Do we live in a society without a counterculture? • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by alldayeveryday » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #376

goodSteveramos wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter to what? Minority groups are in charge of America so the majority traditional culture IS the counterculture.

If minority groups are "in charge", why is most of the wealth, corporate power and political power in the hands of majority groups? Obviously cultural norms change over time, and many ideas that were once fringe are now mainstream. But that doesn't mean that the majority white, straight, Christian(ish) majority in America doesn't still wield most of the power.

> ... mean that the majority white, straight, Christian(ish) majority in America doesn't still wield most of the power.

yeah, except for finance, media, academia and politics. I do agree that straight white christian(ish) males do wield the most power in the other intuitions that matter (thought I'm drawing a blank on which those might be).

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

#402

Post by ROTMetro » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #326

undersuit wrote: post #312

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.

No, what you experience is people who personally aren't pro-religion, often for reasons of personal experience. It's nothing like the brave people hosting home churches in China, or an even better example, the people telling their stories in the bible, where the entire culture/government and it's moral basis is against your religion.

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

#403

Post by cubix » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

cfltlayoffs wrote: post #73

n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

This is such a superficial understanding of "support". They make their logo rainbow for a month. None of the groups you mentioned support police abolition, prison abolition, for instance. Police budgets still go up. Homeless encampments still get bulldozed. Black people are still killed by police. Capitalists have co-opted the least disruptive demands of advocates in an attempt to draw attention away from the actual…

"The leftist of the over-socialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle.” --Theodore J. Kaczynski

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

#404

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #321

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.

>> LGBTQ is a minority Nope. The number of letters keeps increasing as more people are brought in. In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight.

> The number of letters keeps increasing

Indeed, I now hear acquaintances on the right referring to them derisively as the 'alphabet mafia.' I wonder if maybe it's gotten meaningless when there are so many letters. Sometimes I see "+" used instead, after the first few letters. In that case, do the members of the groups that come after feel marginalized compared to the big ones that make up the first few letters?

And what about the people who self-identify as one of the groups but don't want to advertise it as their defining characteristic? What do they do? That's a hard one, I think there are quite a lot of people that are in that situation.

I suppose the holy grail will be if/when we just decide that such labels don't matter.

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

#405

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #243

throwaway894345 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police budgets are up, but policing is down, killings by police are way down, and consequentially violent crime is way, way up. Protesters didn’t get everything, but they got a lot of what they asked for (reduction in policing, basically) and they seem content (no more major protests or riots since the precipitous drop in policing following the Floyd protests). It seems hard to argue that there haven’t been disruptiv…

> killings by police are way down [citation needed] > consequentially violent crime is way, way up. You're claiming that the US, unlike the rest of the civilized world, can't address crime without having death squads summarily execute people for trivial or imagined offences every other week?

> [citation needed]

Sure thing: "An event study design finds census places with early BLM protests experienced a 10% to 15% decrease in police homicides from 2014 through 2019, around 200 fewer deaths." - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3767097

> You're claiming that the US, unlike the rest of the civilized world, can't address crime without having death squads summarily execute people for trivial or imagined offences every other week?

The US obviously doesn't have "death squads" who "summarily execute people every other week". Lol I can't imagine asking for a citation about police killings and then tossing this claim out there.

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

#406

Post by throwaway_l33t » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

undersuit wrote: post #312

irrational wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> no one needs to change the way they act around you.

This is only because Catholics and Christians often don’t mention when workplace behaviors make them uncomfortable. I’ve been in multiple situations where coworkers have used names of God as expletives or made jokes about things I consider holy.

And if you’re a Catholic and “trad” and planning lunch with colleagues, things like “is it Friday” or “is it a Friday in Lent” would affect others (except that, today, there’s a lot of vegetarian options for independent reasons).

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

#407

Post by ROTMetro » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #361

undersuit wrote: post #312

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.

Catholic teaching is that men cannot become women and women cannot become men. Catholic teaching is that lying is sinful. Practicing the Catholic faith by saying "I'm sorry, but I can't 'use your pronouns' because that would be a lie by falsely saying you're a woman when you can't be" will get you reprimanded or fired at most any major US company.

Do you cast judgement on people that color their hair when it gets gray? Do you cast judgement on people that try and change their body by dieting/exercising?

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

#408

Post by Shared404 » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #404

phkahler wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> LGBTQ is a minority Nope. The number of letters keeps increasing as more people are brought in. In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight.

> The number of letters keeps increasing Indeed, I now hear acquaintances on the right referring to them derisively as the 'alphabet mafia.' I wonder if maybe it's gotten meaningless when there are so many letters. Sometimes I see "+" used instead, after the first few letters. In that case, do the members of the groups that come after feel marginalized compared to the big ones that make up the first few letters? And…

For me, it's nice to see the full acronym in places where it makes sense or are already LGBTQ focused.

Outside of those spaces, I generally prefer LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ for that reason.

That holy grail would be nice to reach some day.

For those looking on and saying "well, you're doing it to yourselves":

The answer is that currently we _have_ to do it because any many parts of the USA/world people who fall under that umbrella aren't able to live in a way that brings them joy.

As such, they need a banner to organize under and belong with. Once that need passes eventually so will the labels.

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

#409

Post by mrcrumb1 » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #393

mrcrumb1 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

wtf does unapologetic white men mean? white men have to apologize for the color that they were born?

I said this in another reply but the comment I replied to was referring to "unapologetic white males"

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

#410

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #137

jrumbut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the present moment, the counterculture is always hard to find and identify. That's what makes it the counterculture. Now you can read and listen to the Beat poets anywhere, but that would have been challenging in the early '50s. You had to go to the right coffee shop on the right night and if you went and saw what was going on you might question if these were geniuses pushing the frontiers of expression or a bunch…

The hippies were the counterculture, weren't they? Yet they weren't hard to find or identify. I guess it can get muddy, but what you're describing sounds more like underground culture to me. It can be happily compatible with the mainstream culture, it's not oppositional, it's just obscure and hidden because of it.

Hippies were until they weren't. Counterculture either becomes culture or dies off.

Naziism was counterculture in 1920's Germany, Mainstream in the 30s and 40's, and back to counterculture now.