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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?

#811

Post by jjk166 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #703
jjk166 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. The weird stuff is well heard and has a large cultural impact. You'll have no problem finding countless examples of weird things that have been viewed and interacted with by hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Compare that to say a punk band in the 80s that may have only had a few thousand people ever see it perform, or even the entire hippie movement which was only about half a million peop…

You seem to be trying to stand on a knife's edge between saying counterculture is not mainstream, counterculture has mainstream impact. > Compare that to say a punk band in the 80s that may have only had a few thousand people ever see it perform Or the Velvet Underground that sold only a few thousand records but "everyone who bought one went out and started a band."

That's not a knife edge, counterculture is by definition not mainstream, and certainly today most people are not active participants in counterculture, but it has become easier to participate in countercultures if you so choose then ever before, and (while still being a very small minority) the absolute number of people participating has never been larger. The distinction between impact and mainstream impact is a very important nuance.

There are certainly creators today who are as influential to their groups as the Velvet Underground was to theirs, but just like plenty of people had never heard of them in the 60s, you're probably not going to know about them for another 20 years.

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

#812

Post by wolverine876 »

deanCommie wrote: post #738
Perceval wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

The motivation matters. Jazz and Rock was the music of african americans that became mainstream in white america just like rap did later. Punk was a reaction to rock becoming boring and stale. Disco came out from the african-american AND LGBTQ community, and the eventual "disco sucks" mainstream backlash was at least somewhat motivated by racism/homophobia, not anything inherent with disco. None of these creative out…

> None of these creative outlets were a result of anyone overtly TRYING to offend anyone.

Rock'n'roll, punk, etc were definitely trying to overtly offend. Many rockers claimed to worship Satan, mocking the older generation was widespread ('hope I die before I get old'). Look up the Sex Pistols.

Those counter-cultures were for something, for their identities at least. What is 4chan for?

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

#813

Post by majormajor »

wolverine876 wrote: post #808
Perceval wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

That argument seems to rationalize 4chan behavior by simply saying 'it's counter-culture', as if that makes the behavior better or worse, more or less bad or justified. It changes nothing; it's posers imitating counter-culture (by that definition).

Yeah, there's a million corners of non-mainstream culture today that aren't 4chan and aren't just "edgy" middleschoolesque trolling that are also "countercultures". There's more variety than ever thanks to the ease of people connecting.

If you're betting that 4chan is the one that's going to stand out of "ahead of its time" you aren't doing it because "counterculture is always ahead" you're doing it because it's the one you personally focus on. Otherwise you'd have to be evaluating it against all the other counterculture things. And many of them are much less derivative and backwards-looking.

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

#814

Post by logn »

The mainstream culture has been pretty adamant about stamping out counter cultures, so it's merely hidden. I think the algorithms and filters are not blindly homogenizing culture but are rather used as tools by humans knowingly to connect to and persuade each other.

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

#815

Post by an_aparallel »

We still have counterculture - but boy is it ever harder to participate in:

Private trackers Special interest forums Not using Mc-Social Media Off-grid.

What's dwindled - due to media consumption habits is the "appearance" of a counterculture. When huge popstars appropriate every square inch of wierdness - what's wierd/different now? Nothing really...

In the 90s, Reznor and Manson sold "edge by the pound"...that was a commonly consumed form of counter culture.

Life getting too expensive is killing real counterculture - specialised stores, quirky cafes which attract fringe dwellers and so on. Depending on where you live - this is either less or more sad.

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

#816

Post by at-w »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #799
at-w wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think anyone will look back with fondness or positivity towards a bunch of drug-pushing, mentally stunted adulterous freeloaders that disrespect hard working people, people putting their lives on the line for their country, people devoted to their families, and the nation that allows them the freedom to exist in the first place--while jerking themselves into a froth over who's the edgiest edge lord." Even as…

“Nearly every major social issue of the late 20th century exploded as a direct result of hippie culture bringing drugs and hostility towards the family and social institutions into the mainstream.” Sources? Wasn’t the crack epidemic more related to Contra and the breaking of the family unit due to disproportionate incarceration of black males by the government in attempt to break their political power via the selecti…

>Sources? Wasn’t the crack epidemic more related to Contra and the breaking of the family unit due to disproportionate incarceration of black males by the government in attempt to break their political power via the selective targeting of specific drugs by the govt, i.e marijuana and crack over cocaine?

The overwhelming majority of the rise in crime occurred between 1964 and 1974, in which time the murder rate in the US more than doubled and reached its all-time high in 1974.

Crack cocaine itself wasn't found in the US until the mid-1980s, i.e. well after the overwhelming majority of the rise in crime had already occurred. With no crack present in the US, it's clearly ridiculous to attribute the rise in crime to a drug-or laws targeting a drug-that didn't exist in the US until a decade later.

The crack vs. cocaine sentencing law you mention didn't exist until 1986, when it was pushed for primarily by black and progressive political leaders (notably the bill's author, then-senator Joe Biden) who believed it would address the rampant violence they associated with crack in their communities (https://www.npr.org/2017/07/17/537715793/how-black-leaders-u..., https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-an-early-biden-c...).

In other words, neither crack laws nor significant crack use itself existed until the vast majority of the rise in crime had already occurred. Even the most outlandish theories of Contra involvement in drug trafficking (which they were involved to some extent like many South American guerrilla groups) would attribute a literal drop in the bucket of the cocaine trafficked to the US to the Contras. Again, this is only even relevant if you think crack caused the rise in violent crime that occurred decades before it was introduced to the US.

To address your third point, the incarceration rates you mention didn't actually start rising until 1973 and remained much lower than in the 1950s until the mid-70s (https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18613/chapter/4#35). Moreover, they didn't begin their rapid climb until 1980, at which point crime had begun declining. For reference, about 5 times as many people are in jail/prison today as in 1975: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18613/chapter/4#35 When incarceration rates truly began skyrocketing in the late '80s-2000s, violent crimes were rapidly dropping.

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

#817

Post by tonymet »

cleandreams wrote: post #553

I am old enough to remember the hippies and related counterculture(s). (I was very young.) This is something to keep in mind: the counterculture then was a place where people made a living. And the cost of living was cheap. You could raise kids on an organic farm, sell in the local alternative stores, have a live show on pirate radio. And pay your modest bills. Health insurance and college tuition was cheap. Jeez --…

People need to give more attention to the collapse in ad-hoc labor. We've made life far too regimented and regulated for many people. I don't think we give enough attention to this gap in the economy.

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

#818

Post by jimbo9991 »

oneplane wrote: post #740
Perceval wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

> Counter-culture is supposed to be [... list of stuff...] No, it's not. The words explain themselves perfectly fine: an opposing culture. What you describe boils down to being irrationally angry, stunted in various ways, and generally destructive... It's not a counter-culture but just counter-productive and essentially a defect. If anything, it is devoid of culture. And just in case someone takes "counter-productive…

A counter culture that has been productive and changed the status quo is no longer a counter culture by definition, since that implies that they have the power to alter the dominant culture, which implies that they are the dominant culture.

I think what you are really referring to is a social movement, which often aligns with a particular counter culture that has decided to organize. But there can be many counter cultures and not all of them the deliberate goal of social change.

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

#819

Post by ajsnigrutin »

trinix912 wrote: post #318
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55

"back in my times", you had a bunch of different people with a bunch of different outlooks, wishes and views on the world... from anarchist punks to skinheads, peaceful "modern...ier" hippies, "the left", "the right", the what-would-now-be-called "libertarians", from people in schools, to adults at work, to people having kids at 20s, to adult swingers in their 60s... and all of them were represented as somehow 'speci…

> in our, slovenian case, our prime minister at a protest for a healthcare reform I think it's happened a few times already, I'd say it's mostly a PR move & nothing more. Meanwhile I think there have happened a few protests at the very same place (Trg republike) yet the "mainstream" media didn't cover it.

Well sure, but he's the one who should make the changes needed for people to get the healthcare they pay a lot of money for... and instead he's "protesting" against.. himself?

The protests, activism, and other stuff, that was once a sign of counter culture has become so mainstream that even the politicians do it... go out, wave some flags, take some photos, pat themselves on their backs, and go home and change nothing.

I miss the old times, when the establishment was actually afraid of countercultures, of people going against the mainstream... the current state, where the mainstream is acting as if it's against itself is bad for society, because it never changes anything.

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

#820

Post by runarberg »

germinalphrase wrote: post #781
runarberg wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dumb phone, an old walkman, etc. but also some of the following: second hand clothes, a second hand bicycle, a car from the 90s, a cheap second hand watch etc. The gathering spaces include your local library, your small local music venue/record store, and your local print shops and book cafés.

“ local library, your small local music venue/record store, and your local print shops and book cafés” With the except of publicly funded libraries, it might be notable to suggest that, in many/most communities, everything else on this list is struggling to exist.

I guess that is a point in favor of this being a counter culture. It is my perception of history that venues that cater to counter culture tend to struggle financially, at least since the Reaganonics of the 1980s.
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