COUNTERCULTURES,
INNOVATION, AND
REBELLION
& REVIEW
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CRIME PLAYS A USEFUL ROLE IN
SOCIAL EVOLUTION -DURKHEIM
“Where crime exists, collective sentiments are
sufficiently flexible to take on a new form, and
crime sometimes helps determine the form they
will take”
Socrates’ crime, independence of thought, provided a
service not only to humanity but to his country,
preparing the ground for a new morality & faith in
Athens, since traditions were no longer in harmony
with current conditions
 his violation was a crime, but it was useful as a prelude to necessary reforms
[Durkheim, “The Normal and the Pathological,” reader, p. 93]
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CRIME MAY BE A PRELUDE TO NECESSARY
REFORM
It would never have been possible to establish
the freedom of thought we now enjoy if the
regulations prohibiting it had not been violated
before being solemnly abrogated. At that time,
however, the violation was a crime, since it was
an offense against sentiments still very keen in
the average conscience. And yet this crime was
useful as a prelude to reforms which daily
became more necessary. (Durkheim, p. 93)
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DECRIMINALIZATION
 Decriminalization is the abolition of criminal penalties in relation to
cer tain acts, perhaps retroactively, though perhaps regulated permits or
fines might still apply. The rever se process is criminalization.
 Decriminalization reflects changing social and moral views. A society may
come to the view that an act is not harmful, should no longer be
criminalized, or is other wise not a matter to be addressed by the criminal
justice system. Examples of subject matter which have been the subject of
changing views on criminality over time in various societies and countries
include:
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abortion
breastfeeding in public
drug possession, and recreational drug use
euthanasia
homosexuality
prostitution
public nudity
steroid use in sport
 While decriminalized acts are no longer crimes, they may still be the
subject of penalties; for example a monetar y fine in place of a criminal
charge for the possession of a decriminalized drug. This should be
contrasted with legalization, which removes all or most legal detriments
from a previously illegal act.
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SUBCULTURES & COUNTERCULTURES
 “Subculture” refers to a subgroup or subset of a larger “culture”
that shares a distinctive set of norms and values
 “Subcultural theory” emerged in the work of the Chicago School, which
focused on urban social problems like crime and violence
 “Culture of poverty” theory is an example of a subcultural theory
 Such theories have been applied to all kinds of deviance
 A counterculture is kind of subculture, but one whose norms and
values consciously run counter to the main culture, or at least
aspire to
 Tom Frank (Why Johnny Can’t Dissent?) suggests that
counterculture in the US is trapped in a 1960s style of dissent,
forever resisting a 1950s model of conformity, which pretty
much renders it impotent and irrelevant
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INNOVATIVE FORMS OF POLITICAL
ACTIVISM
 “citizen journalism,” independent, grassroots
media that avoid corporate control (blogging,
posting videos on youtube)
 culture jamming, brand bombing, and other
media-savvy tactics of the anticonsumerist
movement
hacktivism
using information/communication technology to
promote and support whistleblowing in new ways
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HACKTIVISM
 hacktivism: the nonviolent use of illegal or legally
ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends
 promoting a political agenda by hacking, especially by defacing
or disabling websites
 hacktivists use the same tools and techniques as hackers, but do
so in order to disrupt services and bring attention to a political or
social cause
 e.g., “Anonymous,” which employs DDoS attacks
 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack: attempt to make a
computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the
means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DDoS attack may
vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of individuals to
prevent an internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at
all, temporarily or indefinitely.
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WHISTLEBLOWING
 whistleblower: a person who tells the public or s/o in
authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities
occurring in an organization (gov’t or corporation)
 alleged misconduct may be classified as a violation of a law, rule,
regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud,
health/safety violations, and corruption
 Daniel Ellsberg, US military analyst who leaked the
Pentagon Papers in 1971 (an act credited with turning
public sentiment against the Vietnam War), is now
widely praised for whistleblowing, tho he was called
“the most dangerous man in America” at the time
 US PFC Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked
classified gov’t docs to WikiLeaks, is considered a
whistleblower by his supporters
 Interestingly, prior to CableGate the NYT described WikiLeaks as a
“whistle-blowing Web site” (as did most major news outlets); but
they no longer use that description.
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PANDEMONIUM! APPLE STORE'S OPENING
IN GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL (12/9/11)
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“ARE YOU A MAC PERSON
OR A PC PERSON?”
 Brand = Product + Identity
 In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce
products, you need to have something else: added value
 the added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand
 So brands started selling a kind of pseudo-spirituality -a sense of belonging, a community
 Brands started filling a gap that citizens, not just consumers, used
to get elsewhere, from religion or from a sense of belonging in
their community
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Brand bombing
 Brand bombing is a kind of culture jam focused specifically
on attack brand image
 Brands add value, but depend on image & reputation for
success – making them vulnerable to brand bombing
 A satirical tweet on MasterCard’s promo line appearing in
response to MasterCard’s refusal to process transactions for
WikiLeaks:
“Freedom of speech? Priceless. For
everything else, there’s MasterCard”
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“WHY JOHNNY CAN’T DISSENT,” (T.
FRANK, 1997) THE BAFFLER
 The nation has entered a new hyperconsumerism
 ever-accelerating style and attitude fuel ever more
rapidly churning cycles of obsolescence
 the mall has long since replaced the office or the
factory at the center of American life
 citizens are referred to as consumers
 buying things is now believed to provide the sort of
existential satisfaction that things like, say, going to
church once did
 consumerism: a social and economic order based
on fostering a desire to purchase goods and
services in ever greater amounts in the belief that
it promotes satisfaction
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COMMODIFICATION OF DISSENT
 Business culture has taken over American culture…and now
maybe global culture
 Business has assumed near-absolute cultural power
 Consumerism is no longer about “conformity” but about “difference”
 It’s absorbed the “countercultural idea,” which has become the official aesthetic
of consumer society
 “The imperative of endless dif ference, not dreaded conformity, is
the genius at the heart of American capitalism, the eternal
fleeing from ‘sameness’ that gives us a thirst for the New” and
satisfies it with infinite brands
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“DISSENT COMMODIFIED”
(T. FRANK, 8/19/2009)
 On 40 th anniversary of Woodstock:
“Perhaps this coming together of peace, love and accumulation
brought a curse to the lips of Woodstock's earnest memorialists. For
me, it was a reminder of how seamlessly counterculture and business
culture have meshed; how neatly '60s cultural radicalism fit into
structures it was supposedly against.”
“The reason our advertising people and management theorists love it
is because it was in many ways so utterly superficial .”
“After all, if the essential problem with our civilization is conformity, it
is an easy problem to solve. It merely requires that new and more
authentic products appear all the time and that old products to be
showered with scorn, cultural operations that consumer society
performs incredibly well.”
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BROKEN WINDOWS
 The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the
norm setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and
vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior
 Posits that monitoring and maintaining urban environments in a
well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism as well as an
escalation into more serious crime
 Introduced in a 1982 article by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling
 Subject to great debate
 Theory has motivated several reforms in criminal policy, e.g., “zero
tolerance” policing
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MORAL HAZARD
 moral hazard: lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is
protected from its consequences, e.g.,
 by insurance
 by bail-outs and/or expectations of bail-outs
 moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not
suf fer the full consequences and responsibilities of its actions,
and therefore tends to act less carefully than it otherwise would,
leaving another party to hold some responsibility for the
consequences of those actions, e.g.,
 a person with insurance against car theft may be less cautious about
locking his or her car, because the negative consequences of vehicle
theft are (partially) the responsibility of the insurance company
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LABELING THEORY
 labeling theory assumes that the public labeling, or
branding, as deviant, has adverse consequences for
further social participation and self -image
 the most important drastic change is in public
identity, which is a crucial step towards building a
long-term deviant career
 the criminal process itself encourages criminal
careers, as contact with the system, results in a
deviant label, which is then internalized and acted
out
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