|
BrendanMulliganFirstPaper 11 - 25 Mar 2010 - Main.BrendanMulligan
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
Ready for review. Comments and criticisms welcomed. | | | Countercultural Ethos | |
<
< | "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. | >
> | "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 arms race and the Vietnam War, rejection of “technocracy,” and communitarian politics informed by an anarchic 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. | | | 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. | >
> | Although the counterculture movement may have intended its weakening or demise, capitalism has a slippery way of controlling what was meant to destroy it. Advertisers immediately responded to this anti-capitalist 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. | | | Hippie Influence on the Modern Personal Computer | |
<
< | The modern computer has decidedly counter-cultural origins. In a 1995 Time Magazine article, Stewart Brand, says: "Forget antiwar protests, Woodstock, even long hair. The real legacy of the sixties generation is the computer revolution." In the late 60’s and early 70’s, computers were corporate and university mainframes, locked in basements and guarded by technicians. By the early 1980's, computers were abundant, empoweing desktop tools for individuals. Brand argues that programmers combined countercultural ideals like decentralization and personalization with an understanding of information's transformative potential to build the computer into liberating machinery. Similarly, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak describes the founding of the company as deeply influenced by countercultural influences, saying he was “surrounded by a lot of the old hippie thinkers from the counterculture movement, basically trying to apply the same internal drives and passions into the use of technology to get us to that better, good world where people were equal and not so subject to the major corporations of the time, having all the power. . . . It was so tied in with empowering the normal low-level people.” | >
> | The modern computer has decidedly counter-cultural origins. In a 1995 Time Magazine article, Stewart Brand, says: "Forget antiwar protests, Woodstock, even long hair. The real legacy of the sixties generation is the computer revolution." In the late 60’s and early 70’s, computers were corporate and university mainframes, locked in basements and guarded by technicians. By the early 1980's, computers were abundant, empowering desktop tools for individuals. Brand argues that programmers combined countercultural ideals such as decentralization and personalization with an understanding of information's transformative potential to build liberating machinery in the computer. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak also describes the founding of his company as deeply influenced by countercultural influences, saying he was “surrounded by a lot of the old hippie thinkers from the counterculture movement, basically trying to apply the same internal drives and passions into the use of technology to get us to that better, good world where people were equal and not so subject to the major corporations of the time, having all the power. . . . It was so tied in with empowering the normal low-level people.” | | | Capitalists, Again, Have Attempted to Harness and Market the Movement | |
<
< | Wozniak admits, “That's not where it turned out now, but it's sure where the ideal got us going in that directions.” He's right. Corporations have bottled the movement in two major respects. First, the influence again bears out in marketing. Hewlitt Packard’s slogan is “the computer is personal again.” Apple targets younger audiences with hip music, trendy colors, and promises of delivering people from "big brother". Motorola’s Droid advertises open development, but only if you lock yourself to Verizon’s network. Second, the computer has been used to reinforce corporate domination, not to break it down. It can be used to monitor thoughts via web searches, and is a form of control capable of predicting and understanding human beings on an individual basis. As Prof. Moglen suggested in class, This is where action can be taken about you or for you without meaningful opportunity to act. Instead of liberating personal machinery, it can be used for unadulterated control. | >
> | As Wozniak admits, “That's not where it turned out now.” He's right in at least two major ways: marketing and tracking. Technology companies often sell under the guise of liberating people. Hewlitt Packard’s slogan is “the computer is personal again.” Apple targets younger audiences with hip music, trendy colors, and promises of delivering people from "big brother". Motorola’s Droid advertises open development, but only if you lock yourself to Verizon’s network. More problematic than that, the computer has been used to reinforce corporate domination, not to break it down. It can be used to monitor thoughts via web searches, and is a form of control capable of predicting and understanding human beings on an individual basis. As Prof. Moglen suggested in class, this is where action can be taken about you or for you without meaningful opportunity to act. Instead of liberating personal machinery, it can be used for unadulterated control. | | | Where Does This Leave Us?
On the surface the power struggle of the two movements looks very similar: a dominant structure evolves in a response to a threat and uses it to strengthen its power. However, what is going on with the computer might be very different. This may be a real social revolution. |
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|