Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

xmodtwo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 1001 posts

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

#561

Post by dnissley »

undersuit wrote: post #528
dnissley wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one small "trad" expression I've seen that got some people riled up in the kind of way I would expect a counterculture to: the sqlite code of ethics https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html Long hn thread about it from some months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31886687

Two things can be true. Trads can be counter-cultural in the small tech society, and be the dominant culture in the majority of society.

Most people in the US at least do not slot into any particular subculture. They are "normies" for lack of a better term: they don't intentionally curate their cultural selves -- they may have picked up some "trad" trappings (wearing a cross necklace, possessing handwavy religious beliefs like "believing in God"), and they may have "woke/queer" trappings (flying a rainbow flag on their house, possessing handwavy political beliefs like "supporting trans rights").

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

#562

Post by PuppyTailWags »

runarberg wrote: post #512
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #485

I kind of think we have a fragmentary counterculture going against prevailing culture in certain aspects only. Just as hippie counterculture was obviously mostly in american college-educated middle class students and black panthers were obviously primarily black. We have traditional catholics in america who are going against the pope's relatively progressive positions on gay people. We have aggressive de-institutiona…

When I think of counter culture, I think more about the cultural artifacts then some shared political believes. Sure the scene might have some shared politics, but that is a by-product, and is not necessary. I mean, see the punks and their wide range of politics. As an example, other people have mentioned furries. They do have a pretty easily distinguishable aesthetics which you’ll spot immediately when you look at t…

Cultural artifacts are still only speaking to specific aspects of culture. Punk doesn't speak to all aspects of all cultures for example.

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

#564

Post by yucky »

undersuit wrote: post #293
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…

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.

  > I think this is ridiculous, LGBTQ is a minority.
Odd, I don't get that impression when I watch Netflix. Or consume any mainstream media for that matter.

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

#565

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

miamibre wrote: post #556

So maybe this is because I wasn't raised in the US or in what would be described as the suburbs but why isn't Rap / Urban culture considered counterculture? Just because a lot of acts have been turned mainstream and whitewashed doesn't mean they don't represent a radical departure from the status quo. And this isn't just in the US, in latin america you have reggaeton, in UK you have Grime and the rest of EU also have…

>Just because a lot of acts have been turned mainstream and whitewashed

Rap han't become "whitewashed," just mainstream. And that does make it non-counterculture. The truth is that counterculture died after 1960, to the extent monoculture ever even existed in the first place (in the US). The 60's eepresent the death of monoculture, and we never moved back to one (in the US). What you are reffering to is more like hipsterism.

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

#566

Post by vorpalhex »

tomdell wrote: post #542
narrator wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you know 4chan is the counterculture is every time someone releases a new generative art tool, 4chan figures out a way to do stuff with it that makes the creators have to restrict and/or shut it down. Like in the 1960s how the mainstream culture would whisper under their breath and point in shock and horror at hippies and try to get them banned from various public venues, and send mobs to beat them up, we hav…

"narrator" is a fitting username since you're narrating your own subjective reality. I don't think making disturbing sexual content with AI image generators is going to be viewed the same way as free love.

Several hippies wrote in favor of having sex with children. Many of them took their own advice.

Look at how whitewashed hippies are now.

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

#567

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jstarfish wrote: post #274
kderbyma wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly. how many months of rent was that boat? You are privileged ag

Used boats are (deceptively) cheap to buy.

Fiberglass hulls last forever. It’s everything else that needs repaired or replaced.

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

#568

Post by anonym29 »

kurthr wrote: post #468
anonym29 wrote: post #450

There 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…

Interestingly, of the on-line crowd I'd even put Qanon up there with the other countercultures. Being counterculture doesn't mean you aren't older or being grifted.

Counterculture also doesn't inherently mean just / moral / admirable, just that it stands in juxtaposition against the mainstream culture, which itself could be just or unjust, moral or immoral, admirable or detestable.

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

#569

Post by PuppyTailWags »

jstarfish wrote: post #555
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, I don't think the majority of children who are homeless have much incentives to lie about being gay or trans. It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them. Homeless people are rarely looked for if they're murdered, so there's less incentive for you to claim to be gay/trans because it literally targets you fo…

In my experience, more often than not the "homeless" kids waving the gay flag are glossing over unrelated behavioral issues on their own part. > It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them. The idea that deceiving someone into having sex with you is considered "shocking" and not "rape" astounds me. You can't ind…

I don't think you understand what gay/trans panic defense is.

I think if you didn't know what a legal thing was, you could've googled it, instead of making up some crazy hypothetical. Sorry, I'm dipping from this convo.

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

#570

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

bitwize wrote: post #439
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thing about 60s/70s counterculture is, it didn't become the culture. Rather, its members were recruited by mainstream culture with the promise of wealth and the good life, to betray the values they espoused as youths. Were Gramsci alive in the 80s, he would be like "See? See? This is EXACTLY what I was talking about!"

This is not really true. While there were a few hippies who moved to wall st., the reality is that only a tiny percentage of the population were hippies (or their cousins). The "older adults" who made up the 80's/90's culture were, for the most part, the "young adult" members of mainstream culture in the late 60s/70s.

It's just like the way that the 90s mainstream culture in the UK was not based on punks ... not because absolutely no punks "crossed over", but because, as a percentage of the population, there were hardly any punks to start with (just a lot of media noise).

Post reply on HN