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Counter-Culture Strategic Risk Analysis
Perhaps the greatest conceit among progressives and counter-cultural types is that what they are doing is somehow dangerous. Realistically though, this boils down into a simple psychological issue: problems with authority. And “authority” as a concept is typically imprinted on the human psyche from an early age first and foremost by the father figure (or lack thereof).
So, in a sense, you could - with a high degree of potential accuracy - say that people involved in the counter-culture have “daddy issues.” I expect and encourage resistance to this idea on the part of my readers, of course. It is, however, easy to prove. It is almost a syllogism, really. If you don’t have daddy issues, then you have nothing to rebel against, and therefore would have no need to cling to a concept such as “the counter-culture” because you would realize there is nothing, in fact, to be counter to.
The counter-culture (thankfully) is simply not a threat to the “Powers That Be” because of the sloppy thinking and unexamined emotional assumptions which run rampant among adherents. In fact, the counter-culture as a whole is easily baited and positioned - precisely because of it’s daddy issues. If you happen to be the authority figure and you know someone under you in the wolf pack has authority issues, it becomes a simple matter of behavioral dynamics to get them to do what you want to do. You see it in corporations all the time as managers try to subtly belittle and berate their employees in an effort to “motivate” them by seizing upon their emotional pressure points which most people wear like plumage.
That is the other thing which annoys me about “the counter-culture”: unexamined idealism sets the stage for ignorance of how reality actually works. “We are now learning that consciousness and intention have actual effects on physical reality.” Not true. Taking action has actual effects on physical reality. It is a simple matter of cause and effect relationships without any need to resort to mysticism whatsoever. Want to lower crime rates? Examine the social roots of behavior motivation and experiment with implementing social programs to incentivize certain types of behavior. And keep studying the effects of and revising your actions until they cause the effects you desire. Don’t just sit in a goddamned room and meditate and imagine that on some New Age level you’re having an impact, fer chrissake!
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September 19th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Jerry Rubin:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/06/01/do-what-youre-most-afraid-of/
But you need to do this on a personal level first and foremost. Politics is only a consequence of individual people mastering themselves.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Feels related, apologies if it’s not. Just on my mind now that I’ve been digesting the news about the tazering at the John Kerry speech for two days.
Watching the footage of the college kid who got tasered also puts me in mind of another aspect of the dynamic of counterculture, which is that of sadomasochism. Having issues with abstract fathers makes one want to rebel, but also a lot of time there’s still the internalized acceptance that they are an authority over you and rightly so, which leads one to want punishment. It’s masochistic. Where that’s an underlying and unrecognized dynamic, the result is that the “authorities” gives the masochist what he needs, and plays the sadist.
Seeing how much that kid was screaming and wailing and carrying on and screaming, how he resisted arrest, albeit nonviolently, played into the events that transpired. He was the masochist, the cops were the sadists. And all of this going on without him knowing what he was doing and without the cops knowing what they were doing.
“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Also think how those old school radicals wouldn’t have screamed with so much fear (even before being tazered) as the Myers kid did or resisted in the fear-filled way he did. It’s like he watched 911: Road to Tyranny or read David Icke one too many times and got totally entrained on this totally freaked out, “they’re gonna kill me!” vibe when that simply wasn’t the case. It’s like when you’re afraid the dog’s gonna bite you, it’ll bite you.
Both sides of the thing played it like a movie-drama, not real at all.
The old radicals had an understanding of the consequences of their resistance and a certain stoicism and awareness about it. More like Ghost Dog, less like, well, a naive college student.
It’s like he had no real clue and so made it worse–for himself and for us, because now that something like this has happened and people are entraining to the fear of it, it has a precedent and an air of expectation around it that might make this kind of event much more likely.
Hope that’s not all over the place.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
No, that was perfect.
I think what that video shows is that Kent State-type accident/massacres can easily happen when people do not understand the roles they are playing and have an appreciation for the way the scripts are supposed to go. Certain actions have certain consequences. You can deny them but reality will always act as a hard check against that.
May no more such acts of violence occur. May we all realize what we are doing, why, and then seek to better it.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
{Shit, I forgot Jerry Rubin was really into theatre in the public arena too. Will have to try and rustle us some cultural reference points to attach to this conversation-cluster…}
September 19th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I don’t agree with this post at all. I hear a lot of of critique of counter culture, peace protesters, etc. etc. etc. but the people who do all this attacking always leave the mindless ass sitters out. I don’t believe in a world where going out and fighting for what you believe in is worse than sitting around watching TV. And having had a foot in both these worlds, its the people watching TV who are afraid, not the ones out on the streets confronting armored cops in protests.
It all reminds me of the “presonal responsibility” libertarian crowd, where “personal responsibility” invariably defines what the other guy should be doing, and is founded on the paradoxical complaint that other people shouldn’t be complaining about what other people are doing.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I am not talking about protesting. I don’t think people are even at that level. People don’t even understand what they are really protesting is the impression I tend to get. And when they do protest, they do not look at how they are being positioned and manipulated into protesting certain things in certain ways. Better not to protest at all than to do so and be someone else’s unwitting pawn, I think. Better to stay at home and watch TV and eat frozen burritos!
September 19th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Who cares who is afraid? What impact does that have on anything? Deal with that on your own time. We are talking about effective action.
This is *not* effective action. Cops are built to control protest. That is what they are for. By confronting them, you play perfectly into their scripts.
And anyway, confrontation leads to altercation. The fact that the “counter-culture” is not a threat is a positive thing, not a negative. Being threatening is retarded. Pro-peace / pro-people is the way to be. There is no reason to threaten anyone. Threats are only required to emotionally manipulate and any clear-thinking individual has no such need to resort to that.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
http://www.cres.org/star/_wink.htm
September 19th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
That’s exactly what I saw too. I work with former prisoners and your comment reminded me of one of the things I enjoy about my job. They are very clear about actions having consequences. They try to avoid them just like anybody else but when you look at some people and wonder how they go through life making such bad decisions and survive you realize that it’s this kind of clarity of thought that compensates.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Tim,
I am just going to spew my heart here. You’ve touched on something, you’ve been given something that’s really beautiful…It makes me drawn to your work, and it gives me some serious admiration for you, particularly your ideas - I think they’re brilliant. But I can’t overstate the risk when you are in this position where people are deeply listening to what you are saying with flippant comments like the whole counter cultural movement having “daddy issues”. Have you really accepted that you’ve gotten to point where real people are listening to what you say for REAL direction in their REALlives???
I agree that the whole protest thing plays into a script, and fails to recognize the real power that they have. But have you recognized the real power that YOU have at this point? I wonder if you would dismiss people so lightly if you really did…
September 20th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
If people don’t have “daddy issues”, then they will know it and they don’t need to listen to my trying to antagonize them; my tactics will be transparent to them.
Real people should make their OWN CHOICES about what direction they take in their lives. If they are listening to me too closely, they may in fact have “daddy issues”
I am not dismissing anybody. I just think people should go watch TV, eat burritos, and shut up until they know what the hell they are doing.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
On further analysis, I realize I am coming off more harshly than I perhaps intend to here. Intelligently and creatively protesting injustice and taking constructive action is always beneficial. And is indeed more useful than sitting on one’s ass. I was being intentionally antagonistic in order to drive home a point: my point being that getting emotionally caught in power games puts you into an indefensible position because you *can* be antagonized and pushed. In the Tao Te Ching, they talk about how a sage cannot be hurt by a tiger or a buffalo because there is nothing for them to sink their teeth or horns into. I could have just explained that without necessarily needing to demonstrate it myself. And I apologize for not being more straightforward in my presentation.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
It’s hard to intelligently and creatively block traffic or get arrested. It can be done but just doing it does not imply intelligence or creativity. I’m much more impressed by Falun Dafa protesters silently meditating and handing out educational material than by people who insist their adversaries come dressed as the goon squad. All that does it provide recruitment advertising for goon squad inclined individuals.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Absolutely! I guess what I am saying is that there is action and then there is Right Action. If you’re not taking “Right Action” then you may be doing more harm than good.
Right - it is a matter of cause-effect relationships: protest or be confrontational and expect the police. And don’t accuse them of “oppressing” you, when you are antagonizing them to do so. Be clear about what your intentions are. When you are clear about what your intentions are, you can rationally determine what is the most effective course of action for any given objective.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Great Epictetus quote:
September 20th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
The Art of Peace
http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/paloma/Aikido/artpeace.html
September 20th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
http://www.cres.org/star/_wink.htm
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:27 am
http://www.skilluminati.com/research/e..._has_good_advice_for_young_activists/
September 24th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
[…] Excellent continuation of a recent discussion here… “An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.” […]