Good fun at this discussion. It\’s nice to see other people discussing plastic surgery, cosmetic enhancement and the like.

Thus, it’s a matter of direct and indirect. Tribes will not directly impact foreign policy, but there is no doubt that tribes are reacting to a screwy form of family that has emerged and i would argue that they will end up being quite mainstream-wise powerful for people to redefine “community.” [Make certain to check out Ethan Watters upcoming book.]

Frankly, i think that you need the extremes to challenge society to think differently. The world won’t end up looking like what the extremes want, but their touch is definitely embedded.

I remember living in Mammoth and finding my friends had started a new Moon Tribe – full moon parties out in the Eastern Sierra’s – we were older, the spirit was there, fewer drugs, a vibe of deep intensity, waking up with a view of the snow-capped Whitney accross the expanse and dancing around the bon-fire to shrug off the chill and to embrace the relentless beat again. Those parties were purposefully kept small, but I hear they’ve grown again.

I read the article and found it entertaining. It seems the author had missed one minor point. The power of those movements is in the feeling of – not alone. The weird, hippy, DJ-artsy culture – these people might be activists, they might not be, the tribes have members of all kinds. Its the healing nature of the tribes – the confirmation of belonging, the communion with something outside the realm of normal every day, the necessary breath of fresh air that allows you to deal with the smog of the rest of your life. These tribes infuse with energy, they don’t necessarily need to be merged with reality, in any obvious way, they already are.

just my .02 from this side of the bizzarre

I found the author’s comments interesting for two reasons. Number one, I think he was, in a sense, correct: first-world materialism has not significantly reduced since the mid-’60s; environmental conservation–though it has gained momentum–is still not what the proto tree huggers had hoped for; and most of American society has certainly not tended toward pacifism. On the other hand, the author’s argument to me signifies an unfortunate misunderstanding of what that generation was and the values it stood for. Though many hippies strove for social justice or an end to the Vietnam War, I think that to construe them as a political
movement is fundamentally wrong.

Though I was not alive at the time, I find it more meaningful to view movements of that sort not in terms of their macro effects on countries and governments, but in terms of their effects on individuals and how they run their lives. In the lab I work in, the researchers in their late 30s, 40s and 50s are, by any reasonable standard, moderates: they vote for conventional candidates and see themselves as more or less part of the American mainstream. Yet it would require a profound social blindness to claim that these people were not influenced by the hippie generation. The clothes they wear, the food they eat, their speech and interactions, their hopes for the future, and the values with which they have raised their kids are subtly yet indelibly tinted with the exaggerated ideals of that generation.

I think much the same can be said about most other radical subcultures. The “tribes” will not significantly alter foreign policy, social spending, or civil law, and those who expect them to are in for a disappointment. So unlike you, danah, I am not interested in the article’s discussion of the “power” of this movement. Their power, at least in the sense the article discusses it, is unsurpringly negligable. To me a more interesting discussion is what this movement is doing for what you call the “cyberpunk raver aesthetic” and its broader effects on aesthetics in general.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on this topic, of which I’m sure you have many.