Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'roll

[Paul Mackin]

On Aug 19, 2006, at 1:35 PM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> That's what happens when you do a rushed search. I hadn't noticed that
> Luckett & Radner are editors, so thanks for pointing that out. The  
> essay in
> question is Leerom Medovoi's "A Yippie-Panther Pipe Dream
> Rethinking Sex, Race, and the Sexual Revolution" (133-178)
>
> It begins:
>
> "It is often recognized that during the late 1960s, revolution bore  
> both a
> political and a sexual valence. The term referred not only to New Left
> ambitions of toppling the state, but also to the countercultural  
> overthrow
> of traditional sexual mores. Moreover, these two revolutionary  
> aspirations
> bore some sort of historical relationship to one another that has  
> yet to be
> adequately explained. We know that political activists talked about
> 'liberating the people,' and that in a different but related way,  
> so did
> hippies and counterculture gurus. One might say, using the terms of  
> Ernesto
> Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, that the late sixties were marked by the  
> mutual
> articulation of radical sexual and political discourse, so much so  
> that this
> 'logic of equivalence' briefly achieved between sex and politics  
> remains one
> of our most compelling historical memories of those years."

"Briefly" is the operational word here and I trust the authors go on  
to relate what came next.

If radical politics aim was to rescue mankind from the consumer  
society (an outcome I would had favored) then sex, drugs, and rock  
'n' roll may have set back the program by generations if not  
permanently.

Herbert Marcuse was far from pleased with what he saw of the sexual  
revolution, which his 50's writing  had seemed to promote.

He spends many pages  in One Dimensional Man (1964) talking about  
such things as repressive desublimation.

It would be  boring to  type up a bunch of quotes but let me attempt  
to provide at least a bit of the message in very telegraphic and no  
doubt not very precise form.

Relieving mankind from sexual repression and frustration promotes  
general happiness. This weakens any instinctual revolt that might be  
present against the established Reality. Whereas the unhappiness of  
society had lent itself to political mobilization, the increased  
happiness brought  about by the sexual revolution inhibits any such   
potential revolt.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the 70s, the time when the sexual  
revolution for grown ups really  took root.  But sex, drugs, and  
rock  'n' roll do  not bode well for the  revolution.

But don't give up hope folks. George W. Bush may do the impossible  
and create enough unhappiness during his eight years to start the  
ball  rolling again.







>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
>> Behalf Of Dave Monroe
>> Sent: 19 August 2006 18:22
>> To: Paul Nightingale; pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'roll
>>
>> Dammit, I have that anthology, but hadn't read that
>> essay.  That Girl, the Avengers, yes, but ...
>>
>> --- Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Moya Luckett & Hilary Radner (1999) Swinging Single:
>>> Representing Sexuality in the 1960s ...
>>
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>
>