"Did a Counterculture Subvert the Megamachine, or the Other Way Around?" By Christopher Tillman Neal

Technology and science are at the core of historical developments in the twentieth century and onto the 21st. I believe a counter cultural phenomenon can and often times brings people together to create a sphere of designers. What I mean by designers are people who wish to build an artifact, and I believe the world can be an artifact. In addition, a technological apparatus can be an artifact as well, and the Internet that was once primarily used for governmental means has transformed the way we communicate worldwide, and is also a technological artifact because it is made by humans. Hence, we are as a nation and on an international scale, a sphere of designers. In reference to megamachine subversion, I do, however, believe that a counterculture subverted the megamachine because in the 1960s computer technology was looked upon as embodying a rigid organization—a mechanical conformity that made the military-industrial complex possible. 


However, individuals like Stanford University’s Communication’s Department Assistant Professor Fred Turner, and Stewart Brand, best known for the ‘Whole Earth Catolog’ and who assisted Doug Englebart with ‘The Mother of All Demos’ a famous presentation of many revolutionary computer technologies, were aspired to break down the boundaries of individual experience and embrace a larger collective consciousness. Since World War II and into the Cold War I think our society moved into, a post mature age, which tried to repeat its successes, trying to recover the values of the past, and was met with inertia when it set out on an innovative path, to cast off some of the ballast of the past and move on to something contemporary, cutting edge, but challenging. I feel as a society we are too often, offering old solutions to new problems, and I think this is where the counter cultural phenomena sparked to subvert the megamachine—this technological super system. 


On the other hand, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT Sherry Turkle, writing on the subject of ‘technological spin’ or the stories we tell ourselves about our technologies, contends that we are still anxious about technology spiraling out of control, distrustful of the soul of the megamachine and worried about the mechanization of the human mind. Consequently, the evolution of the Internet gave rise to a new collective consciousness to counteract this mechanization of the human mind, felt by counterculturalist. 


The Internet as an artifact, seems to embrace a collaborative digital utopia-like sphere, which is modeled on the communal ideas of the 1960s counter cultural revolution, where individuals who participated in that counter cultural phenomenon so vehemently rebelled against the Cold War establishment in the first place. Nevertheless, the article entitled “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy—The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community”, by Fred Turner states: “It [The Whole Earth Catalog] thus offers a concrete, detailed account of the processes by which the counter cultural celebration of small-scale technologies as tools for the transformation of consciousness and community came to undergird popular understandings of early computer networks” (p.5). 


Thus, the vision of counterculturalists such as Fred Turner, and technologists in subverting the megamachine, brought forth an opportunity for them to join together in collective action to reimagine computers; reimagining computers, as personal tools for liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers. I do believe that the megamachine can be put off course. I have confidence that if we become more aware of the nature of technology, of the humanness of technology, of the capacity we have to construct our technology socially, we can better control our large technological systems and redirect them.


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References:



Turner Fred. (2005). “Where the Counterculture Met The New Economy: The WELL and the 


Origins of Virtual Community.” Technology and Culture, Volume 46, Number 3, July 


2005, pp. 485-512


Turkle, Sherry. (2004). “Spinning' Technology: What We Are Not Thinking About When We 


Are Thinking About Computers,” in Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears That 


Shape New Technologies, ed. Marita Sturken, Douglas Thomas, and Sandra J. Ball-


Rokeach Philadelphia: Temple University Press. P. 19-33.