The Culture of Feedback : Ecological Thinking in Seventies America / Daniel Belgrad.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Belgrad, Daniel, Author.

Series:

Chicago scholarship online.

Chicago scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ecology--United States--Philosophy--History--20th century.

Ecology.

Environmentalism--United States--History--20th century.

Environmentalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (275 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

When we want advice from others, we often casually speak of "getting some feedback." But how many of us give a thought to what this phrase means? The idea of feedback actually dates to World War II, when the term was developed to describe the dynamics of self-regulating systems, which correct their actions by feeding their effects back into themselves. By the early 1970s, feedback had become the governing trope for a counterculture that was reoriented and reinvigorated by ecological thinking. The Culture of Feedback digs deep into a dazzling variety of left-of-center experiences and attitudes from this misunderstood period, bringing us a new look at the wild side of the 1970s. Belgrad shows us how ideas from systems theory were taken up by the counterculture and the environmental movement, eventually influencing a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, particularly related to the question of what is and is not intelligence. He tells the story of a generation of Americans who were struck by a newfound interest in-and respect for-plants, animals, indigenous populations, and the very sounds around them, threading his tapestry with cogent insights on environmentalism, feminism, systems theory, and psychedelics. The Culture of Feedback repaints the familiar image of the '70s as a time of Me Generation malaise to reveal an era of revolutionary and hopeful social currents, driven by desires to radically improve-and feed back into-the systems that had come before.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Systems, Ecology, and Environmentalism

2. Self- Organizing Systems and Mind in Nature

3. Crying Indian

4. Talking with Plants

5. Ambient Music

6. Dancing with Animals

7. Neo- Orthodoxies

Conclusion: A Metahistory

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226652672

022665267X

OCLC:

1108619601