The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition by Theodore Roszak

The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition Reviews

• 
  ⚧️ Nadienne Greysorrow ⚧️

  This is hippie garbage of the worst kind. I'm an anarcho-communist. I get the idea of the commune and anarchy. I get collective consensus. I get throwing off the shackles of what is to find a new way. But this...this is something else. Some highlights:
  
  Anti-Depressants: Evil
  LSD/Acid/Narcotics: Good
  
  Priests and Scientists: Evil
  Shamans and Medicine Men: Good
  
  An "Expert" Giving You Information: Evil
  A Shaman Tell You About His Vision: Good
  
  There are so many other examples of how the all-encompassing, nameless, faceless "Technocracy" is trying to control you (just like the "Corporations" or the "Deep State" or the "Liberal Media" or the "Insert Name Here"). This is an aged hippie, sitting on a street corner, blazed out of his mind, talking about how colors are more real than cars, man: "What if D-O-G really spells God, man?" "What if the atoms in my fingers are all little universes, man?" "Let's all get high!"
• 
  Жанна Пояркова

  Невероятно брюзгливый текст о 1968ом и о том, что молодежь плохо образована и не может конвертировать свой протест в перемены или культуру. Это было бы жестко и - будучи оформленным не так скептически, скупо, нарочито поучительно и разглагольствующе - могло бы потянуть на левую критику, но, черт... Читать это физически невыносимо. Опасения Рошака на счет того, что молодняк - это кентавры, разрушающие культуру, так же смехотворны, как, скажем, опасения Хейзинги, что культура Средневековья никому не нужна и забудется (он писал об этом в корпусе статей).
  
  Сетования на бескультурие "молодежи" - первый знак импотентности текста. Создание культуры и полноценное ее восприятие всегда удел немногих, при этом как культура Средневековья не потеряла своих фанатов, так и бесполезные по мнению Рошака хиппи и бунтующие сынки среднего класса породили огромный музыкальный, философский, пр. пласт культуры. Культура не была разрушена молодняком, как испугался уже довольно взрослый в то время Рошак, как боялся Хейзинга, как кричал в "Закате Европы" Шпенглер, как негодовали сатанисты в произведениях Гюисманса, и как брюзжали бесконечные поколения отцов.
  
  Особенно книга Рошака нелепа потому, что он писал ее в 1969, даже не представляя себе, какой культурный взры породили события 1968-го. Он там даже с плохо скрытым страхом цитирует разнузданное описание сексуальной музыки Моррисона, называя их какой-то "кислотной группой Doors". Лишний урок не писать "анализ", когда масштаб событий еще не очевиден. Короче, полный шлак, со временем утративший крупицы полезных наблюдений, что изначально в нем были.
  
  Фикшн удался Рошаку не в пример мощнее.
• 
  Kristen

  This book was really interesting - especially because I was simultaneously reading a book that discussed how people of my generation want too much, work too hard to get it and are too dependent on technology. Apparently my grandparents' generation thought the same thing about my parents' generation! The lesson: "These kids today!" has always been said. I read the version with the 1995 update, so that was especially interesting. Apparently my parents' generation was a major shift in cultural values, and this has continued for all the subsequent generations. Will be fascinating to see how the Baby Boomers' grandchildren turn out. Also, my parents' generation's cultural angst music was SO MUCH BETTER than what we got! I will take one Jim Morrison over all artists from the 90s and Pop2K years. Glad I listen more to their music than my own!
• 
  Mary Catelli

  Half way between primary source and secondary source -- written in the 1960s, but by a professor.
  
  About the conflict between how they were raised and how they were expected to act in technocracy's jobs (all designed for efficiency), the use of psychedelic drugs, Zen and its use and abuse and the willful misudnerstanding of it, the clash with Marxism and more. Interesting stuff. The lack of insight from the knowledge of how it turned out means, of course, that he presents what it really looked like at the time.
• 
  Steve Greenleaf

  I first read this book in the spring of 1972 for a course entitled "Introduction to Political Philosophy" (or "Theory" or "Thinking"). The line-up of reading was what you'd expect: Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, Marx (Basic Writings, Feuer), Mill's On Liberty, and one that didn't fit the mold: Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture. All the readings were stimulating and enlightening, but it was Roszak's book that most intrigued me. I was a freshman in college (University of Iowa) from a small town in Iowa. I grew up with parents active in Republican politics, and I'd been to two Republican national conventions by the time I was 16 years old. I knew a lot about American politics and current events, but I'd never thought deeply about the underpinnings of politics and political thought, nor about the roots of what I was beginning to see around me at the University of Iowa. Most of what I knew of the wider world--and the disruption going on within the U.S. and elsewhere--had come to me via television. Roszak's book gave some shape to the hippies, the counter culture, and the politics going on around me. However, Roszak doesn't spend much time addressing politics in his book; Richard Nixon gets little (if any) notice, but neither does Tom Hayden, the SDS, or the Port Huron statement. Instead, it focused upon "technocracy," the "myth of objective consciousness," and thinkers that were critical of the American main stream in which we lived. Heady stuff.
  
  Earlier this spring I happened upon a copy of the Anchor mass-market paperback and decided to pop for it at the princely sum of $4. Now I've read it, and I now have a sense, reaching back exactly 50 years ago, of why it captured my attention. Roszak doesn't spend much time on the sociology of hippiedom or youth culture. He concentrates on the intellectual foundations upon which this counter-culture was based. Thus, I was introduced to the work of Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown and the "dialectics of liberation;" Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts and the "journey to the East . . . and points beyond;" Timothy Leary (and others; but no Ram Dass) regarding "the counterfeit infinity and the use and abuse of psychedelic experience;" and Paul Goodman and the "visionary sociology" of "exploring utopia." In addition, in briefer considerations and notes, I was introduced to Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford, among others. In discussing all of these thinkers and others, Roszak deals an even hand: he provides a careful and considered exposition of their thinking before undertaking any critique. His eye is at once appreciative and critical.
  
  In his final two chapters, "The Myth of Objective Consciousness" and "Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Fire," Roszak lays out his underlying critique of "technocracy" and "the myth of objective consciousness." In a nutshell, the culture that puts an emphasis on efficiency, nuclear deterrence (and thus armament), objectivity, rationality, bureaucracy, and technology is one that stunts the human personality, the complete human. Thus, Roszak's critique points to those who seek to escape this one-sided and ill-formed culture: starting with his quote of Blake and then considering others. But the final two chapters are mostly Roszak's essay that riffs on the thinkers listed above and others like them.
  
  Does this book still resonate with me? Yes, indeed it does. Early this year I embarked upon Iain McGilchrist's masterwork, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, and as you may discern from the title, it deals with many of the same issues as does Roszaks book: how we perceive the world, interact with it, and mold it. Indeed, when Roszak wrote this first book our greatest threat was that of instantaneous nuclear annihilation. Of course, we still experience that threat, but now we've added the threat of slow civilizational death from climate change and other degradations of the environment. And politically, we've gone from having a man in the White House who had the grace to attempt to hide his crimes that attempted to undermine democracy, unlike the recent one who blatantly trumpeted his crimes. Thus, we live in world where authoritarianism isn't a threat that emanates from a monolithic communist block but is one that arises in the U.S. and elsewhere from indigenous sources. And because all politics lies downstream from culture, we may deduce that our technocratic culture has failed us. We appear as deer in the headlights: frozen, unable to move as multiple threats bear down upon us. The call went out back in the 1970s from Roszak to William Irwin Thompson and others and continues with the likes of William Ophuls and Iain McGilchrist, among the many who have critiqued and warned--indeed, prophesied--as to where we we're headed. Going back to this source of my journey has proven worthwhile. It reminds me that so much remains to be accomplished.
• 
  Maureen

  The subtitle, "Reflections on the technocratic society and its youthful opposition," sums up Rozak's central premise. Technocracy may be defined as "...that social form in which an industrial society reaches the peak of its organizational integration. [...] In a technocracy,nothing is any longer small or simple or readily apparent to the non-technical man. Instead, the scale and intricacy of all human activities - political, economic, cultural - transcends the competence of the amateurish citizen and inexorably demands the attention of specially trained experts."
  
  Rozak explores the youthful opposition by taking a look at the philosophies of Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown, followed by the Eastern influence, Alan Ginsburg, and Alan Watts. He also investigates the uses and abuses of the psychedelic experience, the sociology of Paul Goodman, and the myth of objective conciousness. In the final chapter, entitled, "Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Fire," the author addresses the challenge facing the youth, to bring all of the varieties of human experience into the forefront of society, so that technocracy is sublimated, and technology is the servant of humankind, and not the other way around.
  
  When this book first appeared, it was enormously influential on college campuses across the country. Rozak urged a unified vision of life, where making art is as important as a good job at IBM. Read from the modern perspective, it is interesting to see that in many ways, Rozak's worst nightmare happened. Although he did not envision laptops and iPods, technolcracy has taken over present life to a previously unimaginable degree.
  
  The sixties generation took some of Rozak's advice to heart, but the better world he advocated has yet to see the light of day.
• 
  Steve Seven

  An informed discussion of the first round of popular rebellion in the 1960s and their influences. As relevant today as when it was written.
• 
  David

  The thesis of Roszak's book (which was published in 1969) is that the 60's counterculture is best understood as an attempt to solve the problem of 'technocracy'. Roszak's understanding of technocracy is derivative of Ellul's problematic in "Technological Society." Time is better spent with Ellul.
  
  Ellul's position is that nothing can be done about the problem of technocracy *except* to understand it as clearly and distinctly as possible. This is an idea that does not sit well with post-WW2 American optimism. Roszak in particular shares the optimism : he feels (as he indicates in a footnote) Ellul is far too pessimistic and even fatalistic in his estimation of the situation. He points to the youthful countercultural revolution as evidence that there may be some solution to the problem. But Roszak overlooks the difficulty that the counterculture simply offered alternative techniques - e.g. sex, drugs, (one might as well say it) rock and roll, and meditation - to those of technological society. Is it any wonder, then, that the counterculture had been so effectively co-opted into mainstream technocratic society? To his credit, Roszak notes this process had already begun, but he sees it dimly on account of temporal proximity.
  
  I don't agree with Rozsak's estimation of Ellul's thesis. If Ellul believed the contemporary situation is thoroughly irrational and inscrutable, then I wouldn't hesitate to regard his thesis as pessimistic. But it seems to me quite realistic.
• 
  Mommalibrarian

  another important book from college days
• 
  Jason Barnhart

  Certainly helped me understand the beat generation, hippy movement and some of the things we are experiencing now.
• 
  Clara Mazzi

  Un capolavoro. Un testo di analisi storico-sociologica che analizza le forme, i contenuti e gli esponenti di quel movimento che è andato (va) sotto il nome di ‘controcultura’ e che ha divampato negli anni Sessanta negli Stati Uniti – di cui noi però continuiamo a viverne gli strascichi, o meglio, stiamo ancora adattando alcune proposte. Un elemento che mi ha particolarmente colpito è stato quello del ‘permissivismo’ portato avanti dal dottor Spock (quanto l’hanno letto e citato i miei genitori!) e che ha generato una prolungata adolescenza, ben oltre l’età adulta biologica, scontrandosi però con un mondo di adulti che sebbene praticasse il permissivismo, in realtà però si aspettava una maturità raggiunta con gli stessi ritmi loro. Questo non solo non è successo, ma è degenerato in una fascia sociale (la nostra e quella dei nostri figli!) che è scivolata poi nell’infantilismo che pretende ma non produce né dà. Il mondo degli adulti, piagato dalla psicoanalisi che, anche lei nel filone della ‘controcultura’ incitava alla collera nei confronti dei genitori, si è genuflesso con grandi sensi di colpa davanti ai nostri figli, facendone (con le migliori intenzioni) dei grandi irrisolti – che non capiscono poi perché ad un certo punto debbano crescere, quando gli è sempre stato detto in realtà che potevano fare quello che volevano e crescere, ovvero assumersi le responsabilità non è qualcosa che ai bambini/ragazzini piaccia molto.
  Roszak mi è anche piaciuto moltissimo perché riesce a trovare una linea di equilibrio molto intelligente – e molto difficile da individuare – in cui sebbene approvi questa nouvelle vague di pensiero, allo stesso tempo non teme indicare tutti gli sbandamenti che ci sono stati, a partire da vari esponenti idolatrati dalle masse, fossero essi poeti, cantanti, psicologi o filosofi.
  Tallone di Achille del suo pensiero, che appunto è estremamente a favore della scoperta del sé, dello studio delle aree umanistiche, del consolidamento dell’uomo vis à vis della tecnologia, non tiene però conto che la gran corsa americana alla scienza degli anni Sessanta (che lui combatte, come luogo mentale dell’aridità nonché come germe delle corporations) era scaturita anche perché si era all’apice della guerra fredda, con la minaccia di armi molto potenti a lunga gittata. Oggi questo aspetto della diplomazia mondiale forse non è più così accentuato, tuttavia la tecnologia è ben presente, molto presente nelle nostre vite, tramite tutti i vari social che attanagliano la mente dei giovani – e le plasma tramite algoritmi.
  Ciò detto, un CAPOLAVORO.
  
• 
  Stephen Coates

  When Roszak wrote "The Making of a Counter Culture" in 1969, the very title of which coined the expression “counter culture”, two decades of the arms race and a decade of the space race led him to describe American society as a technocracy overly focussed on organisational and technological progress and efficiency. He questioned what he saw as a relentless quest for technological progress and efficiency, an expansive evolution of the industrial dehumanisation portrayed by Fritz Lang in "Metropolis" and Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times". He saw this creating a "myth of objective consciousness," a technocratic ideology promoting efficiency, order and rational control, ultimately leading to societal domination. He went on to interpret the protests of the 1960s, particularly those in 1968 as the youth movement’s rejection of the technocratic society but saw the youth of the time who could be the only significant opposition to this technocracy as being largely irresponsible, overly focussed on drugs and incapable of original ideas.
  
  At the time of its writing, his observations were not unreasonable although perhaps overly influenced by neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 ʺOne-dimensional Manʺ, who described capitalist societies as welfare/warfare states. However, viewed from the early 2000s when I read the book, his perception of the youth of the day has not been supported by what that generation achieved in subsequent decades. I found this a useful read for those wanting to understand the 1960s, but not a great read.
  
• 
  Dela Navratilova

  Nejvíce zajímavé na této knize je její stálá aktuálnost, pojednávající o problémech tehdejší (ale vlastně i dnešní) doby, a to i přesto, že byla vydaná poprvé před 60 lety. Texty pojednávající o Marcusem, jako jednom z intelektuálních vůdců kontrakultury, mi přišly místy až moc akademické. Na druhou stranu úvahy o technokratické společnosti táhnoucí se celou knihou a Gestalt terapie Paula Goodmana byly podány úžasně srozumitelně. Doporučuji všem, kteří chtějí proniknout hlouběji do mentality 60. - 70. let a poznat jak myšlení kontrakultury prosáklo i do myšlení dnešní generace.
  
  "Primárním smyslem lidské existence není vymýšlet způsoby jak vršit čím dál větší hromady vědomostí, ale objevovat různé způsoby jak žít podle nároků ušlechtilého jednání, upřímného společenství a radosti."
• 
  Caleb Pultman

  Overall an interesting and insightful look into the real-time analysis of an incredibly transformative period in social history. Roszak brings an interdisciplinary approach throughout the book weaving in anthropological, sociological, religious, economic, political, and psychoanalytical perspectives.
  
  The book successfully takes a big step back to analyze the drive of the "drop out" generation to become completely disaffiliated with the dominant western technocratic evolution. Roszak leans heavily into the general critique of the circularly propped-up system of sanctioned technocratic expertise to highlight the need for a distancing of traditional revolutionary techniques. The overall plea and passion for a world driven by humanist goodwill, communitarian principles, and absorption of environmental wisdom comes off as genuine and well placed within the larger argument.
  
  There are moments where I wish there was a deeper exploration of the individual desires of people to succumb to an overall system that places decision-making power out of individual control in exchange for a highly specialized alienated socio-economic world and "modernly comfortable" lifestyle. I also find there to be confusing moments where Roszak's critique of the youth movement places emphasis on the shortsightedness of their vision but also praises the natural and engrained wisdom of their practices.
  
  Also, since my understanding of the psychoanalytical discipline is elementary at best and embarrassingly absent at worst, I will definitely be diving deeper into the thoughts expressed around Objective Consciousness, the works of Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown. All in all - the book was an interesting read and it was funny to hear a 1969 perspective on The Doors.
• 
  gadabout

  A very dense and dry read that often drifts from its subject to fall into wordy tangents. It does stand as a good look into 1960s counterculture and its influence, but I find a lot of "nothing" wedged between the pages. In all, ehh.
• 
  ouliana

  bring postmodernism supremacy back
• 
  Whoof

  The analysis of the origins and aims of the 60's counter culture is excellent. However, I found Roszak's blatant anti-scientific bias that appears most strongly in the last few chapters disappointing and poorly argued. Still, the characterization of the hippie/New Left movement and its key players is really well done. I guess one shouldn't expect non-biased examination of a sociological movement from a book that dedicates its entire latter half to explaining how the scientific aim for objectivity is eroding the human soul and contributing to the alienation of the individual. I'm even sympathetic to some of those arguments (and even find myself agreeing in many places), but Roszak's apparent refusal to allow for any middle-ground is quite frustrating, especially for one who can appreciate the beauty and elegance of an efficiently solved puzzle without considering that "beauty" to be a word inaccurately appropriated from the Romantic sensibility of transcendent aesthetics.
  
  Still a worthwhile read.
• 
  Dan

  Roszak analyzes the emerging youth culture of the 1960s in terms of the ideas of its intellectual leaders—the radical Freudian politics of
  Herbert Marcuse and
  Norman O. Brown, for example, or the traditional Eastern philosophical teachings popularized by writer
  Alan Watts and Beat poet
  Allen Ginsberg.
  
  Acquired Mar 17, 2006
  City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
• 
  Travis French

  I don't know much about the Counter Culture. I'm two generations removed from them. I picked up some things here and there. Largely culled from the work of Hunter S. Thompson. An account of The Silent Generation from "The Fourth Turning" made me want to learn more.
  It must have been fate that I stumbled across Roszak's book at a used book store in Elizabeth, CO.
  
  This book is great for the lay reader. The first chapter, in which Roszak elaborates on the Technocracy, is fascinating. Technocracy is Roszak's term for what other's call the Establishment.
  The chapters on how Marxism was adapted by the era is less interesting. I never had much interested in Marxist thought.
  
  Read this book. It will help you understand that movement far better.
• 
  Bea

  Forty years ago this seemed much more important in illustrating that some grown-ups "got" what we thought we were dealing with. It's rather a disappointment now, though as a description of what people who were in close touch with the "baby boomers" as they grew up believed about their society and their future. This is important because we're suffering the hangovers from that time, our politicians are those who grew up breathing the atmosphere in which peace-and-love and sex-and-drugs-and-rock n' roll and protest-marches all existed.
• 
  Dionysus Lightfoot

  Roszak skillfully uses Nietzsche's well-known typology of Dionysian vs. Apollonian forces to build a very eloquent and informed appraisal of the 60's "hippy"movement and its importance in the larger picture of social development. An important study.