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Justified Sinners: An Archaeology of Scottish Counter Culture, 1960 - 2000

Book by Edwin Morgan · 2 quotes · Counter Culture, Scottish Culture, Brave New World

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AllCounter CultureScottish CultureBrave New WorldDouglas DunnEdinburghEuropeHappinessHugh MacdiarmidIan Hamilton FinlayInsularityKenneth White

Justified Sinners: An Archaeology of Scottish Counter Culture, 1960 - 2000 Quotes

“The counter-culture was global - or so we thought. For the first time we felt in touch with California and Paris, Poland and India and together we would change the world. Even Edinburgh would move to a more open and humane and anarchic direction. It and we would be a tonic to the nation and the very idea of 'nation' would become irrelevant. Scottish culture believed itself to be 'European' but surely it gloried in a powerful insularity too. And that was all to be moribund, this was a brave new world and we had no irony in that belief. The dystopias of Huxley and Orwell were forgotten - we now had the key to happiness. And surprisingly even now, it still seems we were doing the right thing and it was good.”

HappinessEuropeEdinburghBrave New WorldCounter CultureInsularityScottish Culture
Book:Justified Sinners: An Archaeology of Scottish Counter Culture, 1960 - 2000
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“Yes, I go along with the idea of a Scottish Spring. It was genuinely a time of beginnings, a time of openings, and I always felt that those who left Scotland then - eg. Kenneth White, Douglas Dunn - were too impatient and should have stayed. New international configurations - Sottish-American, Scottish-Russian, Scottish-Brazilian - appeared. New genres like concrete poetry and sound-poetry challenged a fair amount of opposition. I remember Hugh MacDiarmid growling in 1970 "I'd hate an Ian Finlay poem on my gravetstone." Publishers like Wild Hawthorn, Migrant, Eugen Gomringer, Hansjörg Mayer, encouraged Scotland to see the world and the world to see Scotland.”

Counter CultureScottish CultureHugh MacdiarmidDouglas DunnIan Hamilton FinlayKenneth White
Book:Justified Sinners: An Archaeology of Scottish Counter Culture, 1960 - 2000
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