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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?

#471

Post by [deleted] »

teachrdan wrote: post #394
Dig1t wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are scared to say this, because they quickly get labeled a Christofascist or alt-right something or other, but it's true. Trads are definitely the counter culture now. Tim Dillon made a joke recently, something along the lines of "The most radical non-conformist thing you can do now is wear rosary beads". I thought it was kind of funny, but also because it's true.

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not. Catholics make up 23% of the US population. How can wearing rosary beads be non-conformist when Catholics are the single largest denomination in America? An astonishing SIX Supreme Court justices are Catholic. Was there ever a time a countercultural group had that kind of representation in government? Were there ever six justices who were hippies, or beatniks, or hobos?…

[deleted]

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

#472

Post by Evenjos »

jmeister wrote: post #146
pessimizer wrote: post #93

A counterculture requires privacy, and we're increasingly becoming a society of constant surveillance and permanent records shared between authorities, a society that is very suspicious when people speak to each other without an intermediary escalating anything interesting being said to their manager.

Exactly. A counter culture needs some room to take risks. You can’t do that with the Damocles’ sword of visibility/virality hanging over you 24x7. The other comment about being offline is right. You’ll find some cool pseudonymous writers online too.

100%. I see a lot of originality in web serials and fiction by indie authors. I've more or less stopped reading books that were curated by the Big Five publishing houses.

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

#473

Post by Izkata »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #357
rospaya wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sound like incels, not chads by choice.

IMO Incels tend to be people who would (if they could), at the first chance, jump at the opportunity to become sexually active. Additionally, incels tend to not value monogamy nor are strictly heterosexual. The inherent value of the individual they're pursuing is also different. This group tends to have a very low view of women (and men too, to some degree) as individuals with meaning, purpose, thoughts and emotions.…

> IMO Incels tend to be people who would, at the first chance, jump at the opportunity to become sexually active.

It's literally in the name: involuntary celibate

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

#474

Post by z3c0 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #258
z3c0 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first, I typed out a more long-winded reply about why one can't conflate the self-report statistics of victims with the motivations of police in violent skirmishes, but I've been reflecting a lot lately on choosing my battles. The "but black people are more likely to be violent criminals" rebuttal is a despicable one, and if you can't see the absence of causal links that you're deliberately hopping over in an atte…

It’s only appears to be despicable to people who don’t understand statistics on a basic level (which, sadly, describes most Americans, even educated ones) or ardent racists who believe that “the race” supersedes “the individual”. Notably, we can correctly observe that black people commit more violent crimes per capita than other races without implying any of the following: 1. black people are biologically disposed to…

I firmly believe that you don't understand statistics on a basic level, and you've wholly demonstrated that in this comment by throwing around a bunch of "explanations" with no basis but your own intuition. So the irony of your opening assertion has a wonderfully humorous tinge to me, a literal statistician. Take your pseudo-intellectual trolling back to reddit.

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

#475

Post by sudosysgen »

refuse wrote: post #469
sudosysgen wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the only one with this impression. This process is called recuperation in sociology : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_%28politics%29?wp...

Thank you, I hadn't heard of this.

If you're interested in going down the rabbit hole, as far as I'm aware the concept first came up in Guy Debord's The Society of Spectacle. It's a bit of a weird read though.

The term did take on a wider meaning in political philosophy and critical theory since, however.

Now that I think about it, Embrace Extend Extinguish can be understood as the explicit application of the process recuperation to the free software counterculture.

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

#476

Post by BobbyJo »

irrational wrote: post #383
BobbyJo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have a high likelihood of experiencing physical violence or death for being religious where you live? If not, then this is pointlessly hyperbolic.

No, but you would be discriminated against. Announcing you are religious would be the quickest way to be sidelined on projects and slowly forced out of the company. Announcing that your are LGBTQ is the quickest way to advance in the company and receive accolades. And this is a Fortune 100 company that nearly everyone on the planet has heard of. Where I live, LGBTQ is very much the mainstream and the most acceptable…

> No, but you would be discriminated against.

That doesn't mean anything. Discrimination is a matter of degree. Everyone gets discriminated against pretty often to lesser degrees. If you tell me about your horoscope I'll roll my eyes and probably not want to hang out with you very much because of your spiritual beliefs.

Are people refusing to sell you good and services? Calling you names? Throwing bricks through your windows?

Is it putting more of a damper on you living a happy life than the occasional moment of discomfort because someone thinks something you think is dumb? People think lots of my beliefs are dumb, and that's fine, as long as I can go about my day.

> Announcing that your are LGBTQ is the quickest way to advance in the company and receive accolades.

First, I doubt a gay new hire can reach C suite with nothing but a couple of rainbows and dildos for qualifications.

Second, office politics are crappy, but you either cope or move on, with maybe a lawsuit if you have a legal leg to stand on.

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

#477

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#478

Post by thewebcount »

zamfi wrote: post #397
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…

What you’re observing isn’t a lack of counter-culture, it’s a lack of monolithic culture , though. In different parts of the country, or even different parts of the same city, the dominant culture is different. Living a “glorified lifestyle,” as you put it, in NY of SF? Sure, no one bats an eye. In the rural south? Different story. On the other hand — white man with “radically traditional values“, whatever that means…

I wonder how much of this is due to there not being a majority in many large cities anymore? I'm in LA and there's no white majority. It is a "majority minority" city.

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

#479

Post by spacemadness »

goodSteveramos wrote: post #467
spacemadness wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point—-Name one recent president that didn’t need go pander to christians to get elected. I’ve always found this tiring being a non-christian myself. Christians are not oppressed no matter what the terminally online right-wing on HN seems to think.

I couldn't agree more. Why do you think politicians never explicitly pander to white people?

Nice try, but Republicans are doing a good job of that.

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

#480

Post by rootusrootus »

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?

In order to put white men in their place, they must understand that their opinion doesn't matter because they are white men. They cannot know adversity, they cannot have any opinion on minority issues. Therefore, if you want to participate in a discussion today your best bet is to try not to appear obviously white or male, and if you must concede that fact you ought to apologize for having an opinion in the first place, since nobody asked for it.

Being an unapologetic white male would imply that you felt like you could give your opinion freely without having someone immediately attack it as invalid because of your race and gender.

But I guarantee that every time a term like this gets used, the replies will imply that anyone identifying as an unapologetic white male is in fact racist.

It's a great demonstration of how the counter culture has in fact become culture. Anybody who really doubts this probably doesn't have kids or spend much time around younger adults.

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