Review
COUNTERCULTURE THROUGH THE AGES: FROM ABRAHAM TO ACID HOUSE
by Ken Goffman (a.k.a. R.U. Sirius) and Dan Joy
Random House, 404 pp.
I’d argue that there isn’t, nor has there ever been, a counterculture (I take a more "segments of the whole" approach). Perhaps this is due in part to confusion – the phrase "counterculture" evokes anything from new art and political change, to hippy-dippy slogans and boomers with ponytails and Birkenstocks.
Ken Goffman (also known as – and I’m not making this up – R.U. Sirius) has written a new book as a paean to countercultures across history (which here means primarily American musicians). I guess his position as self-proclaimed "culture guru" makes him the appropriate person to write this book, and in his defence, he does try to cover a lot of ground here – from Aristotle and Rumi to the nascent liberal movements that exist today.
In this case, it’s not the subjects that derail this tirade, but the writer. The passages range from ridiculous (prefacing one chapter with a Jesus Jones lyric, and another with a Steely Dan one – choke), to insipid (in describing the advent of rock music, Goffman writes, "John Lennon knew something was happening, although he didn’t yet know what it was").
It’s unfortunate. There are a few moments where he begins to give a legitimate, critical analysis, but he stops short of any new insights. A book like this should be both scholarly and fun, but Goffman almost totally ignores politics, and skips many of the artists who had real intellectual backbones. Instead, the book is given over to describing those who succumbed to the same fate – that of co-opting ideas from earlier generations they despised.
If you’re at all well-read, you already know who and what is in this book. A greater focus has been levelled at any one of the figures here, leaving us with a work that, at best, might be profound to school kids – although I doubt it. Goffman generates more questions than he can answer: Why are most hipsters’ provocations masturbatory and self-referential? How does a society define change? Where is Camus when you need him? And just what the hell is a Strawberry Alarm Clock?
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