It’s funny how you can live your life and not be aware of some prominent pop culture item. You meet kids whose fond memories of Star Wars is from the recently released Episodes I-III and who think Nirvana (the band) is classic rock. Well the "Whole Earth Catalog" is just such an item in my life. It is a catalog of a whole bunch of strangeness born from the Hippy culture. It is a real trip (to borrow from the vernacular). It is out of production now but was at its height in the mid 70’s.
If you ever find one, hold onto it, because it is a relic of a time long past and quite possibly never to return.
It is interesting that the moment in pop culture that so strongly advocated a return to the earth and a simple communal life came just before technology became the answer to everything and invaded every aspect of our life. It seems we were on the peak and we tipped toward technology. Will technology always hold the answer? Must progress always include more technology, more consumerism, more stuff? Is it even possible not to move that way? Could we turn around and go backwards? I know we can be forced back by disaster or collapse but can we choose to go back? Is it possible to stop using cell phones or computers or airplanes or even electricity? Are we doomed without choice to slide towards decadence and depravity and excess until we are forced to re-start? And are we in the decline right now? Or does technology hold the solution to our problems?
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