WEEK ONE: Who Am Us Anyway?
The nature of myth, counterculture
myths, and possible defining characteristics of counterculture.
WEEK TWO: Collapsing Egos and Reality Structures
Be
prepared to think for yourself and question everything and
then to go beyond thought into direct experience.
WEEK THREE: Evolutions in Western Culture
How countercultures take
tools and ideas from the elites and place them into the hands
of individuals and small groups, in several historical contexts.
We consider how the issues faced by the Troubadours, the Philisophes
of the Enlightenment, the American Transcendentalists, and
the bohemian artists of early 2oth Century Paris are similar
and different from the issues freethinkers face today.
WEEK FOUR: Hippie's Wild Years
The legendary aspects of
the beat and sixties countercultures. The heroes of those
times; Allen Ginsberg, Tim Leary, Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon
etc. and how they rose to the level of myth. The lessons
learned and not learned from that period. |
WEEK FIVE: Counter-subcultures
What happens to counterculture
when the centralized, mainstream cultural metaphors collapse. Also,
why did we win the culture but lose the politics? And,
should 21st Century counterculture be techno-positive or techno-negative.
WEEK SIX: Critique Part One
We
will discuss whether radical, anti-corporate philosophies like
Situationism, "culture
jamming," and other forms of countercultural anarchism have
any validity as strategies of social change.
WEEK SEVEN: Critique Part Two
Does Counterculture's
entire program of "Question Authority" and "Question Reality" really
suck or is awareness its own reward?
WEEK EIGHT: What Is To Be Done?
Shall we start a thriving anti-authoritarian
coalition to take on Bushie America and its theocratic tendencies. Shall
we all move to New Zealand and try out all the exercises in
RAW's Prometheus Rising? Shall we say farewell,
and each pursue our own fates, hopefully having accumulated
plenty of novel ideas and maybe a little bit of wisdom? |
