timothy-leary-chaos-cyber-culture

formed the safety-valve function, who gavethe populace a fantasy taste of the rich andforbidden fruits.TEdents were selected for beauty,erotic charm, powerfid emotion. We wereexpected to go too far, to push the envelopeof taboo, to test the limits of good taste.Show our tits and asses. Act out wild copulatorysex dances. Scandalize. And we wererequired to suffer the consequences. Wewere banned. Blacklisted. Sold down theriver. Forced into harlotry. Fired fromHarvard. Forever shamed and exposed inthe local version of the perennial NationalpulpitsEnquirer. Denounced as devils from theof the orthodox preachers, anddenounced as C.I.A. agents by Marxists.The sponsors of the tribal show, thepriests and the chiefs, were kept busy notonly producing the event, but also watchingand censoring and punishing to make surethat nothing got too far out of hand, orupset the sponsors.And, of course, the gene-pool commercialswere ever-present We couldnever forget who owned the drums and therattles and the spears and the shamanic talent,and the temples: The pafrons who paidfor the tribal show.THANK GOD FOR FEUDALISMMarshall McLuhan spoke wisely."Change the media and you change the culture."Literacy upgraded the esthetic leveland the efficiency of the entertainmentpackaging. The growth of cities and nationsby the 1st Century B.C. provided big budgetsand big crews to distribute continualmessages from the gene-pool sponsors.The people, the average folk, the sixpack-Joefamilies, were now called plebesor serfs or peasants.Their role in the feudalbiformationeconomy was not that differentfrom that of their tribal ancestors. The poorpeople are always seen as primitive becausethey are forced to live in tribal neighbourhoods,ghettos, inhuts, shacks, windowlessrooms, slum pads, shabby urban caveswhere the signal rate was limited to immediatebiological data exchangesbreath to death.from firstThe cultural and political messages fromthe sponsors of the feudal age were popularizedand disseminated in spectacular publicbroadcasts. The church in the centralplaza was large, ornate, decorative, loadedwKh statues and paintings of truly inspiredaesthetic genius. The medieval crime-timeshow, both Christian and Islamic, was performedby miraculously gifted talent. Thetiled mysteries of the Alhambra and the ceilingsof the Vatican Chapel still inspire thebreathless reflex reaction, "Wowl Praise theLord for sponsoring this great show!"Every day the commercial logos andmottos of the feudal culture were repeated.The muezzin's call, the church bell'ssonorous clang, the chanting of the monks,the colourful garb of the priests and mullahs.Stained glass!No wonder these feudal religionsfundamentalist,fanatic, furious, passionate,paranoid swept the Hooper ratings! Thefellaheen could leave their scruffy hovelsand walk through cathedrals with goldenceilings stretching to the sky, while candlesflickered on the statues of the Prophet. Apanoramic mosque-church scene throbbingwith colour, pomp, grandeur, wealth, andmelodrama pouring into virginal eyeballs.The palaces of the secular rulers, thekings and dukes, were equally stunning, andmuch more sexy. The priests may havepreached sexual abstinence, but the noblesfucked anyone they wanted to and celebratedsexual beauty in the paintings they commissioned.The walls of the palaces glowedwith flamboyant celebrations of naked wantonness.Greek goddesses with pink,swollen thighs and acres of soft, silky fleshsprawled on clouds of filmy desire, enticingtheir male counterparts to enjoy theirfavors.You could stand humbly with cap in handand cheer the swells dressed up in opulentlace and leather riding by in gold-decoratedcarriages. You loved the changing of theGuard, probably not realizing that thetroops were there to protect the sponsorsof the show from you, the people.The shack you live in may be dreary, butankle downtown to catch the big, spectacularGod-King show.PLEASE THANKGUTENBERG-NEWTON FORTHE INDUSTRIAL AGEThe same McLuhan trends continuedin the industrial age. Asusual, the populace was housedin small, dark rooms, but now that big isbetter, the rooms were stacked in enormousslum buildings.The factory culture created thehighest form of lifeintelligent on thisplanet, up until now: the mass-marketconsumer.The sponsors of the factory economydidn't really plan to create an insatiableconsumer class that would eventually overwhehnit with acquisitive desire. Quite theconfrary. The sponsors of the industrial culturewere those who belonged to the oneclass that easily survived the fall of feudalism:the engineer-managers. They weresometimes called Masons. They werewhite, anti-papist. Northern Europeanmechanics, efficient and rational, with ascary hive mentality totally loyal to TheOrder. Stem puritans. They worked sohard, postponed so much pleasure, and gotobsessed with engineering so efficientlythat they ended up flooding the world withan unstoppable cascade of highly appealingproducts. Labor-saving devices. Bettermedicines to save lives. Better guns to snufflives. Books. Radios. Televisions.This comucopian assembly line ofeverything that a tribal hunter or a feudalserf or a Holy Roman Emperor could possiblyhave lusted for required endless rotatingarmies of indefatigably industrious consumersveiling to lift items from shelves,haul grocery carts, unpack bags, store inrefrigerators, kick tires, read manuals ofinstruction, turn keys, drive away, and thenreligiously repair, until death, the appliancesthat rolled Uke an endless river ofmetal-rubber-plastic dovm Interstate 101 tothe shopping malls and into our factorymadehomes.How can the sponsors keep the10 TIMOTHY lEAlY CHAOS i CYBEI ClltTUtE