Forget the ’60s, Let’s Talk about the ’90s: Reframing the Utopian Imagination
Utopian Studies June 1, 2025 Benjamin Haber, Daniel Sander 1 citation
The authors argue that both digital and psychedelic cultures have lost their earlier radical, queer, and collectivist potential, having been co-opted by neoliberal individualism and commercial interests. They trace this shift from the utopian promise of 1960s counterculture to the 1990s, where DIY subcultures and ecstasy-fueled sociality offered alternative forms of connection and solidarity. In contrast, today's medicalized and microdosed psychedelics, along with platform-dominated digital culture, promote productivity and atomization rather than collective transformation. The authors propose looking back to the 1990s—exemplified by Gregg Araki's film 'Nowhere' and José Esteban Muñoz's concept of queer ecstatic communism—as a model for reclaiming risk, play, and mutual care outside of instrumentalized frameworks.