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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?

#311

Post by dogleash »

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.

Legal status is terrible standard for whether something is counter culture. Outlawing something is neither necessary nor sufficient to be counterculture. Some legal and cultural boundaries overlap, some are orthogonal.

There are a great many subcultures that would like legal boundaries shifted, and when they care enough they become interest groups participating in the democratic process.

Even the blandest bland blandy that ever blanded is not going to agree with all the laws and societal boundaries being set exactly the way they are. Either that means there's no such thing as a mainstream culture, or we have to understand noisy clashes between subcultures don't make one or the other a counter culture.

I think the way we're discussing that something obviously SUBculture is being confused for a COUNTERculture is an argument in OPs favor that we don't have much (highly visible) counterculture right now.

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

#312

Post by undersuit »

irrational wrote: post #305
undersuit wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is ridiculous, LGBTQ is a minority. Trads are part of a waning majority. All evidence points towards LGBTQ always existing but just becoming more open. Trads being Counter Culture? That's the same double speak that gets us Citizens United and Right to Work. Where did these trads get their radically traditional values? From the majority.

It is a minority, but if I go into work and announce that I am trans and will now be transitioning and my name is now X, people will fall all over themselves be supportive and congratulating me. It literally happened recently when Chris became Christina at my work. But, if I come in and announce that I have decided to become Catholic or Evangelical or Mormon there will be a lot of awkward silence with maybe some "oka…

Because no one needs to change the way they act around you. Christianity and Catholicism are strongly majority groups in the US. You were already treated as a Christian because that's what the majority of our society is based on.

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

#313

Post by standardUser »

drewcon wrote: post #114

I’m going to get flamed for this but at this point the closest we’re getting to counter culture is the exact opposite… “Trads”. Young people with super traditional values doing exactly the opposite of most of what you just listed. No one would seriously suggest the trendiest most mainstream supported or glorified lifestyles (van life, queerness, gig work) are counter culture…that IS the culture; there’s very little c…

It's always been "radical" to have "radically traditional values". Just look at the Amish or Orthodox Jews. It's just that the definition of "radically traditional" shifts in our own lifetimes, making cultural ideas that were normal when we were teenagers seem appalling 30 years later, and continued adherence to those views becomes radical.

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

#314

Post by TurkishPoptart »

jiriknesl wrote: post #228
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, Extinction Rebellion and Occupy Wallstreet are the culture. Colour-blind antiracism, preparing for global warming instead of pushing green deal & capitalism are countercultures now.

Right, and ironically all are astro-turfed and embraced by the World Economic Forum.

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

#315

Post by monero-xmr »

irrational wrote: post #305
undersuit wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is ridiculous, LGBTQ is a minority. Trads are part of a waning majority. All evidence points towards LGBTQ always existing but just becoming more open. Trads being Counter Culture? That's the same double speak that gets us Citizens United and Right to Work. Where did these trads get their radically traditional values? From the majority.

It is a minority, but if I go into work and announce that I am trans and will now be transitioning and my name is now X, people will fall all over themselves be supportive and congratulating me. It literally happened recently when Chris became Christina at my work. But, if I come in and announce that I have decided to become Catholic or Evangelical or Mormon there will be a lot of awkward silence with maybe some "oka…

At our haircut place there was a husband and wife that worked there, the husband became the wife and the wife became the husband!

And I think the traditional people are doing so in much more subversive ways now - plenty of our friends are going private and Catholic school to get their kids out of the public schools, which are getting pretty wild in the indoctrination.

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

#317

Post by gumby »

MAGA is the major counterculture at the moment (in the USA). It is different from others of the past (punk, hippies, the beats, racist, socialists, populists) but has the key markers such as rejecting the dominant paradigm, being big enough to write about but not big enough to be a movement, pulls largely from the dominant population group, has some but limited influence on the dominant culture, has its own “literature” and belief system, etc.

Note that what isn’t different is its dependence on telecommunications. I tried to think of legitimate countercultures before the late 1880s US populism but couldn’t. Regency fops didn’t count, nor did know-nothings.

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

#318

Post by trinix912 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55

"back in my times", you had a bunch of different people with a bunch of different outlooks, wishes and views on the world... from anarchist punks to skinheads, peaceful "modern...ier" hippies, "the left", "the right", the what-would-now-be-called "libertarians", from people in schools, to adults at work, to people having kids at 20s, to adult swingers in their 60s... and all of them were represented as somehow 'speci…

> in our, slovenian case, our prime minister at a protest for a healthcare reform

I think it's happened a few times already, I'd say it's mostly a PR move & nothing more. Meanwhile I think there have happened a few protests at the very same place (Trg republike) yet the "mainstream" media didn't cover it.

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

#319

Post by jbd0 »

Pigalowda wrote: post #237
Mezzie wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I’m 37 so we’re pretty much the same cohort. And I’ve also reached that conclusion - I get out of the city and ski and hike, spend time with SO, etc. I won’t be dragged into the bullshit doomerism and constant shifting existential crises that online and west coasters seem to be addicted to. However, my daily commutes through seattle runs me right into the Pioneer square station and I swear it’s like something from “t…

> I won’t be dragged into the bullshit doomerism and constant shifting existential crises that online and west coasters seem to be addicted to

I was part of this so-called doomerism group when I worked in a more traditional 9-5 job in IT about 8-10 years ago. Now I'm solidly in the homesteader/freelancer/homeschooler counterculture.

Maybe there's a natural progression where you begin to question your life/the system/who you're serving and then you do something about it. I'm sure many people get stuck and never make that transition because of the perceived risk in doing so.

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

#320

Post by ivanbakel »

anon223345 wrote: post #296
notnaut wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the Walmartized rainbow culture that you’re talking about and then there’s the meat and potatoes queer culture that is and will always be counterculture for as long as human reproduction remains sexually binary. There is still a substantial amount of “queerness” that you don’t see on TV. Primary culture loves to pull from counterculture after the morsel has been thoroughly sanitized and monetized.

The thing is though, queerness is now “cool” so it’s not counter culture

Countercultures have always been "cool" - the rejection of the dominant culture is part of their cool factor. Some of the most memorable aspects of recent Western cultural history are counter-cultural: hippies, punks, slackers.

A counterculture isn't defined by whether or not it's considered cool, but by whether or not it is actively participated in and shared among the majority of people. Queer identities may have a lot of public support (and even that's debatable), but queerness is not part of most people's lives. Western societies are still cis- and heteronormative. Queer culture is an other, not the mainstream.

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