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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?

#981

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I don’t disagree with the general spirit of what you’re saying, but as a former teacher the observations that fall under Mandatory Reporting are fairly specific. Additionally, I know more than one CPS worker on a personal basis and the types of things that get a child removed from the house are religious and severe . Nothing that you have said would cause me to call in a report unless your kid showed up to class with…

Yeah I agree there are people all over the board as far as their interpretations. I have family in healthcare and teaching. I believe most of the mandatory reporters are reasonable and possibly even willing to violate the law as they know the foster system is often even worse than living with even a physically abuse parent, but unfortunately the parent and child come into contact with a LOT of reporters over the year…

Yea. Heard. I get the distrust.

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

#982

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 --…

It's worth remembering that the hippies and related counterculture(s) became a threat to the status quo (most notably through their opposition to the Vietnam War), and that the War on Drugs was in part a way to criminalize that movement to limit its influence. The playbook of "criminalize any counterculture that threatens the status quo" is arguably in continuous use now, preventing any countercultural movement from…

I see it differently. i think the playbook is that the system generates a counterculture to control the opposition narrative. The systems greatest trick as Ted K put it.

Sure, the hippie movement was branded countercultural. But to what purpose? Note that during the period, the US government was engaged in a large scale remaking of America both domestically and internationally. Domestically, we saw the remaking of immigration policies to no longer bias towards those of European descent, and instead towards what favored macro capitalism (the import of cheaper and low skilled labor). Internationally the US was scaling up engagement in hot and cold wars and no longer considering itself bound to the constitutional provisions for war. Lo and behold, during this period, a "counterculture" arises which glorifies drug use, the dissolution of the nuclear family and pushes forward the vapid strain of hyper individualism that we see today. Suddenly the anti-war movement is associated with drug use and degeneracy, whilst the nation's racial consciousness is broken in time to welcome a new wave of immigrants to help improve the margins of big business. Note that the current "woke" counterculture follows the same pattern. Increased individualism, sublimated racial awareness, dissolution of family, and rampant degeneracy. Meanwhile the state continues its hegemonic march of constant international agitation.

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

#983
post #584

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

#984

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

#985

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Yeah, those people are parents that send their kids to catholic school.

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

#986

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>BLM >LGBT >counter culture Endlessly supported by literally every news outlet, major tech company, big 5 sports league, F1000, university, and at least half of the political class. You’re not counter to any major institution, lmao. You’re not the resistance

> BLM > Endlessly supported Black people are still being murdered by police every day in America.

That's happening in spite of BLM being endlessly supported. Doesn't negate the fact that BLM is supported by "literally every news outlet [save Fox News], major tech company, big 5 sports league, F1000, university, and at least half of the political class" AND the US government [0].

[0] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-embassies-authorized-hang...

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

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not monolithic, I've definitely been at "BLM"-y protests against police violence where non-Black victims were mentioned. As far as actual policy changes we might want to advocate for or support, does it make any difference? I guess it would mean that "diversity training" for cops is not the way to go -- I agree and I think most BLM organizers would too (the ones I know anyway do). Instead ways that increase p…

> So it's not monolithic, I've definitely been at "BLM"-y protests against police violence where non-Black victims were mentioned. Yes, I'm generalizing. It's not possible to make meaningful statements about a millions-strong movement that apply universally, so I'm generalizing just like we generalize about "liberals", "conservatives", "progressives", "Trump supporters", etc. And I stand by my generalization--any men…

> Of course, BLM wouldn't have been controversial if the message was merely "police target poor people (who are disproportionately black)"

I'm confused why you think this is "of course"?

I'm confused why you are so caught up in whether the problem is described as "classism in a society where the poor are disproportionately black" or "racism in a society where black people are disproportionately poor."

I think in America you can't actually totally separate racism and classism as completely separate things, they are always related. Slavery, one major part of the beginning of American race relations, was, of course, a class relation -- enslaving people for their labor.

I think one reason non-poor Black people do get targeted by police is because they are perceived ("coded" to use fancy language) as poor, because in America Black is associated with poor. Like not even necessarily that the individual person is assumed to be poor -- although they may be, but it may not be that explicit or conscious. I don't think the police are even necessarily explicit or conscious about the fact that they can behave abusively toward poor people specifically (although they may be sometimes); but implicitly and unconsciously they know that certain kinds of people can be mistreated, that it's even their job to mistreat certain kinds of people -- and they are likely to read a Black person as that certain kind of person.

You can disagree with this analysis. No big deal. I don't understand why it seems to make you so angry that other people have this analysis you disagree with though; or why, if you agree that there is a problem with police brutality and abuse, as you seem to, and even agree with the problem statement "police target poor people (who are disproportionately black)" -- you can't work with people who agree with you so much of the way even though they disagree on some analysis, work together on solutions that make sense to all (like no, not "diversity training" for police, literally nobody I know that's BLM or "abolish the police", and I know a lot of people, think that's useful either) -- instead of considering them somehow on another side. "you" being you personally, or anyone in this category.

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

#988
post #803

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In the past 10 years, capitalism has become a dirty word to people under 30. Whether you agree or not, that feels like it matters.

As a Gen-Xer, I can assure you capitalism was a dirty word for longer than that. But that dislike has thus far had zero apparent effect on the complete domination of capitalism and corporatism over the public sphere. Instead, what we largely see is huge capitalistic corporations draping themselves in an anti-capitalist aesthetic which consumers seem perfectly happy to accept. Every time you go to the store and buy a…

> As a Gen-Xer, I can assure you capitalism was a dirty word for longer than that

In certain circles, but (assuming America) certainly not approaching a majority[1].

> Instead, what we largely see is huge capitalistic corporations draping themselves in an anti-capitalist aesthetic which consumers seem perfectly happy to accept.

I think it's too difficult to avoid this stuff as a consumer. Hell, even farmer's markets are mostly run by big corps now. But from the labor side, I think it's making a difference. Almost no one in their twenties is trying to climb the corporate ladder or put in effort at their big corp jobs. As soon as generations that were bought in to careerism retire, I think things will shift.

[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capita...

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

#989

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it's not monolithic, I've definitely been at "BLM"-y protests against police violence where non-Black victims were mentioned. Yes, I'm generalizing. It's not possible to make meaningful statements about a millions-strong movement that apply universally, so I'm generalizing just like we generalize about "liberals", "conservatives", "progressives", "Trump supporters", etc. And I stand by my generalization--any men…

> Of course, BLM wouldn't have been controversial if the message was merely "police target poor people (who are disproportionately black)" I'm confused why you think this is "of course"? I'm confused why you are so caught up in whether the problem is described as "classism in a society where the poor are disproportionately black" or "racism in a society where black people are disproportionately poor." I think in Amer…

> I'm confused why you are so caught up in whether the problem is described as "classism in a society where the poor are disproportionately black" or "racism in a society where black people are disproportionately poor."

Because those are different problems with different solutions, and picking the wrong set of solutions tends to exacerbate problems (as we're seeing now with soaring crime from which black communities suffer disproportionately).

> I think in America you can't actually totally separate racism and classism as completely separate things, they are always related.

I'm sure there's an element of "black == poor" (brings to mind Biden's "poor kids are just as bright as white kids" gaffe) and in that sense these things are interrelated, but it doesn't follow that we can solve the problem by ignoring what is likely a considerably classism component altogether.

> I don't understand why it seems to make you so angry that other people have this analysis you disagree with though

I think this is entirely in your imagination. I can chuck a few smiley emojis around if it helps? :)

> if you agree that there is a problem with police brutality and abuse, as you seem to, and even agree with the problem statement "police target poor people (who are disproportionately black)" -- you can't work with people who agree with you so much of the way even though they disagree on some analysis, work together on solutions that make sense to all (like no, not "diversity training" for police, literally nobody I know that's BLM or "abolish the police", and I know a lot of people, think that's useful either) -- instead of considering them somehow on another side. "you" being you personally, or anyone in this category.

As is often the case in politics, agreement that there is a problem is not actually very much agreement. 90% of Americans agree that we need police reform (Gallup 2020), that doesn't mean we should pick the proposals offered by the most extreme 10% (proposals which 80% of black Americans reject). Notably, there's a lot of research that indicates that the little bit of de-policing we've done in this country seems to be driving a tremendous amount of additional violent crime. Homicides are up 60-70% since ~2014, amounting to about ten thousand additional lives lost every single year (that's about three 9/11s every single year just in homicides, not to mention all of the "mere" assaults, armed robberies, etc) in order to stop a handful of unjustified police killings. Why would I work with the most extreme 10% who are actively making things worse when there's another 80% of the country that are open to more moderate reforms which can address police brutality without enormous body counts?

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

#990
post #984

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