"It's what we do now instead of bohemias," Harwood says. "Instead of what?" "Bohemias. Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial civilization in the two previous centuries. They were where industrial civilization went to dream. A sort of unconscious R&D, exploring alternate societal strategies…And they did, frequently, have locales with which they became associated. But they became extinct." "Extinct?" "We started picking them before they could ripen…as marketing evolved and the mechanisms of recommodification became quicker, more rapacious. Authentic subcultures required backwaters, and time, and there are no more backwaters."
Bridge trilogy

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

Sources

Chapter 41, “Transam”

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bridge_trilogy