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Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

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Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#271

Post by rospaya »

ramesh31 wrote: post #266
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think also that “trad” is an umbrella to which many hands hold. Tradcath: traditional lifestyle Catholics Trad homeschoolers: arguably some of the most steadfast and longest holding countercultures. They literally have children and raise them opposite or tangential to the current culture norms. Trad Christian theonomist: complimentarian views on marriage, anti secular government, often homesteaders. Trad chads: men…

>Trad chads: men pursuing lives of purity at any social cost. Staunchly opposed to todays hookup culture and LGBT influences. I see this becoming the norm in the future. Hook up culture is simply too dangerous (for both men and women) to be sustainable long term. It's a cultural hangover from the days of "free love" that simply does not map to the modern world anymore.

Sound like incels, not chads by choice.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#273

Post by xwolfi »

Mezzie wrote: post #202
Pigalowda wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right. The US kinda feels like Asimov’s foundation, especially in the west coast. Fewer people acting like adults and more people chasing dopamine and letting entropy do its damage. Maybe I just need to stop taking public transportation and walking the city. Perhaps suburbs feel further from the precipice.

I've been wondering lately if it's down to the lack of agency on the part of average people. Like I see that America is in decline and has a decent chance of falling apart in my lifetime (I'm 34), but what exactly am I going to do about it? Nobody in charge cares, they're too busy fiddling. If you can't stop the decline and have to live it, why not try to enjoy what you have while you have it?

These decline stories are universal, and probably no more true than 400 years ago: I am French and live in Hong Kong, do you think decline is not what everyone is talking about in BOTH places ? What is a place not in decline in the eyes of its inhabitants ?

It says more about how we view the past than how the present is: we remember only the glorious good times, and forget nobody could read 200 years ago, or nobody could eat 400 years ago. They all said they were in decline, the values of their grandfathers diluted by a constant change.

But while I sit on my toilets, on the 44th floor of my hyper tower, writing to americans in a language nobody in my ascending family can speak, before tucking my trilingual kid to bed, well, I think the decline isn't so bad, if you zoom out a few decades.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#274

Post by jstarfish »

kderbyma wrote: post #175
pibechorro wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, people living it dont brag about it, gotta keep the poser johnny come lately herds away from ruining it. I have been living and crusing on a sailboat, mosty off anchor rent free when I can, surrounded by many other sailors who rather not see it ruined by Instagram. The key here is the counter culture starts and ends in your heart. Get out and break out of the matrix.

honestly. how many months of rent was that boat? You are privileged ag

Used boats are (deceptively) cheap to buy.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#275

Post by PuppyTailWags »

willcipriano wrote: post #106
adamcharnock wrote: post #20

I'm pretty sure I've been existing in a number of counter-cultures for the last decade or two. These have been either linked to my identity or physical location, I couldn't have properly experienced them through consuming media on the subject. Certainly all required an active choice and/or lifestyle change on my part. Maybe people mean something else by counter-culture, but here are examples from my life: - Freelanci…

> There is a huge non-obvious culture of LQBTQIA Take a look at Twitter on pride month, even Raytheon changes their logo to a rainbow version. That stuff is so mainstream it hurts. It's a counterculture in Saudi Arabia where the logos don't change and they throw gay people off of buildings, but in the US/Europe it's part of the dominant culture.

I don't know, I think it's much more complicated. On one hand Raytheon changes their rainbow to logo for pride month, on the other hand some states are trying to ban crossdressing or force crossdressing people to register as sex offenders. And the majority of youth who are homeless are homeless because their families kicked them out for being gay/trans. I don't think it's reasonable to say that LGBTQ people are completely mainstream/acceptable or completely counterculture/unacceptable. Maybe it's more like it's mainstream to appear accepting but its counterculture to actually accept the gay/trans/crossdressers in your own life.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#276

Post by zmgsabst »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #270
alldayeveryday wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another hard agree. I always get a good laugh when people in queer culture claim to be living a counter culture lifestyle. Meanwhile the US state department is flying the queer flag at its embassies around the world and using it to agitate foreign conservative cultures. I nominate being an unapologetic white male as the counter culture of our current time. Just watch how many downvotes you'll get on any social media…

Really confused by this statement. I think queer culture can be countercultural depending. For example legislation is currently up in some states to ban dressing in a way outside your sex because drag queens exist, but even though drag queens have a tv show and a movie and stuff I'm sure it'll also probably scoop a butch lesbian or two or just a regular tomboy woman.

[flagged]

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#277

Post by zmgsabst »

rospaya wrote: post #271
ramesh31 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trad chads: men pursuing lives of purity at any social cost. Staunchly opposed to todays hookup culture and LGBT influences. I see this becoming the norm in the future. Hook up culture is simply too dangerous (for both men and women) to be sustainable long term. It's a cultural hangover from the days of "free love" that simply does not map to the modern world anymore.

Sound like incels, not chads by choice.

This is what makes it counter culture:

If you say you support traditional values, you immediately get insulted as an “incel” or similar.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#278

Post by RangerScience »

n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #57
ArnoVW wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of counterculture is that it 'counters'. I.e. it inherently searches to change or influence the dominant culture. Your examples do show that we are (thankfully) not a monoculture. But they place themselves outside of our culture, instead trying to influence. A good example of counter culture is BLM, Extinction Rebellion or Occupy Wallstreet. Only thing: those are movements, not cultures. And they are…

>BLM >LGBT >counter culture Endlessly supported by literally every news outlet, major tech company, big 5 sports league, F1000, university, and at least half of the political class. You’re not counter to any major institution, lmao. You’re not the resistance

That’s… factually incorrect? Unless you don’t consider Fox News a news outlet, among other examples.

Which (snarkily) I guess is fair.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#279

Post by dashundchen »

zmgsabst wrote: post #276
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really confused by this statement. I think queer culture can be countercultural depending. For example legislation is currently up in some states to ban dressing in a way outside your sex because drag queens exist, but even though drag queens have a tv show and a movie and stuff I'm sure it'll also probably scoop a butch lesbian or two or just a regular tomboy woman.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#280

Post by PuppyTailWags »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #145
jl6 wrote: post #76

Personally I think the word “counterculture” should be retired, as we no longer live in monocultural societies. We no longer gather round any shared fireplace. For a counterculture to meaningfully exist, it has to be somehow discordant with a dominant narrative - but there is no dominant narrative any more. The west is not ruled by the left or the right or the church or the state. We are all fragmenting off into echo…

Speaking of bubbles, it seems like you're in a pretty big one. To speak directly to your comment. The shared fireplace is now composed of streaming services, news, and social media with its heavily censored content. There is a very strong dominant narrative in society right now, in the US it is somewhat two pronged but those tines are joined at the handle. The Western leaders all subscribe to the same clubs and seem…

I don't know if we can say that because YouTube censors some things that whatever it censors is counterculture. I guess pornography has been the ultra counterculture for a while now, or filming and streaming executions. But IDK, I don't consider just sexual material to be a culture. Maybe specific fetishes, like sexual enslavement fetishes?
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