MJ: At the EFF party, you and R.U. Sirius were talking about being part of a counterculture without a name, and I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about what you meant by that.
JPB: It occurred to me recently that I'd been a member of every counterculture that had been available throughout my conscious life. I started out as a teenage beatnik and then became a hippie and then became a cyberpunk. And now I'm still a member of the counterculture, but I don't know what to call that. And I'd been inclined to think that that was a good thing, because once the counterculture in America gets a name then the media can coopt it, and the advertising industry can turn it into a marketing foil. But you know, right now I'm not sure that it is a good thing, because we don't have any flag to rally around. Without a name there may be no coherent movement.
MJ: What would be the organizing principles of this counterculture?
JPB: Well, for starters, that practically everything that this administration is doing right now is fucked. [Laughs]
MJ: I'll make sure we print that.
JPB: Of course you've got to have a more intelligent response than that, but it's hard for me to rise above it. I think the counterculture believes that there are ways to manage being the world's most powerful country that involve creation of consensus -- ruling by virtuous example rather than by force of arms. Managing the world that has fallen to us to manage in a way that it has some morality. I think that that counterculture is very concerned about the completely unchecked ability of multinational corporations to roam the planet and serve their hungers without any meaningful regulation now. That counterculture probably agrees that mass media are bad for you, particularly television. I suppose drugs are an element. And it appreciates irony -- as opposed to the administration, which clearly has an irony deficiency. [...]
Mother Jones' Tim Dickinson chats with John Perry Barlow in
"Cognitive Dissident" (via
Liberal Arts Mafia)