How long does it take the capitalist system to turn a counterculture icon into a mainstream purchasable item? I have seen this many times happening everywhere lets talk about the Che Guevara t-shirts I sell at Download festival working for my friend and first employer in the UK a very friendly and honest Scottish man, let’s talk about Banksy street art turned into mugs or mouse pads or ripped off from the walls where they were painted and taken to ebay.
Counterculture seems to be part of the capitalist system as a money making machine, an automatic stencil generator for a new mainstream brand and decorative items, is this the reason why nirvana singer lost his mind when he realized that he had just created a new mainstream music style? or it was just the heroine breaking down his brain cells? as we can see in the poem ‘Howl’ by Allen Ginsberg the use and abuse of drugs is a very important activity in the counterculture, through the use of psychostimulants substances the best minds of Ginsberg’s generations are able to find the path to a illuminated state almost connected to divinity.
What can we find in this trance of altered mind state? the best way is to try it yourself and you will find out what Ginsberg means with:
“dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,”
Howl – Allen Ginsberg
Become a slave of your vices and weaknesses to serve better the establishment, your long hair and beards means nothing when they don’t serve the purpose it is intended, at least in a naturalistic-spiritual way, which connects you to the nature like the roots do for plants, instead they become a symbol of discontent and opposition to the mainstream, this is a guerilla tactic used throughout the centuries by the power behind the culture, create a subculture of mediocre, ambitious, highly egotistical individuals and provide them indirectly all the substances they need to become the reason why the culture is the path of normality and counterculture is the path of the lost souls.
This tactic was used by the Spanish “Patrones” in South America in the colonial era when the badly paid workers, native workers by the way, asked for a better life and work conditions, they were given in the best Bread and Circuses Roman empire Style, alcohol and party to shut their mouths, damage their brains and place them in a barnyard animal situation, and now are being used by leaders of the KKK in African-American “ghettos” of Philadelphia where weed and alcohol is distributed to get the same effect no voices looking for a better future just voices claiming the next fix to escape their frustrations.
How is this related to counterculture? the relation to drugs and the counterculture is the problem, I see why the best minds of Ginsberg’s generation are drug abusers instead of a doctor or a Nobel prize, and I totally feel his pain when people you care about is unable to get out of a situation of drug addiction, you can see they got a huge potential in them, but slowly they are losing their minds and fading away from reality and all this possibility is becoming a memory of what once could have been, looking for a spiritual connection or unlock some mind doors to the reality, and I mean to the real reality, what we can see is just a part of what reality is if we talk about purely visual limitations of the light spectrum and sensorial experiences when facing light and sound waves, magnetic fields and so on, we are limited to this spectrum of reality because this is what we can understand these doors are locked because as humans this is what we can comprehend, when these doors are forced and broken by stimulants is when psychiatric problems appear, many fell in the trap of drug use as a method of inspiration, spirit elevation, or any other lame excuse to get high, what they find there is awesome indeed, because they never realized how beautiful is this world and how complex is reality, but is there always this is the reality we live in, not every mind is able to take the shock of reality and most just can’t handle, some can escape and turn their lives to a better path and some just get deeper in the darkness and loneliness of addiction.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.