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Simon Gottschalk
Uncomfortably Numb: Countercultural Impulses in the Postmodern Era
Symbolic Interaction Vol. 16 (4): 351-378
Informed by 1960s research suggesting that early signs of emerging social psychological trends are visible in countercultural groups, I use in-depth interviews and participant observation to explore the attitudes of the "Freaks" -- a group of countercultural students. Finding that they express pessimism and cynicism, rejection of metanarratives and fragmented identities, I suggest some comparisons between the Freaks' attitudes and the ones reported about their 1960s predecessors, and elaborate on the meaning of these attitudes in light of contemporary theoretical debates about a postmodern self.
Postmodern objections
How sweet was information in the days of truth! How sweet was science in the days of the real! How sweet was objectivity in the time of the object! How sweet was alienation in the days of the subject! (Baudrillard 1990, p. 89).
Many social scientists and philosophers taking the postmodern turn seriously have found themselves motivated to re-evaluate many established concepts, theories, ontological assumptions and epistemological orientations 1 . For many, proclamations of the end of the social and of sociology (Baudrillard 1983), of meaning and Man (Baudrillard 1982), of philosophy and culture (Kaplan 1987), of referentiality (Poster 1988), the self (Gergen 1991), history, ideology, art, social class (Jameson 1984a), citizenship (Wexler 1991), "the rule of the Enlightenment and its Trinity of Father, Science, and State," (Gitlin 1989b, p. 104) and of "all the dichotomies" (Wolin 1984, p. 26) have left deep fissures in the pillars of modern thought or have destroyed them completely. Given the assumptions that the post-1960s era (or Word War II, depending on whom you read) has experienced an exponentially increasing pace of social change and has witnessed radical transformations at the social and global levels, is not hard to understand the postmodern call for the "abandonment of previous social theory" (Kroker and Cook 1986 quoted in Kellner 1988, p. 241) and for the formulation of new approaches which could explain the nature of this new socio-historical moment, describe the cultural forms which express and shape it, and specify the social psychological dispositions it encourages.
In this paper, I am chiefly interested in the self, its dynamics, tendencies and fate in the postmodern space. But whereas claims and counterclaims about a postmodern self multiply, it seems that, with notable exceptions , most are grounded in theoretical reflections and in the interpretations of various cultural texts. And if many scholars convincingly interpret such texts as indicating the rise of a postmodern self or condition, there is a paucity of efforts exploring how (and if) individuals not directly involved in artistic or intellectual production acknowledge, experience, and cultivate this condition. This paper represents a modest step in that direction: In it, I investigate the attitudes of a group of contemporary countercultural youth and explore whether they express the hypothesized postmodern condition or self. Although the enterprise of empirically verifying postmodern claims is itself oxymoronic, it need not be if one follows Bauman's (1982) differentiation between a "postmodern sociology" and a "sociology of the postmodern". In this paper, I adopt the latter approach. Supporting postmodern theorists' claimed interest in listening to the voices of marginal groups (Yudice 1988, p. 214), and acknowledging the numerous ontological problems embedded in a project such as this one (Lather 1991), I also believe that it is important to assess whether subjects spoken for by the postmodern discourse(s) recognize and agree with what is being said about them. Therefore, informed by previous sociological research identifying countercultural youth as carriers and producers of emerging social psychological trends, I have decided to listen to such a group, to explore their orientations, and to assess whether they articulate theorists' claims about an emerging postmodern self or condition.
Countercultural and Postmodern Self: Elective Affinities
The 1960s were the true beginning of the postmodern era. The decade brought forth audacious critiques of the modern worldview, attacks on all belief systems. Strange new ideas about such matters as consciousness and sanity and objective truth entered the public dialogue ... The [1960s] revolutionaries challenged the entire modern worldview (Anderson 1990, pp. 44-48).
Only the one who claims to have a simple, definite, and clear-cut identity has an identity problem (Gergen 1991, p. 155).
Contemporary social science contains many discussions of the distinguishing traits of modern selfhood (Flax 1990, Lather 1991, Gergen 1991, Giddens 1991). Many of these works elaborate themes of classical sociology where modern social structures produce a "new species of mental life." (Gagnon 1992, p. 221) Reviewing several important traits characterizing the modern self, Kavolis (1970, p. 440) for example, identifies: rationality, the search for higher material standards, planning, organization, the sense of efficacy, calculability, the faith in science, in technology, in the government, and the belief that one can influence authority. For Turner (1976), the modern "institutional" self was characterized by adherence to institutional standards, duty to society, the need for achievement, and an orientation towards the future. It valued control, continuity, autonomy, inhibition, and sublimation, finding satisfaction in the faultless performance of one's roles (see also Wood and Zurcher 1988).
As Gergen (1991) observes, the modernist view of the self specified that it was a finite and predictable entity displaying consistency with itself and others across situations and time. The modern self could be healthy or pathological, actualized or alienated, happy or anxious, but it could be observed, measured, diagnosed and, if necessary, improved. This position contradicted and marginalized the Romantic view which insisted that the "true" self could only be recognized in times of unbound passion, inspiration, or genius. Yet, if these two perspectives disagreed on the essence or source of the self, they did not dispute its existence as a separate, atomized, autonomous and identifiable object. In postmodern theory (Jameson 1984b; Flax 1990; Lather 1991; Weedon 1987; Mouffe 1988; Stephenson 1988), this assumption is rejected as ideological, obsolete, or both.
The rationale explaining my decision to explore whether contemporary countercultural students display postmodern attitudes is informed both by research findings about the 1960s counterculture and by contemporary theoretical reflections about postmodernism. Taken together, both bodies of knowledge suggest an "elective affinity" between countercultural and postmodern tendencies. For example, pointing at the destabilizing effects of social change on modern social institutions, Keniston (1968), Lifton (1968), Zurcher (1982), and others located early signs of the decline of the modern self and the rise of a new one in the 1960s counterculture. Although they named this self differently ("postmodern," "protean," "mutable," etc), it is clear that these authors agreed on its central tendencies. As they suggested, this emerging self derived a sense of meaning and authenticity through involvement in immediate and intense experiences rather than through disciplined participation in social institutions. Emphasizing process rather than goals, this new self was directed towards the present rather than towards the past or the future. It refused to commit to any particular fixed identity but engaged in a continuous and reflexive self-reconstruction. Expressing hostility towards ideologies and dogmatism, and acknowledging a sense of absurdity, it valued flexibility, openness, fluidity, change and transience.
Rather than locating the "destructured" or "decentralized" postmodern self in the 1960s counterculture, Kavolis (1970, pp. 438-39) argued that it emerged instead in the space created by the various dilemmas pitting the countercultural against the modern modes of adaptation. The postmodern self thus expressed
the sense that both polarities of a great many of these dilemmas are contained in an unresolved form, within one's own experience ... The post-modern person is therefore likely to be a seeker of solutions relating "modernity" to its rejection, the latter activated in his personality by the "underground" culture (Kavolis, 1970:445-46).
Interestingly also, many of these researchers proposed that countercultural students and others displaying these emerging tendencies were somehow ahead of their times. As scholars sympathetic to the counterculture such as Margaret Mead (1978), Flacks (1971), Walter (1982), Reich (1970), Roszak (1969), and Slater (1970) explained, their strategic and privileged structural location in post-World War II America and other Western societies sensitized 1960s countercultural youth to existing cultural crises and contradictions that others were more likely to dismiss, ignore, or repress. It is also remarkable that the attitudes Keniston (1960) discovered and portrayed in a small group of isolated and unrepresentative "alienated" students in a single elite university would become emblematic of the many thousands of youth who joined the counterculture by the end of that decade. Many researchers thus saw the counterculture as a significant social formation whose members were experimenting with pioneering forms of social organization, beingness and consciousness, molding themselves for a future which was both increasingly destructured and uncertain (Wood and Zurcher 1988; Rothchild 1976; Walter 1982; Zurcher 1982; Flacks 1971; but see also Berger 1981). This perception was also often shared by members of the counterculture themselves (Gitlin 1987; Foss 1972; Yinger 1982), but challenged by other scholars (Adler 1968; Bell 1978).
Contemporary theorists of postmodernity such as Hassan (1987), Featherstone (1991), Stephenson (1988), James (1988), Hebdige (1988a) and others confirm that there are indeed significant linkages between 1960s countercultural orientations and postmodern sensibilities. To some degree, many tendencies characterizing the postmodern "turn" in academia questioning and rejection of the western narrative and the scientific paradigm) trace their roots back to the 1960s counterculture, albeit with some important differences which will be discussed shortly.
At the same time, although the early researchers of the emerging countercultural/postmodern self had correctly identified some of its key tendencies, they could not have accurately anticipated its mutations some twenty years later. As Gitlin (1989a, p. 58) remarks, postmodernism is
post-Vietnam, post-New Left, post-Hippie, post-Watergate. History was ruptured, passions have been expanded, belief has become difficult; heroes have died and have been replaced by celebrities ... Old verities crumbled, but new ones have not settled in ... It reflects an experience that takes for granted not only television but suburbs, shopping malls, recreational (not religious or transcendent) drugs, and the towering abstraction of money. To grow up post-1960s is to experience the aftermath, privatization, weightlessness: everything has apparently been done.
Accordingly, the contemporary postmodern self represents a new "human nature" or "zeitgeist" (Gitlin 1989b, p. 103); it expresses a particular socio-historical moment which is qualitatively different from the 1960s and 1970s (Huyssen 1990; Hebdige 1988b). The discussion below will briefly review some important features associated with this new moment and will discuss the social psychological dispositions which may be associated with it.
Postmodern Cyberculture
Postmodern culture has entertainment as its ideology, the spectacle as the emblematic sign of the commodity form, lifestyle advertising as its popular psychology, pure, empty seriality as the bond which unites the simulacrum to its audience, electronic images as its most dynamic, and only form of social cohesion ... the diffusion of a network of relational power as its real product (Kroker and Cook 1986, quoted in Kaplan 1988, p. 35).
Any sociological discussion of a postmodern society or self must necessarily devote some space to culture, the institution which has become pivotal in many postmodern theorists' analysis of contemporary western society (Featherstone 1991, p. 11; Ryan 1988, p. 561). Jameson (1984a, p. 84) for example, associates postmodernism with
a prodigious expansion of culture throughout the social realm to the point where everything in our social life -- from economic values and state power to practices and to the very structure of the psyche itself -- can be said to have become "cultural" in some original and yet untheorized sense.
Yet, this repositioning of culture is paradoxical because its hypothesized source, meaning, and dynamics are significantly different from previous conceptions in conventional sociological theory (Bauman 1988, p. 799). Baudrillard (1983, pp. 127-129) carries this new understanding of culture to its (il)logical extreme by describing a media-orchestrated "cyberculture" which has replaced Marx's economic infrastructure as the critical generative force in postmodern society. Accordingly, whereas modern society was organized around the factory and the controlled production, circulation, and consumption of manufactured goods, postmodern society is (dis)organized under the television screen and the uncontrolled and random production, circulation, and consumption of images, signs, simulations, and meanings (Baudrillard 1990, 1983, 1981; see also Kellner 1989; Chen 1987; Debord 1971; Kaplan 1987; Gane 1991; Poster 1990; Pfohl 1992, 1990; Twitchell 1992). As Baudrillard argues, through the oversaturation and anarchic collision of electronic signs on the screens, through their random juxtaposition and referentiality, through the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction, past, present, and future, information and entertainment, and public and private experiences, the television syntax produces a veritable symbolic juggernaut where time and space collapse, where formerly distinct social and conceptual categories dissolve, and where meaning is constantly de- and re-constructed, and therefore ultimately annihilated. This position then does not simply suggests that TV lies, broadcasts particular ideological interests, or imposes an organized and hegemonic discourse on viewers. Rather, the very logic of television transforms our sense of reality and consciousness. As Chen (1987, p. 71) explains:
Our senses of the world, of the real, have been largely (re)defined by the explosion of mass media operations; media practices have rearranged our senses of space and time. What is real is no longer our direct contact with the world, but what we are given on the TV screen: TV is the world.
For Gergen (1991), the colonization of the postmodern space by proliferating technologies of "social saturation" (such as FAX machines, cellular phones, computers, satellites, invisible cameras, television) also precipitates a qualitative difference in our everyday subjective experiences, and an exponential increase in the roles we (un)consciously play and take with others. Importantly also, these "others" are not only limited to the actual individuals we briefly and often anonymously encounter in the fast-paced and constantly-changing daily life characteristic of the postmodern moment. They are also disembodied voices communicating over cellular phones, author-less impulses appearing on computer screens, invisible eyes behind scrutinizing cameras, and simulations who/which, unconstrained by time or space limitations, continuously interpellate us in the television logic, and relentlessly infiltrate and reorganize our vanishing private sphere. In such an oversaturated environment, every silent decision or disposition we might contemplate is instantaneously (re-)evaluated and transformed through the (un)conscious eliciting of the voices and gazes of these real and electronic others we inevitably incorporate as our internal audience.
Following this line of reasoning, the coherent and predictable sound of Mead's Generalized Other becomes a multi-track of competing voices, each advancing her/his/its own changing perspective s , and Cooley's looking-glass becomes an enclosing wall of flickering screens projecting an endless procession of plausible reflections/simulations. This increasing penetration of both real and simulated others creates a "vertigo of unlimited multiplicity" (Gergen 1991, p. 49) or a "cacophony of potentials" (p. 73) which necessarily challenge the assumption and experience of the self as a unified entity. In the postmodern "semiotic glut" (Collins 1987. p. 25), this endless blitz of electronic simulations encourage a "pastiche personality," an "overpopulated" and "multiphrenic" self (Gergen 1991), a self which can no longer be interpreted in terms of the modern social psychological theories which have traditionally served to both account for, and construct it. Pfohl (1992, pp. 18-22) explains this well:
Drawn into the dense, high speed and electronically pulsating structural operations of telecommunicative mass marketing, many of our bodies are literally invaded and then extended outwards into the networkings of the media itself. Multiple channels of inFORMation converge on and through us, not so much to persuade as to instill an uncanny if somewhat panicky oscillation between what's feared and what's fascinating ... We are the media! We are the television! We are (or becoming) living screens for the telecommunicative projection of dead (or deadening) moving pictures.
Additionally, this emerging self must not only be elucidated as it navigates the social and psychological networks endlessly transformed by the cybercultural revolution, but also as it confronts heightened and "new forms of psychological vulnerability." (Giddens 1990, p. 113) These include a probable decrease in "ontological security" (p. 82) prompted by now-routinized crises such as the collapse of ideology, the constant transformations of once-stable meanings, the growing babel of competing narratives and their respective claims to truth, the somber reality of ecological holocaust, the increasing questioning of the West dominance in the world system, a growing economic depression, slashing of welfare programs, escalating domestic, inter-ethnic, and international violence, and a long list of other phenomena which, taken together, lend credibility to Kroker, Kroker and Cook's (1990) depiction of contemporary society as a benumbing "panic scene" (see also Pfhol 1992, 1990).
Whereas Giddens (1990, pp. 135-37) suggests that individuals confronting conditions of "high" or "radical" (rather than "post") modernity are likely to adapt through psychological mechanisms such as "pragmatic acceptance," "sustained optimism," "radical engagement," or "cynical pessimism," it seems that many theorists of the contemporary self have emphasized the latter tendency. For example, Lyman (1990) mentions anhedonia, and Denzin (1991, p. viii) "ressentiment" as important contemporary emotions. For Frank (1992, pp. 42-43) postmodern individuals are not anomic in the old Durkheimian sense, but "post-nomic." The tensions they experience are not caused by the "absence of norms but their irrelevance." Worse yet, the postmodern individual is not only ironic but also "angry and afraid; it is paranoid." Gitlin (1989b, pp. 100-103) suggests that the emerging postmodern consciousness manifests "blankness," "pessimism," "affectlessness," "cynicism," and "passionlessness that dissolve feelings and commitment into irony." (Gitlin 1989a, p. 52) Experiencing "the end of ideals, of belief, of authority," and the feeling of being "historically stranded," the postmodern self "gets involved with nothing. It is suspicious of crusades and commitments outside the self" (Gitlin 1989b, p. 108). For MacCannell (1992, p. 220),
The postmodern belongs to persons who are immune to incoherence, who can accept, even enjoy, discontinuity and schizophrenia at the level of culture. Psychologically this might include someone with a fragmented consciousness on a plane parallel to postmodern culture itself. More likely, it would be one who is at once absolutely calm and absolutely anxious ... The characteristic social psychological manifestation of postmodernity would be a kind of intense, strained casualness that sometimes fails to hold and is overturned by euphoric frenzy and ecstatic violence.
Although these various interpretations and diagnoses differ in their emphasis, the general tone indicates that the postmodern mood might be importantly different from the version presented by 1960s researchers. For example, if both the 1960s and 1990s discussions of the postmodern self indicate that it is oriented towards the present (as opposed to past or future time), the subjective experience of this "present" orientation must be vastly different in each case. The 1960s countercultural/postmodern focus on the present was activated both by a collective rejection of a too constraining past and a collective belief that the future would be better and freer. By comparison, the 1990s postmodern focus on the present is informed by the rejection of an irrelevant past and the suspicion that the future might not be viable.
Given the strategic location of countercultural groups as carriers and producers of emerging social-psychological trends, I now turn to the analysis of the attitudes espoused by a group of countercultural youth and explore whether they indeed express the various emotions theorists identify as constituting a postmodern condition or self.
RESPONDENTS AND METHODS
The group under investigation is composed mainly of undergraduate and ex-undergraduate students living in "the island" 2 , the student community adjacent to the campus of a major university in southern California . Known for being an exceedingly crowded student ghetto, the island is a strategic site where to conduct a research such as this one. In the 1960s and 1970s this community came to national attention following months of student riots and the ensuing burning of a bank. It was also the location of research investigating the 1960s countercultural ethos (Wieder and Zimmerman 1974; Simmons and Winograd 1966), and assessing the continuity of student political activism (Shay 1991; Whalen and Flacks 1987). The main locus of this research is the "Cielo House," the residence of many of the respondents and a focal point for many individuals loosely identifying themselves with a Punk-Rockish "alternative lifestyle." Calling themselves "Freaks", residents of the Cielo House and their friends form a network or "scene" characterized by an elusive yet confrontational clothing style, absorption in alternative music, substantial use of illegal drugs, and fiercely critical attitudes towards conventional students, the university, mainstream culture, and society in general.
Their clothing style is the most visible sign Freaks display to claim a certain orientation, an identification with a positive reference group, or a rejection of a negative one. As Hebdige (1979, p. 102) suggests in his work on "spectacular subcultures":
The communication of a significant difference , then (and the parallel communication of a different identity ), is the "point" behind the style of all spectacular subcultures. It is the superordinate term under which all the other significations are marshalled, the message through which all the other messages speak.
Yet, since the identification of this style is not a most precise tool to specify the boundaries of this group, I have decided to rely on the "purposive" and "snowball" sampling techniques. Besides hanging out at the Cielo House and at other locations Freaks frequented, I have also asked Mitch (my key informant) to map out the Freak network and to indicate who is who, who does what, and who is associated with whom. Having subsequently asked these same questions to other Freaks, I have identified a sample of eleven individuals. All but two are recognized by others as "core" members; most come from upper-middle class backgrounds and are students. Among these, there are quite a few arts and humanities majors but relatively few "hard sciences" ones. Their ages range from early to mid-twenties; there is a slightly higher man-to-woman ratio, and all but one are Caucasians. Initial conversations with Mitch helped me generate a few themes and ideas which seemed important to him, to the Freaks, and to my research interests. After having spent some time in the field as a (non-)participant observer engaging in casual conversations with the Freaks, I have decided to rely on unstructured and in-depth interviews. Most of these were tape-recorded with the Freaks' permission and were conducted in parks around campus, in coffee-houses, at the Cielo House, and in their other hang-outs. Interviews took anywhere from one to several hours, and all respondents were interviewed on several occasions. Following Lather's (1991) recommendations, I have conducted these interviews by encouraging dialogic and reciprocally self-disclosing dynamics, and have attempted to produce "jointly told tales." (Van Mannen 1988, pp. 136-38) Five out of the eleven respondents have also read the finished project, have discussed with me various issues which needed clarifications, and have agreed with my general findings. Although I have asked Freaks to discuss a variety of issues 3 , for the purpose of this paper I will explore the extent to which they express dispositions associated with the postmodern condition while also comparing their attitudes to their Hippie predecessors.
RESULTS: THE FREAK SPIRIT
The culture this generation favors is a passive adaptation to the feeling of being historically stranded -- after the 1960s but before what? Perhaps the Bomb, the void hanging over the horizon threatening to pulverize everything of value (Gitlin 1989a, p. 58).
We're waiting for something, but I don't know what (Trish, a respondent).
The true postmodern type is a mirror image of the punk (or vice-versa) ... A conscious or unconscious understanding of the postmodern permits its adherents to flip off the new left and the yuppie right (MacCannell 1992, p. 221).
Through my interviews with the Freaks, I have isolated three clusters of tendencies which theorists have frequently identified as characterizing a "postmodern condition." These are: (1) an attraction for the "dark side", pessimism, and cynicism; (2) a rejection of ideologies and metanarratives; (3) a fragmented identity which is expressed both in the Freaks' self-definition and self-presentation. Although these tendencies are interrelated, I will first review them separately.
(1) MOOD: THE DARK SIDE, pessimism, and cynicism
[O]ur affective existence is increasingly defined by the collapse of the difference between the extremism of terror and the nullity of boredom, between the terror of boredom and the boredom of terror, between the uncontrollability of affect and its absence (Grossberg 1988, p. 184).
Whereas Hassan (in Kaiser et al. 1991, p. 168) suggests that the postmodern moment contains both utopian and dystopian impulses, it seems that the latter are most prevalent among the Freaks. They frequently mention their attraction to the "dark side" and stress that they are particularly interested in exploring and understanding this realm, if only in order to transcend it once it has become known. The dark side has different referents: Mitch associates it with U.S. military intervention in Third World countries, war, commercialism, domestic violence, and maleness. When asked to elaborate about it, Ed pulled gruesome black-and -white pictures out of his bag and, showing them to me, explained:
These are abortions of women that had babies when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. At our shows we have slides of these. These are charred corpses, this is from Vietnam , these are the dark side ... We're killing our planet. In order to have hope, I have to believe that we can stop it. So my role is educational, I want to shock people ... It's an educational tool, and I hope that by looking at the dark side straight in the face maybe it's not gonna win.
Freaks argue that Hippies have ignored or have been unaware of the force of the dark side at both the planetary and psychological levels. Although this charge of innocent naivete seems a little exaggerated to me 4 , where Freaks differ from their 1960s predecessors on this issue is perhaps best grasped by considering the differential weights they give dark versus hopeful themes. Whereas "dark side" themes did represent an undercurrent in some phases of the 1960s counterculture, they seem much more dominant in the Freak consciousness at the expense of utopian and optimistic ones. This does not mean that Freaks embrace or encourage what they consider to be evil thoughts, feelings, or actions but that they sometimes find aspects of this "dark side" sufficiently compelling to deserve recognition and exploration.
This attraction to the dark side is also accompanied by various dispositions which substantiate Gitlin's (1989a, 1989b) and others' claims that the postmodern mood is rather pessimistic and cynical. John for example confides that he does "get really egotistical, selfish, and cynical," and admits "drifting into pessimism a lot ... I don't buy into optimism." Ed also acknowledges that
I try to have a positive attitude but I think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and my response to that is to try not to really believe too much in what I'm doing and trying to act like everything's all right and like there's a future, and I don't really believe there is one. I guess that's what I think cynicism is.
Asked to describe the general mood at the Cielo house, he adds that
Everybody is depressed there. Things are not optimistic and can be pretty morbid. Things are fucked, they'll always be fucked ... this is the end of the world and we're going to watch it happen ... we're self-destructive. We're not sitting there getting drunk every fucking night because we're happy people. We're really self-destructive.
Many also contemplate catastrophic ecological scenarios and diminishing economic opportunities. Ed mentions ideas such as "the apocalypse" and "the end of the world" which he thinks
is a very reasonable possibility. It's happening. We've totally destroyed the carbon dioxide balance of this planet. We don't know what that's gonna do. We've destroyed the population balance. About one thousand species a year are extinct, as opposed to one every thousand years ... And there's also destruction up here [points to his head].
My generation is not gonna have a better life than my parents' generation, and this is different than most generations in the last couple of hundred years ... So here I am, a white person and I'm not gonna have a better life and I don't know what my values are either because all my values were my dad's values.
Freaks expressed these attitudes verbally during our interviews, during naturally occurring conversations among themselves, in the leaflets they occasionally post around campus and the island, in the posters decorating the Cielo House, and in the music they compose and play (see appendix). To some degree, Freaks' drug use also expresses this general mood. They claim to consume marijuana, L.S.D., psychedelic mushrooms, alcohol, and (some also) heroin in order to achieve communion with each other, to "tranquilize" their mind, to escape from social, mental, and emotional constraints, or "just for fun." For Leslie,
It's just that you are trying to cut out the pain that you're feeling from society ... I got into smoking pot and being so alienated from myself and from my class ... It is definitely an escape. It changes consciousness. We're so conditioned by everything around us and you can't isolate yourself from it completely ... and doing drugs are ways of counteracting that, counteracting society's conditioning.
Shooting heroin is not a hopeful thing. It's more like: "God, this world sucks, I'm gonna get away for six hours." But it's hard to think of ourselves as self-destructive in a society like this one where everybody is just killing themselves (Ed).
By comparison to their 1960s predecessors, Freaks do not account for their drug use in metaphysical or ideological terms (Cavan 1972; Willis 1978; Yablonski 1968). They often cynically dismiss such accounts as naive and self-serving, and confirm Gitlin's (1989a, 1989b) interpretation of postmodern drug use practices as fulfilling mainly escapist and recreational functions.
(2) REJECTION OF METANARRATIVES
For Baudrillard, the rejection of sense is the ultimate political act and the only resistive one available to the powerless masses in late capitalism (Fiske, 1987:254).
Many Freaks have been centrally involved in organized campus political groups in the past; but the optimism many associated with the early phases of this involvement quickly turned into cynicism and frustrated burnout. For Trish, "it was too slow," and for Ed, the administrative aspects of these groups rendered them "counterproductive." The frustrations they experienced while participating in organized political activities were also intensified by their growing disbelief in the political system at the local, national and international levels. Freaks see no difference between the Democratic and Republican party, they seriously doubt that individuals can create a meaningful difference by using conventional channels of political activism, and they dismiss the idea that communism, socialism, or capitalism "work" or ever did. They express an absolute rejection and mistrust of conventional politics, the ideologies they represent, and the elected officials who claim to enact them. They have not only ceased believing in the legitimacy and relevance of the political institution but have proceeded to delegitimize it altogether.
This rejection does not imply complete passivity and withdrawal, for Freaks do engage in other forms of activism. For Leslie, political action should come through changing one's own consciousness:
you have to start with yourself, the social conditioning in yourself. You start raising your own consciousness and then by doing that, hopefully, the people you come in contact with, you can help them too ...
Thus, whereas John is "trying to figure out other means to smash the state," Ann talks about "subverting the system" in terms of "interpersonal relations" which are "really important as far as changing anything." Trish also understands political involvement in terms of
going out and living off the land and teaching people ... anything from reading to art, teaching people what I really believe in, what I love ... That's my way of creating peace on earth ... by reaching out to people, individuals ... that's my way of working.
Ed defines his group as:
It is sort of a post-political radicalism; which means we've been activists in the past but now feel that activism does not work and that it does not have results ... it's counterproductive. By radicalism, I mean if you try to define yourself as left-wing ... we're not left-wing, we're radicals, we're not anywhere middle-of-the-road or anywhere near liberal ... And we're definitely on the left, our meals are vegetarian at our house. But left is not the word ... Left is too political of a word; we're just more radical.
Freaks thus translate political engagement as a lifestyle, as a mode of interacting, as spontaneous, dramatic, aesthetic and ad-hoc events rather than as a series of structured activities carried out through sustained membership in organized political groups. At the same time, such activism does not seem to bring about the desired results, and as Mitch remarks, all the members of the Cielo House are "super-aware politically" but feel impotent to change the wrongs they see. Trish sees the Freaks as
ways of living, wanting to be free, and disgusted with the political system and our government, and wanting to change it and yet feeling very very hopeless and powerless, really powerless. I feel that mostly with the people I talk with ... powerless and yet really disgusted with it all, and then not wanting to be a part of it; and then I feel like it's running away from it.
While conducting the present research, I have witnessed Freaks organize several concerts benefitting refugees from Central America, lectures denouncing poverty and homelessness, demonstrations promoting environmental issues, and leafletting protesting the Gulf war, among other activities. Depending on the nature of the activity and the issues under consideration, Freaks sometimes join forces and skills with left-leaning organized political groups, but such associations do not imply any kind of commitment beyond the immediate task at hand.
Like 1960s Hippies, Freaks also reject the "western white male metanarrative" and, in their own way, agree with the postmodern critique of the scientific discourse
We just go on dissecting and hacking up nature and imposing these weird theoretical realities with no real concern with whether they function correctly or not ... I think most people would rather have faith and assume there's an absolute truth and some things are right and some things are wrong ... but it doesn't seem to be a very good way of thinking about things (Ed).
The universe is not necessarily simple or rational. It's extremely complex and humanity has to learn how to deal with the irrationality of the cosmos and understand it ... I think there's too much emphasis in our culture on rationality. I think that things are pretty chaotic ... I thrive on the irrational ... I have something against language and talk in general. I think that language in and of itself lies, it's inadequate ... When you're talking, you're not thinking clearly. You're one step behind (Leslie).
But by comparison to 1960s Hippies who proposed to replace the dominant narrative with an alternative one, Freaks do not. Whereas Willis (1978, p. 86) found Hippies to express "the fundamental sense of the oneness of things, the belief that all contradictions were resolved, all oppositions reduced, all consciousness joined, in an over-arching super-awareness ... a realization that one was God," Freaks do not claim to have gained a particular understanding of "truth" through a spiritual vision (see Cavan 1970, 1972) or other such experiences (Yablonski 1968). Mitch, for example, remarks that if any Freak ever expressed a strong belief in any particular transcendental truth, it was "probably very short-lived." Accordingly, their attitude towards the dominant narrative is also maintained towards the countercultural one:
the counterculture is not like one philosophy. Hopefully, it can accommodate a lot of different people that disagree ... most expressed ideologies come out being rather intolerant and rather single-issued: one truth about one issue, and it just ain't so. There's a little bit of hippie-ishness in my group but there are so many options and variables these days because there's just more choices as far as where to go (Ed).
Rather than proposing a well-organized "story" which could explain their universe and locate a truth in it, Freaks quote Zen proverbs, evoke Camus, Burroughs, Bukowski, Bataille, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, radical environmentalism, the Sex Pistols, Frank Zappa, and Bob Marley (among others). However, they neither construct a narrative based on these names and texts nor express any concern about the absence of such a narrative. In fact, they resist such construction which they see as perpetuating what Ed calls "mono-theory" or "mono-culture." Instead, they evoke these individuals and their respective texts in different contexts, as justifications for various countercultural positions. Like their clothing style to be described below, the Freak "story" is a collage of ideas, an assemblage of political, ideological, and aesthetic positions originating from different points in time and space.
The fragmentary nature of the Freak (anti)ideology is also dramatized in the many dilemmas they confront and cannot resolve. If Miller (1974) described emerging psychological tendencies as "the radical experience of equally real, but mutually exclusive aspects of the self," (quoted in Gergen 1991, p. 249) Freaks seem to embody this disposition quite clearly. They refuse to commit themselves to any discernible position and many find themselves constantly pulled in opposite and contradictory directions. They like drugs, yet are concerned about their possible health hazards. They are frustrated by the absurdity of sexual repression, yet an attempt at living a free and communal sex life failed, and they are now (serially and protectively) monogamous. They insist that they refuse to be part of the system but find it impossible to live outside of it. They express a preference to live in the country -- "off the land" -- yet feel an irresistible attraction to the city and its opportunities. They want to "change things" but feel "helpless and powerless," "pessimistic" and "defeatist." For Ann, what characterizes this group is a feeling that
we're part of the world ... but I think we like to think that we're not part of the whole system, so to speak ... that we exist within it but without too ... I can't be happy and subscribe to the bullshit ... It's such a paradox you know ... I pay my fucking taxes and pay my bills, and it's all part of the same bullshit ...
The main organizing claim is that the system is corrupted and corrupting, that it is "psychotic," destructive, and dangerous at both the planetary and psychological levels. As Ed half-jokingly remarks, the Freak enterprise should be spelled "counter kill ture" instead of "counterculture." But while doubtlessly critical and subversive, the Freak position is also decentered and unfocused; and while the intellectual rejection of "the system" is quite real and forceful, it is also enunciated from an emotional position characterized by hopelessness, absurdism, helplessness, cynicism, and pessimism about any possibility of changing it. This combination then substantiates the suggestion that the Freak temperament expresses postmodern tendencies. Having rejected both the existing conventional and countercultural narratives, the Freak position is sometimes self-destructive, often disoriented, and frequently characterized by multidirectional and self-cancelling intentions, goals, and desires.
(3) PLAYING WITH THE PIECES: POSTMODERN STYLES ADN IDENTITIES
Playing with the pieces -- that is postmodern (Baudrillard, quoted in Best and Kellner 1991, p. 128).
From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art (Foucault, quoted in Yudice 1989, p. 219).
The importance of style in "spectacular subcultures" has been researched among Punks (James 1988; Hebdige 1988a, 1979 Marcus 1989; Selzer 1976; Lull 1987; Fox 1987), bikers (Willis 1970), rockers (Melly 1972; Hall and Jefferson 1976; Chambers 1986), and Hippies (Foss 1972; Willis 1978). As Brake (1985, pp. 11-14) proposes,
Several important indicators are raised by style. It expresses a degree of commitment to the subculture, and it indicates membership of a specific subculture which by its very appearance disregards or attacks dominant values ... Style at a subcultural level acts as a form of argot, drawing upon costumes and artefacts from a mainstream fashion context and translating these into its own rhetoric ... Objects and artefacts (both of a symbolic and a concrete form) have been reordered and placed in new contexts so as to communicate fresh acts of meaning.
As such, the social and political importance of countercultural styles can hardly be overestimated. For Davis (1992, pp. 183-84), the stylistic "countercultural insult" is "symbolically the most potent" because it
most directly challenges the symbolic hegemony of the reigning fashion. It injects itself headlong into the dialogue of fashion by attempting through its iconoclasms to debunk and deride the dominant mode rather than to merely propose some group-sepcific alternative as do other antifashions...
Further, given its origins in the middle class, this style may seem more threatening than other styles emerging from different locations in the social system: "It smacks more of subversion from within than opposition from without." (Davis 1992, p. 184)
Thus, when asked to explain why the Freak style (or "looking weird") was important to him and to members of his group, Ed corroborates the quote above by answering that
It's a way of voting. It's a way of registering myself as a reject, and that I object to society. I want to be totally identified as rejecting society's mainstream values ... I want to be part of a group of people that's not only opposed to what's going on but also providing a cultural and social milieu for people to have a place to go that don't like what they see.
As Ann explains, the Freak style must be "intriguing" and "different." For John, it must produce a sense of "wonderment" and is used as "shock value"; its function is "educational": to "celebrate the difference," to make "straight people think," to indicate that the person so dressed "goes against the grain."
Echoing Lefebvre's remark (quoted in Hebdige, 1979, p. 92) that "that which yesterday was reviled today becomes consumer-goods," Freaks also assert that the most radical ideas and styles have been sterilized through mass-reproduction and media appropriation (see also Kaiser et al. 1991, p. 168; Anderson 1990; Huyssen 1990; Hebdige 1988b; Ewen 1988). They recognize that existing deviant styles are cliches that can no longer be adopted to express one's rebellious position, and such recognition seems to be an important motivation explaining their own style. For example, Trish wears a 1950s dress with a Hippie-ish Guatemalan shirt, African jewelry, a black leather jacket, and black army boots. Sam dyes his hair orange, wears a skirt, and black army boots. Lory wears dreadlocks, a Hippie-ish dress, black army boots and a nosering. John also wears dreadlocks but, refusing to fit the standard(ized) "Rasta" image, subverts it by (mis-)matching them with green checked golfer pants:
I don't like stereotypes. A lot of people say: "Well you're a Rasta because of the way I look," but I know a lot of people who wear Grateful Dead T-shirts and they're at Dead shows and are sort of just conservative square Republicans.
Leslie identifies the Freak style as a "collage of various historical styles and ethnic traditions." For George, "it's anything and everything," for Trish, it cannot be categorized as any particular genre:
it's crazy and nutty, silly, weird and fun and funky ... It's kind of mixed. It's got a little of everything. Little of the Punk, a little of art ... just kinda ... the dark side. I'm influenced by all these different people ... drug-takers music, Rock'n'Roll, industrial, silly.
As such, Freaks unquestionably corroborate Kaiser et al.'s view (1991, p. 175) that, given the exponential increase in the different styles available and permissible in postmodern culture, "a subset of artistically inclined and politically expressive consumers are likely to revel in the opportunities for appearance management afforded by the endless visual combinations." Thus, by comparison to other counter- or subcultural styles such as the 19th century Bohemians, the Beats, the Hippies, the Punks, or the Rastafarians who adopt(ed) a particular and recognizable dressing code 5 , the Freak style does not articulate an organized (counter-)ethos but plays with forms:
there is a propensity for ambiguity across looks, which fail to add up to a coherent picture of social reality. But there is also the likelihood of symbolic ambiguity within a given look, based upon the latitude in individual combinations. In either case, the underlying abstract principle of cultural ambivalence assumes concrete form in self-produced, ambiguous appearances ... Each element in a collage makes a reference to an external reality; however, collage as a context of juxtaposed 'real' items simultaneously contradicts that reference (Kaiser et al. 1991, p. 174).
What matters is not adherence to a particular static image but unpredictable originality and creativity in one's self-presentation. It is partly on these grounds that both Ann and Trish are granted the prestigious status of "Queen Freaks," and that others are approvingly distinguished as "cool" and "wild." The Freak style indeed concretizes Kaiser et al.'s suggestion that the postmodern relationship with fashion has shifted from "serial monogamy to serial polygamy." There is therefore a sort of "homology" (Willis, in Brake 1985, p. 15) between the Freak ideological position and clothing style. Grounded in the Punk-Rock dystopian negation, this style destabilizes meaning through the parodying and perpetual (re)combination of codes belonging to various historical periods, ethnic traditions, and countercultural repertoires (see also James 1988, pp. 163-86). The decentered/dissenting style is also the decentered/dissenting message and identity; and as many Freaks stress, they refuse to be identified with any existing category or to commit to any particular identity. They want to keep their options open, both in relation to others and to themselves:
I don't think people [in the group] want to be defined in any terms, because to define is to limit. If someone says I'm this or that, it means that I couldn't be the next thing (Ed).
Unwilling to embrace any recognizable (sub)cultural style, Freaks subvert them all by combining them without center, logic, or order. Inherently incongruous and "blasphemous" (Davis 1992, p. 184), this perpetually changing style begs the question, "shocks," and "goes against the grain," but it also resists identification and classification.
CONCLUSIONS
The postmodern ethos is ... the blueprint for a hitherto unthinkable exploitation of the human spirit (MacCannell 1992, p. 222).
The attitudes and orientations embraced by the Freaks do echo theoretical claims of postmodern dispositions. I do not suggest that, taken together, these three clusters represent the precise profile of the emerging postmodern condition, but only that they may be helpful in sketching some of its blurry outlines and tendencies.
Whereas Kavolis (1970) believed that the postmodern orientation was inspired by the Romantic "underground" attack on the "modern" ethos, the contemporary postmodern version is not limited to this component alone. Rather, it can perhaps be better understood as orientations which emphatically reject a modern/rational consciousness but which, at the same time , does not (and cannot) embrace its Romantic/utopian alternative either. The Punk-Rock shriek foreclosed that option before becoming "yet another packaged life-style." (Anderson 1990, p. 51, Ewen 1988, p. 253) By comparison to the more utopian and optimistic Hippie disposition, the Freak one is characterized by much pessimism, cynicism, a dark "bent", and hopelessness. Having witnessed the media appropriation and corruption of the avant-garde, the hazardous effects of hedonism, the failure of communal experiments, and the collapse of hopeful political ideologies and movements, Freaks neither share a clear vision they wish to attain, nor a belief in a lost innocence they hope to regain. They are suspicious of organized political movements, ideologies, categories, science, or what Ed calls "mono-theory and mono-culture." Freaks can believe in no absolute truth, heroes, myths, or answers. Their main common denominator is a caustic rejection and criticism of "mainstream society." They cannot find their way out of the system but are at the same time unwilling to stay in it. Neither Romantic/utopian nor Punk/nihilistic, certainly not modern, the postmodern condition develops amidst the ruins of these conflicting impulses in constantly changing and often self-cancelling configurations.
By comparison to Beats, Hippies and other examples of countercultural groups who shocked the conventional public by negating the prevalent style and replacing it with a coherent alternative, Freaks reject the conventional styles through the continual creation of deviant alternative s . Combining items characteristic of various subcultural, historical and geographical traditions, Freaks create rebellious and original meanings in the cracks of the constantly shifting mosaic of postmodern commercial styles. The Freak style does not express a specific identity but "scrambles" the commercialized codes, indicates mockery, and proclaims a critical difference and refusal. As George once excitedly told me, "this is what the countercultural impulse is all about." This process of constant re-organization combined with the refusal to commit to any particular and recognizable style reveals parallel dispositions at the social-psychological and ideological levels. Such dispositions are also identified by several theorists (Gergen 1991; Anderson 1990; MacCannell 1992) as characterizing postmodern selfhood and consciousness. As Kaiser et al. (1991, p. 174) argue, "in postindustrial society, consciousness itself may become a form of collage."
As several sociologists and social psychologists convincingly suggest, the emerging postmodern consciousness can be partly described as a refusal -- or impossibility -- to commit to a grand narrative of the self. Instead, the postmodern disposition is engaged in a constant experimentation with forms and possibilities encountered in the immediate present. At the same time, this constant external metamorphosis is fueled by (and fueling) an internal disposition which is pessimistic and exhausted, cynical and hopeless, a disposition that expresses the end of trust, faith, and belief. Informed by the suggestion that countercultures are sites of emerging social psychological transformations, I propose that Freaks dramatically express on their body, in their (anti-)ideology, music, worldview and practices some of the more dystopian aspects characterizing the postmodern condition that others may silently confront but do not articulate.
In some sense, Freaks also exemplify what Grossberg (1988, p. 181) calls "empowering nihilism": those moments which generate pleasure and meaning through "boasting" dissenting practices. As he suggests, moments such as these not only celebrate the gap between the ideological and the affective, but may also enable us "to struggle, to make a difference despite the fact that we take it for granted that such struggles are impossible." But nihilism, cynicism, and pessimism represent powerful emotional, cognitive and physiological experiences which can also energize (self-)destructive tendencies; the number of casualties among the Freaks attests to this. And if identity fragmentation and the rejection of conventional narratives can be liberating and exhilarating experiences, their embeddedness in a global and televised "panic scene," (Kroker, Kroker and Cook 1990) at the end of the "century of the slaughterhouse" (Kroker 1992) may also foster unfamiliar social and psychological tendencies next to which alienation, anomie, neurosis, or narcissism may seem like the benign side-effects of modernity. Although we know very little about the micro and macro-social correlates of these emerging tendencies, it seems imperative that we understand them.
Finally, given the central position given the self in symbolic interaction theory, it is also crucial that we transform our treatment and understanding of the contemporary self 6 , as the postmodern condition affects the manner in which individuals experience and interpret reality, others and themselves. As Baudrillard reminds us (Connors 1989, pp. 169-70), today it is hardly possible to pretend that we can understand others and ourselves without also considering the effects of the electronic media : Our consciousness is "always already" shaped by them, wired according to the new rules of the televisual syntax (see Agger 1992, Pfohl 1992, Postman 1987, 1985, Meyrowitz 1985, Eco 1984, Altheide 1987, Mitroff and Bennis 1989, Olson 1991). The saturation of everyday life by technologies of simulation, communication and observation requires that we re-cognize mind, self, society, emotions, and the human activities central to symbolic interaction theory in terms of these unavoidable and permanent media effects which "speak" a language significantly different than our theories and explanations. This means that the traditional concepts, models and assumptions which have guided symbolic interaction theorists in their efforts to understand human behavior must be re-evaluated and transformed if we are to grasp this new historical moment and the social psychological dynamics it promotes. As Krug and Graham (1992, p. 67) argue, "for social scientists to ignore this problem is to remain congenitally out of touch." Perhaps it is time for symbolic interaction theory to "go electronic". Much of our environment already has.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am indebted to David Dickens, Dmitri Shalin, Andy Fontana, and Donald Carns for their thought-provoking comments, suggestions, and encouragement, and especially to one anonymous referee for a most thorough and inspiring review.
NOTES
1. Baudrillard (1990, 1988, 1983, 1982, 1981, 1979, 1976, 1973, 1972, 1970, 1968), Gane (1991), Lyotard (1984), Jameson (1988, 1984a, 1984b, 1983), Kroker (1992), Kroker and Cook (1986), Kroker and Kroker (1987), Kroker, Kroker and Cook (1990), Fekete (1987), Hassan (1987, 1983), Turner (1990), Gitlin (1989a, 1989b, 1988, 1987), Denzin (1991), Gergen (1991), Anderson (1990), Raulet (1986, 1984), Hebdige (1988a, 1988b), Kaplan (1988, 1987), Huyssen (1990, 1986), Bauman (1988), Flax, (1990), Lather (1991), Weedon (1987), Harvey (1989), Pfohl (1992, 1990), Poster (1990, 1988, 1982), Ross (1988), Smart (1990), Featherstone (1991, 1988), Connor (1989), Foster (1983), Fraser and Nicholson (1988), Kellner (1989, 1988, 1987), Walles (1989), Grossberg (1989, 1988), Owens (1980), Pfeil (1988), Best and Kellner (1992), Vattimo (1992), Wolin (1984). Not surprisingly, this list is but a minuscule sample of an exponentially growing body of texts which address postmodernism from a wide variety of angles.
2. Names of individuals and places have been changed so as to protect the anonymity of the Freaks.
3. In the original project (Gottschalk 1991) Freaks were asked to address three clusters of questions: (1) Questions pertaining to their socialization experiences, relationships with parents and peers, and social-economic background; (2) Questions exploring their perceptions and understandings of the 1960s counterculture and the extent to which these influence their current worldviews; (3) Questions investigating their self-definitions, the nature of their group, their worldviews, the nature of their style, the issues they are rebelling against, their hopes, fears, plans, beliefs, values, etc.
4. Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and other Rock bands testify to the 1960s counterculture awareness -- and celebration -- of the "dark side". At the same time, Freaks also recognize that their perceptions on the "naive" Hippies might have been significantly shaped by their media representations.
5. Examples of such codes are: black turtlenecks and clothes, berets, and sandals among the Beats; flowery shirts, dresses, jeans, beads, long hair, and sandals among the Hippies; torn clothes, Mohawks, spiked hair, black leather, chains, and heavy army boots among Punk-Rockers; dreadlocks, Jamaican/African shirts, pants, jewelry, and colors among Rastafarians.
6. I use the word "self" here for lack of a better one. Important contributions by Gergen (1991), Mouffe (1989), Grossberg (1988), Anderson (1990), Kroker (1992) and many others convincingly challenge our traditional idea of the self, and suggest that we need a new vocabulary to understand the subjective experiences of postmodern individuals.
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APPENDIX:
I have reproduced below the lyrics of some songs played by "The Mutants," the Cielo House Punk-Rock band.
Homeboys of the Apocalypse
Verse:
I saw Satan laughing with delight
As Babylon brings down its own plight,
I'm just hanging with my friends,
Our communication is where the means is the end.
Chorus:
We are the homeboys of the apocalypse,
We're not the snakes eating their own tail.
We are the homeboys of the apocalypse,
Standing on the edge of hell.
Verse:
We don't have careers on our minds,
We're just living life while we still got time.
Reality has no grip on us,
We'll be around 'till the machines all rust.
Chorus:
Verse:
Who do you work for? why do you do it?
Do you enjoy life or is it preconstructed?
As Darwin said, only the strongest survive,
So why are we poisoning any chance of life?
Country
Verse:
I remember when I was young, watching war on TV,
I played with my G.I. Joes, and shot my friends with glee.
Chorus:
But don't give me any more of your stinking governmental lies
Tell me about (your mamma/El Salvador /etc) and look me in the eye.
Verse:
Delve into my mind's eye and tell me what you see,
Your theories don't explain much and don't tell me how to be.
Chorus:
Trees
Verse:
My House smells like formaldelyde
My dog smells like turpentine
My bed smells like a roach motel
My life is a chemical hell
Chorus:
I just hope it'll stop
Before the trees are gone
Verse:
My food dipped in sodium tri-polyphosphate
Just so that you can't tell that they irradiate
Just lost all its vitamin B
But it's got a shelf-life
As long as a Twinkie
Chorus:
Verse:
Skelton forest
Ode to the prince of darkness
Ain't it too bad we all have to breathe
I just hope we don't
End up like the trees
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