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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?

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the colour of your logo on a certain date is not really "supporting". Corps gonna corp and if changing the logo and publishing some nice post brings more money, they'll do it. (While donating to Republicans at the same time)

If the entire establishment is seeking to ally itself with your movement/culture/etc then that’s a strong indicator that your movement isn’t counter-culture or otherwise subversive. They don’t have to become True Believers IMHO. And FWIW, lots of big companies have DEI departments that preach this stuff internally and market it externally (my wife is a marketing consultant with these big companies and they eat this s…

When Coca-Cola embraced the flower children with its ads in the late 1960s / early 1970s, did that mean that the US counterculture of that time had become "the culture"?

Of course it did not. The flower children, the back-to-the-landers, the bikers, the free love communers all remained a tiny slice of the population (and a shrinking one by that time).

What the late 60s/early 70s US counterculture had going for it was a kind of credibility as "the new thing". It was not "the culture" (and it never really became it without mutating heavily), but it was interesting to many people who did not participate in it. It remained a counter-culture until it had changed so radically (and this was years after Coco-Cola first tried to ride the hippy chic train), and then, indeed, it was no longer subversive in any meaningful way.

As actor Peter Coyote noted of that era, that particular counterculture won the culture war in the long term - you can find yoga classes and wholewheat bread in almost every small town in the USA now, our attitudes towards sexuality and the environment and women and racism have been fundamentally altered - but it lost almost every political battle that it was concerned with. Wars continued, economic inequality, corporate control, the military-industrial complex ... all continued unabated.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, where I live you are considered to be a freak if you are religious. Announcing that you have joined a religion is like announcing you are trans in Alabama 50 years ago.

OK, well I live in Montana and I still have arguments with people with Confederate state tattoos on their arms.

Where do you live?

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

#334

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…

It's not that it's an unpopular position, it's that the argument is flawed and the point you're trying to make falls flat. First, you lump all of queer culture into one group, a false categorization without which your augment fails. Second, you assert that being in the overwhelmingly dominant racial group, the overwhelmingly dominant sexual orientation and the undeniably dominant gender should somehow be interpreted…

> First, you lump all of queer culture into one group, a false categorization without which your augment fails.

In fact, I do lump them onto one group. Many subgroups inside a group. You know who I am referring to when I say queer culture. The group exists, it isn't false. Colors keep getting added to the flag. Rather than engage with reality you prefer to have useless rhetorical debates. Let's move past that.

>Second, you assert that being in the overwhelmingly dominant racial group, the overwhelmingly dominant sexual orientation and the undeniably dominant gender should somehow be interpreted at "counterculture" even though the group that fits that definition is numerically larger, wealthier, and politically empowered than any other group.

Culture is often not aligned with majority opinions, majority positions or majority orientations. The culture of the 60s was hippies. Most people were not hippies. Your premise is false here that culture is the same as majority, or political empowerment.

I welcome a more honest response.

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube and TikTok are not counterculture but they are the platforms where counterculture happens. > a social media "influencer" with millions of followers is not countercultural. A social media "influencer" could be more important to a younger audience than other mediums, meaning this is the "culture" they will try to counter. Edit: narrowed it down a little.

" they are the platforms where counterculture happens" And where exactly can I find them? Trough the corporate algorithm, that doesn't even let me rewind a video? Counterculture exists and sone of those expose their lifestyle and projects on these plattforms for fame and money, but that culture surely does not "live" on those plattforms.

> Trough the corporate algorithm, that doesn't even let me rewind a video?

It's worse than that. You used to have to "sell out" to corporate interests before your countercultural cache evaporated. Most YouTube creators "sell out" to advertisers the second they start their channel because getting any revenue on YouTube requires following YouTube's rules. And these rules are getting increasingly draconian with swearing now being sort-of banned. Also forget remixing existing cultural artifacts like older countercultural movements because that's just asking for an automated DMCA strike.

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

#336
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society didn't use to be "conservative". Like, the romans and the greeks were a lot more sexually free than we are right now. What they also had in their time is conservative people, as in, people that were against the changes in the society they were living in (like accepting Christianism during the Roman Empire, etc). Being conservative can't be counter-culture because by definition it is preseving the CURRENT cult…

> Like, the romans and the greeks were a lot more sexually free than we are right now. I wouldn't recommend using collapsed civilizations as the beacon for what's good and right for a healthy and well-functioning society.

Given that no human society seems to last forever, that sounds like a good way to run out of acceptable ways to build one.

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

#337

The medium is the message dudes. At this point in history, what will qualify a true counterculture is NOT BEING ONLINE. Whatever the true counterculture will be, it won’t be subject to the Internet and its all-seeing eye. It won’t be made out of memes and flame wars. No matter what the political bent, we’re all very much a captive audience online. “Master’s house/master’s tools” and all that.

On this topic: part of counterculture used to be the ability to *signal* your identification with the group to other group members. Styles of dress, certain symbols or artifacts have all been commonly used. How does one signal to others their social media rejectionism in the age of social media communication ubiquity?

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

#338

The medium is the message dudes. At this point in history, what will qualify a true counterculture is NOT BEING ONLINE. Whatever the true counterculture will be, it won’t be subject to the Internet and its all-seeing eye. It won’t be made out of memes and flame wars. No matter what the political bent, we’re all very much a captive audience online. “Master’s house/master’s tools” and all that.

But "being online" is where millions of people find and engage in countercultures. You may be underestimating the vastness of online spaces and the communities that exist in those spaces (many of which you can't find by Googling).

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

#339

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…

I guess the question here is what does the words, "mainstream supported" mean? Most corporate brands and media try to appeal to certain minorities. Is this what you mean?

The thing is despite the media focus, it still is the actual case that such minorities do not have actual power in society in terms of actual statistics, but the media is just a mirage, the reality is that certain disparities still exist, despite media representation. This might be the slightly different aspect of modern culture, that it does not amplify the already existing power group explicitly.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voices may be loud online, but it's definitely not "normal" culture.

My bank decorates rainbow ATMs during pride month. A block away from my house my local council has created a rainbow street crossing. I don’t think it’s possible to get more mainstream than that.

Sure, but that's a very broad "queer is cool" rather than the more specific ENM, hedonism, etc.
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