My sincere thanks to those who attended the May 29, 2021 Zoom meeting of Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds. For those who were unable to attend, the following links are provided:
Counterculture Part I Narration
Counterculture Part I Slideshow
Here are excerpts from my the narration of my presentation:
Wikipedia defines counterculture as a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society; sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores. Counterculture has the potential to trigger dramatic cultural changes.
Many equate counterculture with social activism, especially the pursuit of greater individualism and less authoritarianism based on a belief in the possibility of personal and social transformation. This is part of what the notion of counterculture represents and what counterculture can lead to. But counterculture is deeper and more fundamental in human nature. It is a tradition of breaking with culture, a tradition that predates and initiates all other traditions. It is inseparable from culture.
Today I want to take an anthropological, cultural evolutionary approach to help understand counterculture. That is, look at counterculture as a part of culture itself, a driving force that has led to social and cultural change, good and bad but mostly good, throughout human evolution. I also want us to consider counterculture comparatively. To look at counterculture in different social and cultural settings in order to better understand the full range of how it works and how it sometimes fails.
Returning to Dylan’s song [The Times Are A Changin' in the title slide], what did he mean by the times were changing? The German word zeitgeist captures the meaning well. It refers to the defining spirit or mood of a particular period in history as revealed by the ideas and beliefs of that time. Specific ideas and beliefs are the essential elements of culture – the agreed to, malleable, and shared ideas, beliefs, values, and ways of behaving of human individuals living in groups.
But within each society, there have always been outliers. Individuals with ideas and behaviors that did not line up with the popular thinking of the dominant culture of their times. The doubters. The outright deviants. Those who objected to the status quo. Many dared to voice their alternative ideas. More brazenly, there have been some who took action to change the ideas and actions of others, including the majority, to comply with what they thought was a better way of thinking and behaving. In doing so such intrepid freethinkers, those quirky deviants, coalesced, shared their ideas with others, and together formed countercultures. Counterculture doubters and objectors still exist today.
One of the questions I try to answer in this presentation is: Will counterculture survive the current populist, nativist push for authoritarian governance around the world, even within traditionally democratic societies?
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What follows is my point of argumentation.
Counterculture is presently under a severe and determined attack in the US and globally. It is threatened by a multi-method, multi-front assault from nativist populism, authoritarian politicians, fundamentalist religion, and consumer products and convenience technology placation around the world.
Important aspects of the dystopian societies described in the works of Huxley, Orwell, and Atwood are rapidly becoming reality in the US and elsewhere. In addition to what goes on in Russia, China, Turkey, the Philippines, North Korea, and Uganda consider the growing authoritarianism and nativist populism in Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, India, Brazil, and in many other countries around the world.
The humane ideas within what many call the Enlightenment project that provided the foundational rationale for most countercultural movements in the West are now under evermore brutal attack. Counterculture in the West began in 17th Century Europe with the Levellers. It was also central to the movements that came after: Bohemianism, the Non-Conformists, the Beat Generation, and the hippies and punks.
In the 21st Century ultra-conservative and nativist populist backlash attacks have forced counterculture to become a multi-front defensive action, a struggle for counterculture’s existence and the survival of efforts to achieve the more humanistic of the Enlightenment ideals. Counterculture is now an effort to preserve and strengthen the possibility of a humane, democratic, progressive type of society; and, hopefully, by extension, a more democratic, pluralistic, and cosmopolitan global civilization.
There are likely to be dark times in the future of the US and the rest of humankind caused by forces leading the attack against counterculture.
My assumptions or premises:
1.
Counterculture is a necessary part of
culture.
2.
It is in our human nature to safeguard
and ensure individual freedom and egalitarian democratic socialist group
governance.
3.
This is our best way for
being and remaining human and humane.
4.
Counterculture can be appropriated for
harming true countercultures.
5.
Counterculture can be suppressed but
never eliminated within human groups.
6.
Those who control culture and
counterculture, control society.
Here is my conclusion based on my foregoing assumptions or premises:
Countercultural movements are under increasingly brutal attack. For your personal wellbeing and that of humankind and Earth defend, join, and/or support countercultures if you value individual freedom, equality, and dignity.
