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.
Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
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Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Context: Am LGBTQ person who also has traditional religious views. Big disagree. You carry a pride flag in the wrong parts of town where I am, you'll get beat up. Walk around preaching hellfire and damnation and at most you'll get a lot of annoyed looks and at best you'll get people cheering you on. > In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight. In high schools in my town people get beat up for comi…
Yeah it seems you can have wildly different experiences depending on where you live in the US. Probably why we are so politically divided, at this point we're living in different societies. Anywhere in California you would not experience any of that. In fact it really is as OP describes. Look at polls of kids in elementary schools where 50%+ of young kids are identifying as non-binary because it is trendy.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 me…
Interesting point. I guess the question is: is power inherently related to culture? And if so, to what degree? If culture is the outline of the dominant group in a society, perhaps the counterculture are those who occupy and inhabit its shadow.
The thing is the statistics still speak for themselves. Despite the media, the PR campaigns, for example, software development still skews largely male. The spoken culture extols DEI, but the actual reality is still what is it by statistics.
On some level, this might just be recuperation in action, but the point is that it still is ironically the culture of the majority. It isn't being "pushed" by the minority because the minority is by definition, the minority. It is being adopted (even recuperated) by the majority, often into a form that is acceptable for it. The difference is that the majority isn't really centering itself in that media. Except that on some level, if you listen to Slavoj Zizek, it actually is.
Anyway, whether media or external culture really makes a difference materially (like minority representation in workplaces of high paying careers matching that of the population) it at least clear at this point that it either would take a lot of time to take effect, or possibly (probably even likely at this point) it has no real effect on actual power relations in society.
[0] putting this in quotes because progressive encompasses more than what is accepted by the mainstream culture.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give a few examples? The 30 under 30 sure doesn't look like what you suggest, and I'm not sure where else you'd look for a list of examples
A quick Google yielded this https://itep.org/the-geographic-distribution-of-extreme-weal... . The makeup of Congress is also very white
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#536If you only consume mainstream media then you may personally live in a society which lacks a counterculture. You strike up a conversation with the girl picking mushrooms in the middle of nowhere or you go to an underground death metal concert or spend a bit of time on 4chan and you'll find countercultures alive and well that you're just not part of. If you think a sense of sameness pervades the creative world then yo…
> But somewhere between your 38th Marvel movie and the millionth Heard-Depp trial rehash video, you might start to believe it. Even if it isn’t new, even if it’s easy to escape, and even if it’s not that bad, a cloying sameness occupies the cultural mainstream. It seems impenetrable, same as ever. But it’s especially surprising given how much creative work today exists outside the mainstream.
> It is a jarring contrast. At no point in history have people created so much with so few channels for consuming their work. Most consumers get their content through a narrow straw — TikTok’s “For You” page, the first page of Google’s search results, Instagram’s explore tab, miscellaneous streaming sites, and so on. Many lifetimes worth of creation get aggressively filtered down into a (very optimized) stream of content.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#537If you only consume mainstream media then you may personally live in a society which lacks a counterculture. You strike up a conversation with the girl picking mushrooms in the middle of nowhere or you go to an underground death metal concert or spend a bit of time on 4chan and you'll find countercultures alive and well that you're just not part of. If you think a sense of sameness pervades the creative world then yo…
4chan is obnoxiously and brainlessly countercultural to the point of contrarianism, though. It used to be a fun place where people didn't care so much about social conventions and focused mostly on having a good time and poking fun at each other, but it's degraded into just hating anything and everything that they can attribute to anybody they don't like. I've seen tons of cases where they were on-board for something…
Edit: downvoters should ask a punk or metalhead what he thinks about certain bands that went mainstream.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#538There are many countercultures that are alive and well. One example: People who deliberately avoid social media, tape over webcams, use non-android, non-ios phones, who value their privacy. These people scrub the internet of their info, make aggressive use of GDPR/CCPA deletion requests. They do not want to be part of mainstream society for whatever reason. They are routinely marginalized by people around them, label…
You give two good examples of counterculture. Both of those go against the values of most people these days, especially most young people.
When it comes to avoiding social media or excessive use of "smart" technology for example, many people still seem to associate this with some crazy religious people who think that the TV was invented by satan himself. While in reality, some people have entirely different and even rational reasons for it.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that really shocked me was watching an episode of South Park. The boys all got into airsoft, and really enjoyed it (in contrast to a bunch of older jaded teens that used drugs and were largely miserable.) The dads weren't sure about letting their boys play, but when they saw the teens picking on their kids, went and bought a bunch of tactical gear and airsoft guns and went on the field with their kids. Oh,…
That shown has been around for a long time and has changed a lot. When they folded and censored their own episode criticizing extremest Islam they lost a lot of edge/credibility.
Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
#540The 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.