Law in the Internet Society

View   r8  >  r7  ...
BrendanMulliganFirstPaper 8 - 05 Dec 2009 - Main.BrendanMulligan
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstPaper"
Ready for review. Comments and criticisms welcomed.

Changed:
<
<

Counterculture Movement and Computers: Despite Similarities and Corporate Influence, This Time May Be Different

>
>

The Counterculture Movement And Computers: Despite Similarities And Corporate Influence, A Look At Historical Materialism Suggests That This Time May Be Different

 -- By BrendanMulligan - 13 Nov 2009
Line: 12 to 12
 "We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?" This statement graced the cover of a 1997 edition of Wired magazine, but given the optimism embodied in this statement, it may have been said 30 years earlier on some corner in the Haight. A variety of factors influenced the counterculture movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s: resistance to hyper-militarization that fueled the nuclear arms race and the Vietnam War, rejection of “technocracy,” and communitarian politics informed by a long anarchist tradition. When lucid, hippie ideology attempted to discard political and cultural orthodoxies, provide for equality, and reject individual ownership and consumerism. In many respects, these values are consistent with a utopian vision of computers and interconnectedness.
Changed:
<
<

The Counterculture Movement Was Co-Opted by Advertisers

>
>

Co-Option by Advertisers

 The counterculture movement may have intended its weakening or demise, but capitalism has a slippery way of controlling what was meant to destroy it. Thomas Frank describes immediate advertiser response to this threat. “Every rock band with a substantial following was immediately honored with a host of imitators; the 1967 'summer of love' was as much a product of lascivious television specials and Life magazine stories as it was an expression of youthful disaffection; Hearst launched a psychedelic magazine in 1968; and even hostility to co-optation had a desperately ‘authentic’ shadow, documented by a famous 1968 print ad for Columbia Records titled ‘But The Man Can't Bust Our Music.’” In effect, this may have reduced the counterculture's influence to only cultural import. Peter Coyote said, “If you look at all the political agendas of the 1960s, they basically failed. We didn't end capitalism. We didn't end imperialism. We didn't end racism. Yeah, the war ended. But if you look at the cultural agendas, they all worked.” Much of the political agenda did not stick, but the cultural agenda did because marketers tapped into the sexiness of the movement. Advertisers harnessed a movement intended to castrate their interests and used it to strengthen capitalism.

Revision 8r8 - 05 Dec 2009 - 05:09:07 - BrendanMulligan
Revision 7r7 - 05 Dec 2009 - 03:28:42 - BrendanMulligan
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
Syndicate this site RSSATOM