Monday, November 30, 1998
Novel explores new counterculture
BOOK: Author examines drug use, cult practices of ’90s social
movement
By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin Contributor
Everyone knows that the counterculture in the 1960s was nothing
more than a harmless rebellion against the status quo of the rigid,
repressive conservatism of the 1950s. Protesters thought they could
change society into accepting more liberal-minded tenets.
Eventually countercultural hippies became a cultural fad and passed
away into the history books.
At least we hoped they had.
In his new novel, "Ecstasy Club," Douglas Rushkoff describes
modern-day counterculturalism. The difference this time is that the
counterculturalists are not really interested in changing society.
Isolating themselves from "the social set," they seek to create
their own society through esoteric philosophical talk, massive rave
parties and hallucinogenic drugs.
The story is told by Zachary Levi, a Jewish SAT tutor who
becomes the right-hand-man of Duncan, a Brit who is the de facto
leader of a cult.
The cult acquires an abandoned piano factory, which they turn
into a site for "an ongoing pagan mass." There they hold parties
with a different theme every night, such as gay, Goth-Industrial
and rave.
The Piano Factory which, due to copyright violation, adopts the
name of The Ecstasy Club, is the new counterculture, intriguing to
the conformist bourgeoisie because they can explore the taboo. They
seek freedom to transcend space and time, to deprogram the social
set, to reprogram themselves with the cult’s ideas and to empower
others to direct their own mutation to accelerate evolution.
Rushkoff describes strange practices by which the cult seeks to
achieve these ends. For example, drugs, such as LSD and Ecstasy are
taken prolifically by cult members, often producing profound
visions.
Members also indulge in hefty philosophical discourse that
sounds like Quentin Tarantino if he had graduated from Harvard.
Duncan does most of this, saying things like, "The mind-control
propaganda machine of the historically evil Malthusian empire has
gotten so effective that it is now working against its own
controlling agenda." These talks show how well-educated these cult
members are, while at the same time revealing their inherent
paranoia.
Another method by which the cult seeks to accelerate evolution
is a curious machine known as the Virtual Reality Visionquest
Amplification Circuit. The machine feeds its subject’s neural
activity back into his own brain, like two mirrors facing each
other that reflect back and forth infinitely. This becomes the
cornerstone of the story as a conspiracy unfolds. Soon the members
start to believe that larger forces are trying to shut them down,
because they possess this device, which they later learn is a
secret government instrument for an experiment that reaches as far
as the missing and exploited children labels on the sides of milk
cartons.
Only Zach is able to see through all this and find solace in
conformity.
Rushkoff is very at home with this subject matter, and shows his
comfort by exploring several avenues.
The novel is very diverse in its subject matter, delving into
Eastern Philosophy, chaos mathematics, economics and politics.
Some scenes in the novel, such as that of an asexual
hermaphrodite and a graphic depiction of an orgy, are a bit too
intense for the squeamish, but, of course, that is the novel’s
charm.
Rushkoff’s novel is like porn, base and perverse, but also
captivating.
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