the medium - this decentralized, self
organizing emergence of countercultures - the message here?

The message isn't about left or right, but about the decline of
centralization vs. the long awaited Temporary Autonomous Zones of Hakim
Bey.

It's the same message from the Swift Boat Veterans and MoveOn: 
"We don't report to the RNC or DNC - you're not the boss of me!"
  

    
I think grassroots and anarchic movements and countercultures have failed in the 
past because they they couldn't sustain their connections and communicate their 
message effectively and quickly. Their ideas may be adopted, but slowly. The 
Internet might change that... though as you (Ken) say, there's more to 
organization than communication.

I actually formed a company/community once (FringeWare, Inc.) from an assumption 
that every community has its fringes, and with the Internet you could bring all 
the fringe people together to form a community and a street market in cyberspace. 
A dozen years later I'm not sure I can say anymore what's fringe and what's not. 
I think you said something similar earlier - that it's not clear what's 
counterculture these days. Are you writing about a phenomenon that's ended with 
the advent of global connectedness?
  

    

There's a question implicit in what you're saying, too.  Are all the
counter-cultural impulses anti-authoritarian?  Have they made any progress
over so many centuries?
  

    
Dennis...  Yes, the medium IS the message in the Mcluhanistic sense
and the counterculture impulse IS decentralized and self-organizing.
But those same impulses can be used by forces that don't represent
countercultural values.. at least as we defined them in the book. I
make a point in the book that decentralization can be Balkanization and
lead to situations where warlords/gangs etc. can become the new
"state", a rougher, rawer, more undemocratic source of coercion, at
least when compared to democratic states. I don't pretend to offer a
resolution to this.  Again, we don't claim to solve all complexities
and problems through the magic of counterculture.  We assume that for a
lot of people counterculturalnes;  a certain assumption of liberty,
free thought,  a right to experiment and follow the muse as weirdly as
one wishes is its own reward.  Political responsibility is an
afterthought... or maybe a pressure that sometimes can't be ignored or
danced around.  

Jon... I think counterculture has been tremendously successful.  We
obviously don't have peaceful anarchy but, you know, the freethinkers
of the Age Of Reason all renounced masturabation.  History isn't a
linear narrative of constant progress, even of the two-step-forward and
one-step-back variety, but it does seem to me -- even in this "age of
terror" that we assume levels of sexual liberty and open discussion;
rights to dissent and blaspheme; opportunities to gather into fairly
autonomous zones... out in the desert, in the streets of Berlin, online
ad infinitum that would have shocked the 18th Century, or even our
parents (some of your grandparents) if they hadn't rather lived through
it all themselves... and in Europe they are at least flirting with the
right to use mind-altering drugs at the official level; in much of the
world heterosexual domination and absolute gender identity is under
attack; etc. ad infinitum. That's why the culture warfare of the
authoritarian right is so effective.  Lots of people find this to be
too much.  


That leads to the second half of your question. Is there a fringe?  By
the mid-90s, it became increasingly clear to me that "fringe culture" 
-- culture jamming, pranks, extreme types of performance, the whole
cultural guerrilla matrix had turned into a form of entertainment for
sophisticated urbanites, for Time magazine and Wired magazine readers
who may, in fact, be quite conservative but can enjoy  a spot of
Negativland for their media dessert.  I believe the quest for the
fringe has now been reformatted as "outsider art" and that seems to
involve mostly people operating at a level of naivete that borders on
retardation (I don't necessarily mean that as a put down and I don't
necessarily mean to apply that to everyone who has been roped into the
genre)... that too is dessert for cultural consumers.  

So I guess, forget the fringe.  The open source idea is something
quite different and that seems to be a vital and healthy area of
exploration. Anybody can throw a pie.  Contributing to a community
think-a-long or making something in an open source process requires
more creativity, I believe. (but once again, it doesn't resolve
everything... .up and down we go weeee!)

Gail: I think maybe I've answered your question already but I'll throw
out a few thoughts.   We define counterculture as anti-authoritarian. 
Webster's New World Dictionary defines counterculture as "a culture
with a lifestyle that is opposed to the prevailing culture"... If you
google the word counterculture the first site that comes up is
christiancounterculture.com.  Some groups that oppose pluralism,
abortion, rationalism, sexual freedom, science, materialistic
self-indulgence, and a high level of free speech consider themselves
counter to mainstream culture. But maybe that's not your point.  

Anti-authoritarians fuck up; counterculturalists fuck up.  They can do
stuff that has authoritarian implications.  Kicking in a Starbucks
window is coercively raining on somebody's parade.  Ad infinitum.  All
attempts to live out a cluster of values are subject to human
imperfection and our ability to sometime turn what is intended into its
opposite.  

I'm not sure if I'm covering your question (or maybe it was directed
at Jon) I'd be curious to see more...






 
  

    
From off-Well, William McCann writes:


Nanotechnology & Quantum Mechanics prove higher levels of Pure Unadulterated
Consciousness exist and as the Mystics have been telling us it is possible
to return our " attention " ( the outer expression of our Pure Awareness or
Soul ) back to it's source and in this way become one with the Pure
Awareness in the microcosm and in the macrocosm it's outer expression.
  

    

I'll have what he's having...
  

    
To what extent is "counterculture" an urban phenomenon? Any examples of a rural 
counterculture?
  

    

That question makes me smile, because it reminds me of one of my
favorite books of recent years, TC Boyle's novel "Drop City." As someone
with a first-hand knowledge of the back-to-the-garden impulse of the
late 60s/early 70s, I was knocked out by the book's dead-on take on
those days -- it manages to be savagely satirical, poignant,
affectionate and filled with regret all at once.

Have you read Boyle's book, Ken/R.U.? If so, did it have some of the
same effect on you? (And if not, I highly recommend it!).
  

    
#58: I would submit that there's a couple of them, probably with some
overlap.

the homesteading movement
the survivalist movement
hippies
producers of illegal intoxicants
hermits of various flavors, including religious
  

    


#58...  In the context of the 14 or so cultures I explored for the
book, there is very little that is rural in character, as opposed to
just say location.  Certainly within Taoism, Zen, and Sufism there is a
strong element of dropping out, moving away from urban centers (to the
extent that such a thing was relevant to those particular periods) but
most of this is in such a spirit of philosophic divergence from
average cultural perception that they're difficult to connect to rural
characteristics.  However, in radical Zen, one element of its
radicalism was the way it rejected the Hindu-inflected class elements
that had continued into Indian Buddhism, and some early Zen wanderers
(radical Zennists refused to be called Masters) were notable for being
the products of poor, rural cultures and they are noted in the
literature for having spoken and written in styles that were direct,
gruff, earthy, and of the people.  They were funny and popular among
rural audiences who would turn out to listen to them.  The Zen saying,
"Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop
wood carry water" seems to indicate a path that is for working people
as opposed to wandering Saddhus or privileged contemplatives and has a
certain rural character.

The Transcendentalists seem sort of like suburbanites who longed to be
rural.  But Gopod bless Thoreau, he truly made himself into a wildman
counterculture of one.  There was the Brooks Farm experiment, but
really these were Boston suburbanites trying for rural experience.  The
hippie communes were much the same thing.   I would say that most of
the notions that Sharon listed fall into that category too, to the
extent that the participants are even counterculture according to our
definition.  Of course, there are exceptions. Stephen Gaskin's The Farm
has successfully settled in in Tennessee and probably qualifies as a
rural counterculture. Then again, I see Stephen once and awhile and he
surfs the urban world pretty naturally as well.  Of course, plenty of
people from the "boonies" participte in various sub-counterculture
flavors that are available through the media, and I have no doubt that
their are some tribes and memetic aggregations that do have a rural
character, I just haven't come across them in my research.

#59...  Gary... first of all that posting made ME smile too and what
may make you smile even more is that the gentleman may be refering to
some "Leary Theory" about evolutionary circuits in the brain and
post-terrestial possibilites where in his "8th Circuit" he links
quantuum physics and nanotechnology.  I could actually try to roll a
full doobie out of  that one but I don't really feel like it...

I LOVED LOVED LOVED Drop City.  I laughed and laughed and cried etc. 
Truly.  It starts off almost right off the bat with a woman being
coerced into sex in the name of liberation and not being uptight, moves
soon thereafter into a gang rape and then spotlights the same woman
(the main protagonist in the book) being coerced into sex again.  But
those who haven't read it shouldn't think it's all melodramatic and
dour and negative.   It has ALL the qualities Gary just described and I
found it to be VERY VERY real.  I do not shy away from the dark side
of counterculture; and of the hippie and post-hippie experiences in the
book either.     So read them in tandem!  Boyle is one of my favorite
novelists in any case.
  

    
<57> ...Tee Hee
  

    

The increasing swiftness with which mainstream media (especially the
Advertising World) co-opts/commodifies counterculture imagery has been a
fascination of mine over the past decade. What happens to counterculture
when terms like "underground" and "alternative" become genre-labels for
mainstream pop music? The music that emerged in the wake of Kurt Cobain's
death was called "alternative" throughout the '90s even though it had become
the dominant form of rock on the radio. And "underground" as a descriptor of
non-gangsta/arty hip-hop is thrown around even though this subgenre of hip-
hop is well above ground these days.

Has the word "underground" lost its meaning? To me, it used to refer to
countercultural creativity that existed below the radar of media/mainstream
social awareness. Hippies were underground until Life Magazine, et al, got
hold of the imagery, so the Beats before them. They remained countercultural
even after media awareness set in, but they were no longer underground.
Disco, too, began as an underground dance scene, mostly in gay clubs, but by
1977 it was THE mainstream pop form heard on the radio, though much of the
club scene remained "countercultural" in a way. By the early '80s Disco had
gone back underground, morphing into House and Techno etc. with its denizens
developing the Rave culture that came out from "underground" and getting
media play while remaining "countercultural."

I guess what I'm wondering is: Has the word "underground" become as
meaningless or vague as a term like "avant-garde."? And what is the
relationship between the term "underground" and the term "counterculture?"
  

    
Bingo!  

A lot of people are obsessing over these issues. It is the single
issue/question that keeps coming up as I speak about counterculture/the
book. I'm going to be holding conversations with Tom Frank, the author
of The Conquest of Cool (and What's The Matter With Kansas?) about
Counterculture and Commodification that will be published on a website
called RAWstory.  http://www.rawstory.com.  I have about a dozen
different and contradictory thoughts on all this as, I suspect, most of
you do. 

Taking it first of all from the defining elements of counterculture as
expressed in the book.. and I'll be a bore and post them here
verbatim...

***
The primary characteristics of counterculture are threefold:
        •       Countercultures assign primacy to individuality at the expense of
social conventions and governmental constraints.
        •       Countercultures challenge authoritarianism in both obvious and
subtle forms.
        •       Countercultures embrace individual and social change.

nearly universal features of counterculture are:
        •       Breakthroughs and radical innovations in art, science,
spirituality, philosophy, and living.
        •       Diversity.
        •       Authentic, open communication and profound interpersonal contact.
Also, generosity and the democratic sharing of tools.
        •       Persecution by mainstream culture of contemporaneous subcultures.
Sum Exile or dropping out.
* A playful prankster attitude
****

I see nothing here that says that counterculture has to be
"underground"... whatever that means.  In fact, a radical argument has
been made by some that underground means you're actually hiding from
authorities who are pursuing you or actively engaging in secret,
revolutionary activities against the authorities.  Many ridiculed the
assumption of the mantle of the "underground press" in the 60s on that
basis.  So in some sense, "underground" is already trivialized as a
hardassed revolutionary ideal. So, since we're all basically a bunch of
culture vulture pussies anyway, the thought is that it comes down to
maintaining individual authenticity or the authenticity of a scene,
maybe. (In the chapter on the 70s, I question the authenticist
sensibility as imposing a sort of rigidity that may not necessarily be
countercultural)  The African American spoken work poet in dreads
recites a credible few lines of street poetry in a McDonalds commercial
in the mid-90s.  What does that change?  I'm not sure it changes much.
Poetry slams and spoken word plunges forward, the validity of the
scene or the liberty and power of any performer to express themselves
to effect has probably not been  much diminished by the fact that it
has been marketed as a symbol by advertising writers who want to be hip
to consumers who want to be hip.  Maybe the take home message is that
lots of people want to be hip.  Maybe this is good. Maybe it's not so
good. You can be a hip Bush supporter.  What does hip mean?  I don't
know.  Our idea of counterculture though is that it means what I posted
above.  If people who want to be hip can be moved a bit towards those
values that would be good, I think.  But I'm sort of moderate and 
permissive these days.

Now, a strong critique on the left is that counterculture IS commodity
culture. That rebellion, individuality, self-indulgent playfulness,
the "politics of identity" and non-conformism is perfectly suited to
capitalism and commodification.  Maybe. I don't see anything in our
broadly interpreted freethinker's set of values that promises the
overthrow of capitalism.  Maybe that's why I'm getting my best reviews
from libertarians, even though I ain't quite one of 'em.  I happen to
think that corporate capitalism IS authoritarian in many ways, and on
the other hand, it's a (more or less) free country. If advertisers and
politicians want to detourn alternative cultural expressions they are
free to do so. Hell, they may even have someone mimick Tom Frank if he
gets popular enough.   And if you effectively communicate
countercultural memes (or hardassed lefist memes) you are pop culture,
at least to some extent.  

Having said all that, gopod bless Larry Harvey and Burning Man and
many other cultural activists who give people opportunities to not
settle for virtual relations and the consumption of the artifacts of
alternativeness, and bring people together in real space to have
experiences in which everyone is challenged to create and respond as
what the diggers called "life actors"...  As Larry says, he wants
people to have a life and not a "lifestyle", which is what the
advertisers are selling.

And that's finally the danger of the book that I'm flogging...   I've
posted what I think are a great set of social values; but they ARE a
linear list of values and when we see those ideas bunched together in a
book published by Random House, owned by Bertlesman, it fairly screams
"LIFESTYLE FOR SALE."  My tendency when writing the book was to want
to toss out all linear listings of countercultural attributes and to
try to convey the essence of counterculture in a more expository style,
to convey life as opposed to lifestyle.  But life happens, even when
you're trying to be stylish about it, so I'm sure people will continue
to manifest counterculture in spontaneous, real ways and I will get
pied and then go on to write more books for alternative and mainstream
publishers.

And I better be less rambling when I go mano a mano with Tom Frank,
hey?
  

    

Wow, great answer, Ken. Thanks!
  

    
To what extent have countercultures been marginal by choice? Was the Civil Rights 
movement in the U.S. a counterculture? 
  

    


Jon,

Some countercultures go for willful obscurity and some don't. The
great preponderance of these cultural episodes embrace open
communication and go out of their way to broadcast their messages. 
Socrates took it to the public forum, the Troubadours wandered around
looking for attention (particularly of the sexual sort), the
philosophes and revolutionaries of the Age of Reason were trying to
convince everybody of their various messages.  And on through the
proverbial ages.  The point of creating art and so forth, I would
think, is to make it available and have it considered.  Of course, the
whole commodification question has added a sort of perverse ambiguity
to it all.  It's hip to seem like you're trying to be obscure and
somebody happened to find you hiding under a rock playing grunge rock
etc.

Civil Rights Movement.. I would ask the participants in the Civil
Rights movement if they see themselves as corresponding to most of the
various traits and ideals I've suggested. If they say they are, than I
say they are. If they say they're not, I say they're not.  I'm a bit
afraid that somewhere along the line I'm going to get dragged into a
game of "Are They Counterculture?"... maybe it would make a good board
game...

My own general impression would be that the Civil Rights movement was
not particularly interested in being a manifestation of most of the
values we attached to counterculture, it was interested in getting
civil rights.  Many counterculturalists were part of the movement
though. And the spread of the notion of civil rights to all people
forms a sort of countercultural influence, particularly when closely
aligned with ideas of civil liberties....
  

    
To the extent the Civil Rights Movement was the first (modern)
non-partisan mass political movement to have (most of) its agenda
enacted, it served, at the very least, as a model for the anti Vietnam
war movement, thus leading us closer to the various counterculture
manifestations of today.
  

    


I can hang with that.

I will be flying from one coast to the other tomorrow and then getting
settled into Tampa FLA.  So I'll be MIA but I think my coauthor Dan
Joy may be popping in. 

In any case, I should be back on Friday in a Central Florida state of
mind....
  

    
Have a great trip!

I just thought to check a dictionary definition of counterculture: "a culture 
with values and mores that run counter to those of established society." If you 
take that view, then what's counterculture and what's not depends on what you 
think is "established." Given the cultural polarization we see today, I think 
it's harder to say what's "established." I think you said more or less the same 
thing earlier, but I wanted to restate that point. I think we're in a period of 
real confusion.

You have a section on James Joyce, who changed our perception of literature. Was 
he just following his muse? Or was he aware that his art had significant 
political and cultural implications? 
  

    
I want to follow up on Jon's thought about our being in a period of
real confusion. As I have followed all of this conversation, I've been
focusing on just that. It seems like all the rules have changed; media
manipulation and the establishment's ability to control have become so
sophisticated; new emerging technologies that have unrealized potential
to inform, enrage, and mobilize; a sense of personal disassociation
with society in general; and a general feeling of everything and
everyone simply losing their way.

It's a complicated world without much of a road map. I'm pretty sure
the old ways won't fly but not sure what might prove to be effective.
Your thoughts?
  

    


>Maybe people in earlier cultures didn't need drugs to let go and feel
the rhythms; to feel some sense of connection to an inner-dwelling
divinity or to experience agape. Maybe rationalism and industrialism
disconnected us from our ability to naturally induce or experience
brain states that were valuable to us or made us feel good.   


Not counting the Huichols in Mexico, who've been ingesting peyote for
over 3000 years, or the amanita-eating tribes in Siberia and the
northern US (and Scandinavia in earlier times), or the ones eating
psilocybin ones all over the Americas, and in the Mediterranean area in
ancient times (depicted well in artifacts from both regions), or the
ayahuasca imbibers in the Amazon, or.....In fact, mighty few cultures
that didn't employ psychoactives. Western "civilization" (still "a good
idea") is a rare exception, and one that has by far the worst drug
problems of all, as noted by Peter Devereax, standout British
archeologist, in "The Long Trip".
  

    
And all because the Christians made 'em all lay off the amanita and mistletoe!
  

    


Confusion is the watchword! It's interesting that Jon is basically
saying that the center has not held; that there is no consensus for
counterculture to dissent or deviate from and then Ted is saying that
"The establishment" has become sophisticated at controlling (and
presumably co-opting alternative culture and dissidence) and then also
goes on to say that people are adrift, without a center or consensus
reality. I have to agree with everybody.  It seems that as the result
mostly of media, but also population, transportation, relative freedom
to spread a nearly infinite variety of ideas and suggestions ad
infinitum we have gone so far from binary choices/discussions or even
comprehensible multiple choices that we may be into territory that can
only be handled by complexity theory or quantum physics. Pass me some
of that Amazonian ayahuasca!

I commend the second chapter of the book on the counterculture website
again (sorry)  http://www.counterculturethroughtheages.com where I
actually talk about people being thrown for a total loss by the
confusion of values in our (despite many recent protestations to the
contrary) post-modern mapless era.

We did include a chapter about Counterculture now and into the future
and I could easily have questioned whether the term remains useful but
I didn't go there.  Certainly it might be a time for new language that
describes the phenomena we tried to define in the book.   

I sometimes feel that questioners are hoping that I might resolve this
confusion but I can't. Maybe a good dose of psychedelics can. 
Seriously, how is it that experiences with drugs that simply allow more
signals to fire across synapses seem to frequently resolve into a
feeling of harmony, where the fragments seem to cohere into a gestalt
and... IT FEELS GOOD! (sometimes, it feels terrifying of course. Or
both)  It's sort of mysterious to me, actually.

James Joyce:  We show Joyce as being enmeshed in a sort of
countercultural cabal but really living more or less in his head, in
his obsession wtih doing these things with language that he just had to
do.  That kind of character pops up alot... pursuing his or her own
muse with counterculture community there as a support base.

Well, ho ho ho (and the meaning of THAT has certainly changed,
beeyach!)

I will probably check in again tomorrow but definitely on Sunday...
  

    


Oh yeah. Wanted to acknowledge jstrahls comments on psychedelic use in
all those cultures.  Since we defined counterculture mostly in
anti/non-authoritarian terms and then made some selections based on
that and other criteria I've already beaten to death, the book is NOT a
history of psychedelic cultures. It might be interesting to explore
the extent to which psychedelic cultures from different places and
times do or don't conform to many of the aspects of counterculturalness
we've suggested.  I suspect that we would not necessarily find as much
correspondence as some of us (well, me) would like to.  

ho ho ho...