{"id":12062,"date":"2017-03-01T14:40:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=12062"},"modified":"2017-03-01T14:40:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:40:08","slug":"the-myth-of-counterculturalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-myth-of-counterculturalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of Counterculturalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is it that after more than fifty years the political left has been unable to stop the conspicuous consumption that it deplores? In their brilliant, witty, and appealing book, The Rebel Sell: why the culture can\u2019t be jammed, <\/em>Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter explain that the counterculture has failed to \u201cchange anything because the theory of society on which the countercultural idea rests is false.\u201d (p. 8)<\/p>\n

According to the authors, the \u201csystem\u201d or \u201cthe culture\u201d that the counterculture thinks they are in rebellion against does not exist. Heath and Potter advise them to \u201cdisentangle the concern over questions of social justice from the countercultural critique \u2013 and to jettison the latter, while continuing to pursue the former.\u201d (p. 9)<\/p>\n

Referencing great thinkers (political, economic, and theological), and using engaging stories and appropriate illustrations from the media including movies, Heath and Potter explain the background of the rise of today\u2019s counterculture. In the 1960’s\u00a0progressives decided that the \u2018system\u2019 was to blame. Rebellion began, taking many forms including \u2018dropping out\u2019, calling for the abolishing of all rules, returning to nature (Voluntary Simplicity), romanticizing crime, extreme, even violent rebellion, the desire for \u2018otherness\u2019, the \u2018exotic\u2019, \u2018authenticity\u2019, and suspicion of technology and globalism.<\/p>\n

Why did these things come about? Heath and Potter explain that there was an attack on rationality leading to wrong solutions for the problem. It was part of the nature of the rebellion against the \u2018evil system\u2019. It fed the desires for individualism, coolness, distinctiveness, and the finding of the \u2018authentic self\u2019. These things make the individual feel better but they do nothing to convince the other millions of people who are happy to go to work, eat fast food, buy new things, and pay their taxes.<\/p>\n

Also as the progressives sought to find solutions they committed the \u2018cardinal sin\u2019 of the counterculture — they rejected perfectly good solutions to problems of consumerism in favor of proposed solutions that not only cannot work, but that have demonstrably exacerbated the very problem they hope to solve. Countercultural thinking \u201cmuddies the water, causing the left to reject all sorts of pragmatic solutions to social problems on the grounds that they are not \u2018deep\u2019 enough or \u2019radical\u2019 enough\u201d. (page 345).<\/p>\n

Throughout the book the authors explain what the perfectly good, pragmatic solutions could be:<\/p>\n

– We must not deny the reality of \u2018evil\u2019. There will always be bad people doing bad things. We need more rules, not less.<\/p>\n

– Eliminate the \u2018race to the bottom\u2019 by following the rules that promote general interest and conscientiously objecting to those that are unjust.<\/p>\n

– Avoid the cardinal sin of rejecting institutional solutions to social problems.<\/p>\n

– Individualism is ok as long as it doesn\u2019t do harm to our neighbor.<\/p>\n

– Find space in our lives to reintroduce the political apart from the cultural.<\/p>\n

– Diversity is wonderful, but some price may have to be paid to maintain it especially in an increasingly global society. Find global solutions.<\/p>\n

– Make peace with the masses. Learn to live with pluralism and differences of opinion.<\/p>\n

– Stop making capitalism the bogeyman. It is here and the rest of the globe uses it. The problem is not with the market system; the problem is market failures.<\/p>\n

Heath and Potter summarize: \u201cIn the end, civilization is built upon our willingness to accept rules and to curtail the pursuit of our individual interest out of deference to the needs and interests of others. It is deeply distressing to find that a misguided commitment to the ideals of the counterculture has led the political left to abandon its faith in this — the bedrock of civilization — just at a point in history when it has become more important then ever.\u201d (page 336)<\/p>\n

This book was so packed with information and illustrations that it is very difficult to select a portion with which to interact. I think that Heath and Potter made their case in a really entertaining and winsome way. After all, they state that they hold to diversity and pluralism. Let\u2019s get everyone to the table, liberals and conservatives, and look for good\u00a0solutions\u00a0for social problems.<\/p>\n

I grew up in the sixties as Heath and Potter did. I was a \u2018goody two shoes\u2019 however and not inclined to rebel. I never rolled up my skirt at the waistline before getting on the bus for school when miniskirts became the fashion. Just too uncomfortable for this stick in the mud.<\/p>\n

But I found Star Trek<\/em> very intriguing. What fascinated me was the way all of the crew on the ship cooperated (unless some alien made them evil somehow). To me it seemed like the dream world we are all looking for. Several points made by the authors are exemplified in Star Trek<\/em> \u2013<\/p>\n

– In a documentary, Leonard Nimoy was asked about the multi-ethnic crew . He said that it was all about diversity getting together to save the planet.<\/p>\n

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– The importance of the many, not just the one, \u201cThe needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.\u201d<\/strong> – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan<\/em>, 1982).<\/p>\n

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-The respect for uniforms in a culture where everyone spends lots of money trying to be distinct. The authors point out that no one on the Star Trek set was embarrassed in their uniforms.<\/p>\n

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– The failure in a search for utopia.<\/p>\n

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There was a caveat from the book for me. What will make people work together like they did in Star Trek<\/em>? Often it was a united fight against a common enemy or crisis. Heath and Potter said that there will always be bad people. We need more rules and a strong state to make them obey. Jesus said that there will always be poor people and Christians should follow His example in caring for them. But the apathy in our culture is pervasive.<\/p>\n

Do we need a despotic enemy before we will get moving? In Cavanaugh\u2019s book the Pinochet regime was the enemy. People had to help each other when they weren\u2019t afraid to. During the depression Dorothy Day and many others worked hard to bring relief to the poor. It is much easier for us when there are seriously real needs that we can see. But most people in the United States and Canada are not under the horrible persecution like\u00a0others under Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin, or Kim Jong Un. We actually have it pretty good here. What will make us stop being so selfish and act in a way that says we care about others?<\/p>\n

Heath and Potter say we need to give more power to the State. We do live in a fallen world. Maybe we do need someone to apply pressure to us. But it scares me to think of giving the state control when we read about the situation in Chile as described by Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh\u2019s solution of everyone joining in the Eucharist is more peaceful, but even there, who\u2019s going to make fallen people go to church when they\u2019d rather stay home and watch football?<\/p>\n

How should we as Christians act? Everyone is called to serve in different areas, even politics, but politics is not enough. Putting together wisdom from Bevans, Garner, Anderson, Miller, and Cavanaugh it seems that we can be a tremendous influence as we are faithful in our practices. Garner pointed out that until Jesus comes again the Church should be actively involved in justice to the poor, the marginalized, the mourning, and the abused. Jesus and Paul lived under despotic regimes too, but that didn\u2019t stop them from taking the Gospel to the needy.<\/p>\n

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Why is it that after more than fifty years the political left has been unable to stop the conspicuous consumption that it deplores? In their brilliant, witty, and appealing book, The Rebel Sell: why the culture can\u2019t be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter explain that the counterculture has failed to \u201cchange anything because the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[114,363],"class_list":["post-12062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heath","tag-potter","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}