I still think that lot are obsolete. The once over lightly introduction to the history of California Hippiedom and the high tech revolution leaves out too much. It contains the absurd notion that everyone was a square until the hippies came along and liberated everyone. I’m about 20% through the essay (reading it on my Kindle) and am stopping here as I see the name Howard Rheingold. He personally and damn near terminally annoys me, after I got into some arguments with him on an online discussion group, Brainstorms, that he founded. There were some really awful people in the group, and I confronted them, and Howard did not like that. It’s a long long story. He thinks women should shut up and be nice, that’s what he’s like. He’ll accept feisty women, but only if they are also full of shit, which I am not.
And by the way, if he is a Californian, I am a monkey’s uncle! He’s from Arizona. He didn’t grow up in the Bay Area. He went to Reed College, which is in Portland (as did I, as a grad student), and he and his bunch founded a commune in (I think) Tennessee. Now he lives in Marin County, where the phonies reside. I did like the Whole Earth Catalog, but time has passed.
Anyway, this stuff is all Howard’s bread and butter, and we all gotta eat, so I guess I don’t blame him, really.
I’ll say more when I’m done.
This piece is woefully out of date. The cyber-revolution has leapfrogged over all of this. Social networks? Facebook. Video sharing? You Tube? Etc. etc. Even the poorest Americans have a cell phone, at the very least.
The author is talking about Gingrich and Thomas Jefferson. Why?
I think this is an attempt at a Marxist interpretation of something.
The world is changing at lightning speed.
The grandiosity of New Leftists never ceases to amuse me. Hey, times have changed. Let’s move on.
I mean, the whole thing is written as if it weren’t all about money. Oh, well for some it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and after that phase they got back to money.
Yes, I am very cynical about this, and that’s because I know it’s all about the money.
Love me or hate me but don’t call me late for dinner!
I’m really not qualified to comment, and that was why I passed it on. It has an alien tone, an overly refined quality. Is it New Leftist — or New Leftist being ironic about itself. I am always stunned by the very limited universe of New Leftists. Their universe is layed out with very obvious moral markers that do not always accord with how people experience their existential dilemmas.
Existential dilemmas occur outside of the province of the New Leftist universe. If you are confused about something it must be because you are inherently immoral and can’t tell night from day, whereas they can. But all of this tells a great deal about a crud-chewing stability of consciousness that marks identification with the movement.
New Left Review was founded in 1960. Its current issue can be seen here (shows who is writing the articles). http://www.newleftreview.org/ New Left is a 1960s and 1970s analysis and is associated with C. Wright Mills, E.P. Thompson, etc. & in the U.S., Tom Hayden’s Port Huron Statement. The SDS and the Situationists were also part of the New Left.
The present piece isn’t New Lefty at all — it is one of those Europe-will-save-us pieces, I believe, by someone who critiques, to some extent correctly, the self serving attitude a certain kind of carpetbagging Easterner implements in CA.
That is absolutely fascinating about this Howard Rheingold character.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Sent you some MP3 files of me talking about the principles of Break Free. I was battling the pollen a bit here, but I believe they came out ok.
I only have time to skim the Californian thing, but I can say it’s already obsolete as an analysis of what’s happening.
I’ll have more to say later. Got to get a hair cut and some lunch.
The hippies and the yuppies are yesterday’s news. They still feel entitled, but they are out of the loop.
Jennifer — OK, good, I’ll get to it (I’m behind on everything).
Hattie — I don’t think this article is about hippiedom or yuppiedom. It’s about new media, the digital divide, and so on.
Ok I’ll read it more carefully.
I still think that lot are obsolete. The once over lightly introduction to the history of California Hippiedom and the high tech revolution leaves out too much. It contains the absurd notion that everyone was a square until the hippies came along and liberated everyone. I’m about 20% through the essay (reading it on my Kindle) and am stopping here as I see the name Howard Rheingold. He personally and damn near terminally annoys me, after I got into some arguments with him on an online discussion group, Brainstorms, that he founded. There were some really awful people in the group, and I confronted them, and Howard did not like that. It’s a long long story. He thinks women should shut up and be nice, that’s what he’s like. He’ll accept feisty women, but only if they are also full of shit, which I am not.
And by the way, if he is a Californian, I am a monkey’s uncle! He’s from Arizona. He didn’t grow up in the Bay Area. He went to Reed College, which is in Portland (as did I, as a grad student), and he and his bunch founded a commune in (I think) Tennessee. Now he lives in Marin County, where the phonies reside. I did like the Whole Earth Catalog, but time has passed.
Anyway, this stuff is all Howard’s bread and butter, and we all gotta eat, so I guess I don’t blame him, really.
I’ll say more when I’m done.
This piece is woefully out of date. The cyber-revolution has leapfrogged over all of this. Social networks? Facebook. Video sharing? You Tube? Etc. etc. Even the poorest Americans have a cell phone, at the very least.
The author is talking about Gingrich and Thomas Jefferson. Why?
I think this is an attempt at a Marxist interpretation of something.
The world is changing at lightning speed.
The grandiosity of New Leftists never ceases to amuse me. Hey, times have changed. Let’s move on.
I mean, the whole thing is written as if it weren’t all about money. Oh, well for some it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and after that phase they got back to money.
Yes, I am very cynical about this, and that’s because I know it’s all about the money.
Love me or hate me but don’t call me late for dinner!
I’m really not qualified to comment, and that was why I passed it on. It has an alien tone, an overly refined quality. Is it New Leftist — or New Leftist being ironic about itself. I am always stunned by the very limited universe of New Leftists. Their universe is layed out with very obvious moral markers that do not always accord with how people experience their existential dilemmas.
Existential dilemmas occur outside of the province of the New Leftist universe. If you are confused about something it must be because you are inherently immoral and can’t tell night from day, whereas they can. But all of this tells a great deal about a crud-chewing stability of consciousness that marks identification with the movement.
Crud and cud.
Indeed.
Glad to be of help, Jennifer. You can call on me any time!
Thanks Hattie. Can you finish my thesis for me? I’m thinking of taking a break.
New Left Review was founded in 1960. Its current issue can be seen here (shows who is writing the articles). http://www.newleftreview.org/ New Left is a 1960s and 1970s analysis and is associated with C. Wright Mills, E.P. Thompson, etc. & in the U.S., Tom Hayden’s Port Huron Statement. The SDS and the Situationists were also part of the New Left.
The present piece isn’t New Lefty at all — it is one of those Europe-will-save-us pieces, I believe, by someone who critiques, to some extent correctly, the self serving attitude a certain kind of carpetbagging Easterner implements in CA.
That is absolutely fascinating about this Howard Rheingold character.
P.S. The piece is superficial and not very original, and also old hat/repeats a lot of second hand half truths, and so on.