Naomi says my title is too clever by half - she actually said by 250% - so for those who didn't end up memorizing the Norton Anthology as a teen here's the reference (Chapman was a translator):
Ah, the dialectical materialist analysis of The Whole Earth Catalogue: "Brand . . . frames the opposition of capital and labor as a 'paradox,' rather than the conflict of material interest that it is." Love it. I believe Marx had difficulty with his Labor = Capital equation because in the final proof labor is always shown to be worthless. An obstacle rather than a resource. I'm talking out my ass here, so I welcome other comments.
I was just old enough (high school) to read through all the editions as they came out (the only one I kept was the compact Last with the R. Crumb cover), and I always felt a cold future-elite wind emanating from the catalog. That "gods" business didn't bode well at all. The catalog led me to Lynd Ward, the Lucis Trust Library, and a few other things, but most of it was clearly Not Meant for Me, neither then nor in the future--I was perfectly happy to be part of the rotting urban fabric, for starters. And I remember how I felt when I learned that Brian Eno was on the board of the Long Now Foundation. Hope they'll all be happy colonizing Mars.
Yes the Eno connection is a bit troubling… although it did result in an excellent original soundtrack for the documentary about Brand that came out a few years ago! Thank you for this comment, I’m now imagining the catalog that would have been Meant for Others…
Very late to this, but Eno himself seems to be having the same second thoughts about All This, albeit in a strangled, awkward way that makes it clear how deeply he bought into it to begin with
It's also why I think it's no use blaming the hippies/counterculture alone for this kind of thing (not that that's what you're doing!) - it was the zeitgeist of the mid-to-late 20th century as a whole, and if we want to carry on the worthwhile things, we need to re-examine the aspects that killed/is killing them
Very much appreciate this essay on the WEC and Stewart Brand. The Crazy Town Podcast (disclosure: I am a co-host) dedicated a season to exploring the ideas of a number of "Phalse Prophets." We did an episode on Stewart Brand as one of the main proselytizers of Eco-Modernism: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-05-03/crazy-town-episode-71-ecomodernism/.
Unfortunately, I think Brand's influence as an ecomodernist, and ecomodernism itself as a "solution" to the systemic environmental and social crises we face, will far outlast that of the Whole Earth Catalog.
I'm glad you moved from the trite establishment trope of generational guilt and the scapegoating of idealistic hippies to the crux, corporate capitalism, which perverts everything, and everyone. What hasn't changed from Whole Earth days to dying earth days is the collective naivete' that it is the norm.
Naomi says my title is too clever by half - she actually said by 250% - so for those who didn't end up memorizing the Norton Anthology as a teen here's the reference (Chapman was a translator):
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
By John Keats
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Ah, the dialectical materialist analysis of The Whole Earth Catalogue: "Brand . . . frames the opposition of capital and labor as a 'paradox,' rather than the conflict of material interest that it is." Love it. I believe Marx had difficulty with his Labor = Capital equation because in the final proof labor is always shown to be worthless. An obstacle rather than a resource. I'm talking out my ass here, so I welcome other comments.
I was just old enough (high school) to read through all the editions as they came out (the only one I kept was the compact Last with the R. Crumb cover), and I always felt a cold future-elite wind emanating from the catalog. That "gods" business didn't bode well at all. The catalog led me to Lynd Ward, the Lucis Trust Library, and a few other things, but most of it was clearly Not Meant for Me, neither then nor in the future--I was perfectly happy to be part of the rotting urban fabric, for starters. And I remember how I felt when I learned that Brian Eno was on the board of the Long Now Foundation. Hope they'll all be happy colonizing Mars.
Yes the Eno connection is a bit troubling… although it did result in an excellent original soundtrack for the documentary about Brand that came out a few years ago! Thank you for this comment, I’m now imagining the catalog that would have been Meant for Others…
Very late to this, but Eno himself seems to be having the same second thoughts about All This, albeit in a strangled, awkward way that makes it clear how deeply he bought into it to begin with
https://bsky.app/profile/electriceden92.bsky.social/post/3lfhfut4p7k2m
It's also why I think it's no use blaming the hippies/counterculture alone for this kind of thing (not that that's what you're doing!) - it was the zeitgeist of the mid-to-late 20th century as a whole, and if we want to carry on the worthwhile things, we need to re-examine the aspects that killed/is killing them
Very much appreciate this essay on the WEC and Stewart Brand. The Crazy Town Podcast (disclosure: I am a co-host) dedicated a season to exploring the ideas of a number of "Phalse Prophets." We did an episode on Stewart Brand as one of the main proselytizers of Eco-Modernism: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-05-03/crazy-town-episode-71-ecomodernism/.
Unfortunately, I think Brand's influence as an ecomodernist, and ecomodernism itself as a "solution" to the systemic environmental and social crises we face, will far outlast that of the Whole Earth Catalog.
I'm glad you moved from the trite establishment trope of generational guilt and the scapegoating of idealistic hippies to the crux, corporate capitalism, which perverts everything, and everyone. What hasn't changed from Whole Earth days to dying earth days is the collective naivete' that it is the norm.