
Contents
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Introduction: Reenchantment Introduction: Reenchantment
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Romanticism and Modernity Romanticism and Modernity
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Understanding the 1960s Counterculture and Its Legacies Understanding the 1960s Counterculture and Its Legacies
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Social Disaffection and Shifting Visions of Computing in the 1960s Social Disaffection and Shifting Visions of Computing in the 1960s
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Humanist Romanticism Humanist Romanticism
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“Soft” Computing: The Emergence of the Computer Counterculture “Soft” Computing: The Emergence of the Computer Counterculture
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Ted Nelson and Computer Lib/Dream Machines Ted Nelson and Computer Lib/Dream Machines
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Ted Nelson and the Romantic Persona of the Visionary Rebel Hero Ted Nelson and the Romantic Persona of the Visionary Rebel Hero
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Why a Personal Computer? Why a Personal Computer?
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Conclusion Conclusion
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2 Romanticism and the Machine: The Formation of the Computer Counterculture
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Published:December 2010
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Abstract
This chapter looks at how the initial discoveries of the playful possibilities of computing were seized upon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the wake of 1960s counterculture, approaches to computing that loosened the connection between means and ends—that allowed play—helped create a subculture within the community of computer engineers. This in turn helped set the conditions for the rise of the modern, internet-connected, graphically-capable computer. The chapter introduces the theme of romantic individualism, an enduring Western cultural discourse with an associated way of imagining the self that passed from milieus like the counterculture based in San Francisco, particularly that surrounding Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Catalog, into the computer counterculture, as exemplified in the work of Ted Nelson, the computer visionary who coined the word hypertext. Against a background of Vietnam War era social disaffection, key romantic tropes—the strategic use of colloquial language, a studied informality, appeals to self-transformation instead of need-satisfaction, tales of sensitive rebel heroes, and a full-throated departure from instrumental rationality—became associated with alternative uses of computing.
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