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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?

#841

Post by s1artibartfast »

rnd0 wrote: post #782
s1artibartfast wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An argument could be made that there is a lot of ideological overlap between current far right GOP/Qanon people and the tenants of Nazism. Considering the number of elections won by the GOP you cannot tell me they're not mainstream.

There's a lot of overlap between the Nazis and both major parties in the US. That said, I don't think it is fair to say that being a Nazi is mainstream because there is some ideological overlap.

It just means that some parts of their platform have become mainstreamed. A simple and non-controversial example is that the Nazis were extremely Progressive on animal rights. Just because modern political parties also endorse animal rights, that does not make them Nazis

Another example is that Nazi rhetoric relied heavily on utilitarian analysis of the greater good. I don't think it's reasonable to say that any party that promotes the greater good over individual freedoms is a Nazi party.

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

#842

Post by bloaf »

koprulusector wrote: post #560
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…

The hippies were shit on during the sixties because of politics and the Vietnam war. The hippies were a big part of the anti war movement. The simplest and quickest way to shutting the movement down was to criminalize its constituents, like hippies, or civil rights activists, through tactics like draconian drug laws and a drug war. The hippies were rooted in things that were objectively good: peace, love, self discov…

The mainstream culture of the hippie's day would have said, with just as much disgust as you hold for the 4channers:

> The hippies are rooted in things like naiveté, lust, drugs, immorality, communism, apathy, and atheism.

There is a sense in the more liberal communities that cultures are good-by-definition. They do mental gymnastics to ensure that any harmful cultural artifacts (e.g. slavery) are explained away as "not really culture, but a product of external forces" (e.g. imperialism).

I have never felt the need to do this: some cultures are on-the-whole bad, and that does not disqualify them from being cultures.

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

#843

Post by birdyrooster »

narrator wrote: post #509
jjk166 wrote: post #484

If 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…

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…

I mean the KKK was also counter culture. Not sure why counting hate groups is meaningful in this discussion.

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

#844

Post by soderfoo »

czx4f4bd wrote: post #767
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…

> [...] LGBTQ was edgy, and so on. Every one of them were described by dismissive epithets just like the string you put together about how awful and contrary to decency they were. This is a vile take. It is sickening to compare liking a genre of music or wearing a certain style of dress or being queer to hating people because they're queer, not white, not male, or because they're a woman who won't have sex with you.

I always figured absurdist made up half of 4chan. People who say provocative stuff to go against the mainstream.

The other half is a mix of the hateful or unstable.

But who knows, it's the internet, and it's completely anonymous over there.

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

#846

Post by [deleted] »

pohl wrote: post #758
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…

Us: Mom, can we get a counter-culture? Mom: We have a counter-culture at home. The counter-culture at home: 4chan incels

[deleted]

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

#848

Post by gicif »

rootusrootus wrote: post #579
undersuit wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What goes beyond being recognized as an equal member? What discussions are being shouted down?

An easy example is insisting that trans people be allowed to play in sports based only on their identified gender. We have separation between mens' and women's teams because in many cases men have a biological advantage that would mean women did not ever win. Insisting that an MTF woman be permitted to compete on equal footing somehow feels like offering equality to the trans person, but it does so at the expense of…

[flagged]

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

#849

Post by lgas »

notch898a wrote: post #746
germinalphrase wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re a old young person, but you’ll be a young old person soon enough.

IMO having a kid is the cutoff between old young and young old. Have a kid and the walls move in fast. Used to live in alternative shelters, backpacking in the outdoors for months on end? Yeah child services says that's substandard housing and abuse. Hell there were child abuse investigation just for a family backpacking the Appalachian trail, and that's a boring ass well planned thing that even old square fuckers ca…

> IMO having a kid is the cutoff between old young and young old.

As a 47 year old, I'm glad to know I will be forever young.

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

#850

Post by roncesvalles »

koprulusector wrote: post #560
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…

The hippies were shit on during the sixties because of politics and the Vietnam war. The hippies were a big part of the anti war movement. The simplest and quickest way to shutting the movement down was to criminalize its constituents, like hippies, or civil rights activists, through tactics like draconian drug laws and a drug war. The hippies were rooted in things that were objectively good: peace, love, self discov…

>I don’t think that anyone will look back with fondness or positivity toward a bunch of closeted homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels circle jerking themselves into a froth over who’s the edgiest edge lord.

If that's your view of 4chan then the whole point of 4chan went over your head. 4chan is about irreverence of and rebellion against the current mainstream culture that if you're non-conformist in any way or hold a view that may be construed as offensive to anyone, your opinion (and person) has no value. It's a reaction to upvote/downvote culture on the Internet that rewards conformity. 4chan, famously, has a highly contemptuous opinion of Reddit.

What 4chan says, self-deprecatingly, is "I will offend all your sensibilities. Oh you're still here? Ok, here's what I have to say."

In my opinion (it's impossible to know for sure) most of it is pretense. There aren't actually as many racists, homophobes, sexists etc. It's satirically amplified as a form of gatekeeping.

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