Resistance is usually connoting the
fight against an invader or an unlawful
government and its expressions have been
important in forming the counterculture
identity. In the general imagination, resist-
ance movements and freedom fighters have
to use various forms of violence as means
to their ends as their opposition escalates
the conflict against their adversary. This
paints the political landscape in a easily
manageable bipolarity and also gives a
hands-on feeling of confrontation with a
normally faceless system.protest movement. At this time, this counterculture regarded itself as anti-hegem-
onic activism based on “psychic liberation of the oppressed” as Theodore Roszak
called it in his iconic book The Making of a Counterculture (1996). Here the aspira-
tions were different. The idea was to show total independence from the rest of so-
ciety, to perform outrageously and show expressive disobedience with what was
considered correct or normal.
This position of the counterculture still exists today, and many still propose this
stance as a liable political statement of opposition and nonconformity. The under-
tones within the counterculture are that this “independent” and “authentic” ex-
pression can be politically subversive as it takes people “out of the line”, and inac-
cessible to work for “the evil system”.
This conception of resistance and opposition is a reactionary ritual. As the oppo-
nent does one thing the resistance answers with a straight negation. In this way the
opposition cannot escape the boundaries established by the adversary, and with no
chance of escaping the conditions of the game. A counterculture can never be more
than counter-something, it cannot be “founder” of something new. Then it would
have to raise itself from its anti-position and above the preconditions of the game,
as when the prisoners start communicating in the example of “the prisoners di-
lemma” (Poundstone 1992).
In his book on Nietzsche, Deleuze discusses forms of non-dialectical resistance
that he finds in Nietzsche’s discussions (Deleuze 2006b). This is a resistance that
goes beyond nihilism and beyond the “anti” position. It is a form of resistance that
is not an opposition coming from the same “root”, the same genealogy or primary
condition as that which is opposed.
Dialectic thrives on oppositions because it is unaware of far more subtle and subter-
ranean differential mechanisms; topological displacements, typological variations.
(Deleuze 2006b: 149)A dialectic “anti” is set within the same court, addressing the same property, and
can never come beyond it. Instead the non-dialectic resistance must step beyond
the initial conditions, to use subtle differential mechanisms. This non-dialectical
resistance is producing something new, a new alternative and a new typology. We
will come to this non-dialectical form of resistance later.
Yet the reactionary resistance is the simplest in which to unite around, as no discus-
sion has to be taken about the future alternative. This type of resistance is also
simple to make a lifestyle around. There is a wide range of counterculture lifestyles
and subculture fashions, many with roots in the -68 revolts, and today they are al-
most like ready-to-wear identities. For example the rocker, the hippie, the mod, the
skin, the punk, the goth, the anarchist, the raver, the grunger, are all expressing
their style as authentically different from each other, and radically different from
the hated “mainstream” (Hebdige 1988, Polhemus 1994). Commonly there is a no-
tion within these scenes of “not caring about style”, but most often they prove the
opposite. However, their expressions are still amongst themselves considered as
true countercultural political statements.
&
In their book Rebel sell (2005) the cultural critics Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter
mean that applying the spirit of classic counterculture today is hardly political.
Celebrating a slacker culture of “liberated” hipsters can hardly be a true political