Hidden Sources: Leary, Harcourt-Smith, and the Real Deal

I just had an enlightening conversation with counterculture heroine/outcast Joanna Harcourt-Smith, on my radio show The Media Squat (this audio stream begins with the Harcourt-Smith interview. To hear the whole show, go to the regular archives page here). She candidly addressed her and Leary's role in becoming informants for the government, all in the context of Timothy's imprisonment and Bush-style torture.

I haven't fully digested everything we spoke about, but thought you should know about the show right away. There's some new material in here, as well as a new perspective on a particularly dark moment.

Comments

[ETChevalier]

Just started listening to the episode so I can't yet comment on the content but a couple quick things:

On the all radio page here you have yesterday's ep listed as being from 4/23.

The m3u stream is cool except I, and I'm guessing a few others, listen on mobile devices while commuting. I have unlimited data on my G1 but I can't rewind to relisten to something I've missed or skip ahead if the stream restarts. It would be much more useful if you could keep posting mp3s for download.

Thanks for doing this show Doug, its fantastic. Using it to draw in my friends who I think should know about you.

On the topic of real people doing real things check out FreeGeek.org, a computer recycling and education nonprofit in Portland, Oregon with satellite locations scattered across a couple countries.

[Janine]

@ ETChevalier,

Under each stream on the all radio page is a link that says 'click here to download'. Perhaps your mobile device doesn't display this link. Hope this helps.

[Joanna Harcourt-Smith on Dougl]

[...] Douglas Rushkoff says: I just had an enlightening conversation with counterculture heroine/outcast Joanna Harcourt-Smith, on my radio show The Media Squat (audio stream). She candidly addressed her and Leary’s role in becoming informants for the government, all in the context of Timothy’s imprisonment and Bush-style torture. [...]

[PeterSims]

Hey doug,

thanks for starting the show...loving it so far. I tried listening to the above-mentioned show, but the sound went kinda wonky after five minutes.

I think your new lines of thought are really important. We have become quite content to go back and forth in our useless debates about "whether business is the problem" or "free markets vs. the state". These are false dichotomies.

Thanks for trying to restore the idea that there is a big difference between commerce and corporatism. Braudel should be required reading for anyone interested in creating (0r restoring?) a more decentralized and democratic economics.

It would be great to have Manuel DeLanda or Bernard Lietaer on the show.

Looking forward to reading your new book when it comes out.

Best.
Pete

[GrandHierophantSnorky]

The file gets garbled after a few minutes; what gives, daddy-o?

[Janine]

The file works.

[Chaomonga]

file works perfectly.

great interview. thanks!

[Brad]

Doug, thanks for such a great show. It was thought provoking and a bit sobering.

I'd like to pry a little more into your thoughts on self improvement and spirituality. You sounded a bit turned off about "magickal" practices and so forth discussed on futureprimitive. I myself am not into most of the self improvement techniques and agendas, but I am confused when you say the self doesn't exist.

As I see it we don't notice things unless there is something wrong with them. You might not notice your kidney until you pass a stone. For someone who is busy doing a lot of good things in the world, too much focus on their self might just get in the way. But for those who have personal issues or traumas to deal with, it seems self improvement is necessary at first to get into a more altruistic, or "self-less" pattern of behavior.

But that is psychotherapy, or some mode of conventional psychological healing. Do contemplative or spiritual paths not also offer practical benefit to others? How about cultivating compassion or finding creativity through such practices?

Is your main concern that instead of expanding the moral framework to one that values and cares about humanity, spirituality can just enforce one's egocentric worldview?

[Rumighoul]

Fascinating interview, hadn't heard much about this episode beyond what RAWilson wrote in Cosmic Trigger. RE-Spirituality: Ditto what Brad said, though I feel like it's slippery semantic territory - need to define 'spirituality' and above all 'self'.
I had it in my head that the dynamic of useful spiritual play (whether meditative or magickal or what) was more the expansion of the sense of self to include the environment, the 'other' selves around you, the life processes one partakes of etc., rather than to 'get rid' of the self. Though I suppose those could be just different takes or stories around the same process - getting rid of the limitations of smaller self or embedding them in a larger context. I dunno - I feel the idea of 'getting rid of the self' may be as much a poetic expression (e.g. the religious 'annihilation' before the reality of 'God' etc) covering many different experiences where one is emptied of the mean little egoic voice into something larger and more meaningul.
"You can't do good until you feel good" said Leary at some point I'm told, though he said a lot of things.