Summary
It's very vibrant. It's wended its way very much into the grassroots environmental movement. It's an offshoot. It's true I'm not seeing the young cadre of radical environmentalists that I'd like to see, but that was very much part of the hippie scene. I watched the growth of the modern environmental movement. One reason I'm doing this work is that I really want to ensure that [the counterculture] still stands in juxtaposition to the cultural juggernaut that prevails and is currently dominated by an economic paradigm that is totally erroneous. That's the bottom line! [Laughs.]
Fifty years ago my attitudes came into sharp focus. As a young jazz musician drafted into the Army, part of my job was to go play for atomic bombs being fired off seven miles' from where I stood. It was total insanity. Totally nuts. And I realized that our culture has absolutely zero understanding of the ramifications of our presence on habitat itself. I don't always practice what I preach because I drive a car, I take showers. I can see what's likely to occur and I can't see around some major hard times coming up. If we have a purpose'on this planet, it's to evolve as much consciousness as we possibly can. And it'll be hard to develop much consciousness with what's coming down the line. We're going to be busy trying to survive.See the full content of this document
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Surviving Culture
Jack Loeffler is afolklorist, ethnomusicologist and radio producer. His best-known work is Adventures With Ed: A Portrait of Abbey. Loeffler will speak about and sign his newest book, Survival Along the Continental Divide: An Anthology of Interviews at 5:30 pm, Friday, May 23, at Collect...
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