On Thursday, February 26, 2004, at 11:03 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> How is that different form, say, the sixties? Was not dope smoking,
> hideously ugly clothing, and the concerts on a mass scale a distraction
> and diversion from mass organizing?
How can you be distracted from something that never held your attention in the first place?
Now, the belief on the parts of some politically conscious people that culture could be used as a substitute from politics was a dreadful mistake--not many people thought that, though. More people believed you could use culture to augment political organizing, and there were plusses and minuses to that.
If we look at the anti-nuclear power movement of the late seventies, it's hard to say the "concerts on a mass scale" were "a distraction and diversion from mass organizing". Rather, they were a tool for doing so.
> If the 1960s "hippie" movement
> transformed itself into a political movement instead goofing down into
> over-the-counter culture and identity politics, the x-tian right
> marching in goose step would not be such a threat today.
A significant part of the countercultural movement did exactly that--without dumping the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that made their lives more cheerful. (To say nothing of the ugly threads.)
> It has something to do with the structural changes that made the
> capital
> more globally mobile, which in turn made the bosses stronger and the
> labor weaker. The bosses like it that way, hence their promotion of
> the
> conservative brand of culture to keep the left organizers out.
That's a very concise description of the rise of NPR and classical public radio over the dead bodies of college stations playing relatively non-commercial music.
All the best,
John A