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The truth is that today the counter-culture is the right wing dudes (and ladies) who won't be beholden to trigger warnings, won't treat particular words as if t
by mdoms 6y ago
The truth is that today the counter-culture is the right wing dudes (and ladies) who won't be beholden to trigger warnings, won't treat particular words as if they have magical powers and won't try to get you fired if you openly believe that male and female are real concepts. If your cursor is hovering over the downvote button right now then that's natural - counter culture isn't popular. By definition.
- codezero 6y agoThat's a fun and interesting way to look at it, thanks! TBH I think you got downvoted just for mentioning it, I don't think what you said is actually that controversial unless you're making a lot of assumptions about _your_ intent in sharing this, which doesn't seem fair.
- mdoms 6y agoI'm not surprised by the downvotes haha. I never said I agreed with the things I mentioned - I am by no means one of those right wing people - but it's clear which way the cultural winds are blowing today.
- fumar 6y agoWhat side of the counter culture position would you have been while MLK was pushing for reform? Would your line "its clear which way the cultural winds are blowing today" align with the prejudice side? I think so. Do you look back and see that movement as an evolution and betterment for all of mankind or do you see it as "winds were blowing the wrong way"? Change is hard and change requires you to acknowledge your line of thinking, beliefs, ethics, all of it may be out dated or no longer the form. Imagine how folks born at the turn of 1900's felt when MLK was popular.
- mdoms 6y agoI'm not really sure what you're trying to get at here, but I will always side with human rights. I am not American BTW so this little piece of cultural trivia is not especially relevant to me. > Would your line "its clear which way the cultural winds are blowing today" align with the prejudice side? ??
- fumar 6y agoI was trying to make a point, not well, that cultural trends are hard to understand while you are living them.
- quercus 6y agoMy finger was hovering over the upvote button but I think the downvotes were required to validate the comment.
- andrepd 6y agoThat's precisely the irritating image people like that have of themselves, which does not correspond to reality. What does it mean "beholden to trigger warnings"? I'm not sure in which sense you are beholden to something which you likely haven't even encountered outside of internet posts making fun of trigger warnings. What magic words are those? Not saying n*gger in polite company isn't censorship, it's just good manners. And who exactly has been fired for "believing male and female are real concepts"? This is some borderline delusional shit. The "I know I'll be downvoted for this brave opinion" bit is the icing on the cake.
- aidenn0 6y agoWhile I don't think the GP post is correct, counter-culture necessarily has bad manners, because manners are all about cultural norms.
- SyzygistSix 6y agoThis is a ridiculous assertion. That might be true if mainstream culture was polite. But it isn't.
- aidenn0 6y agoIt's unfailingly polite regardless of how cruel it is. Give me an example of a counterculture that was not derided as rude by the mainstream of the time?
- SyzygistSix 6y agoThat is ridiculous. Newscasters are far less polite and far more openly partisan, combative, and opinionated than they use to be. Comments on articles and videos, and in social media, are far less polite than people replying with letters to the press in the past.
- aidenn0 6y agoElon musk argued that calling someone a pedophile was within bounds of polite banter on Twitter and people agreed with him.
- thepasswordis 6y agoYou're absolutely correct. Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the government is left leaning. How on earth could the "counter culture" be the hegemonic culture of the most powerful billionaires on earth, and the people who have the most power over the most people in their daily lives (HR departments for adults, school administrators for children)? The people who you instinctively dislike, and who society counts as something that needs to be corrected are by definition the counter culture. That doesn't necessarily need to be seen as a bad thing, btw. It just means that the hippies basically won and have all of the power now.
- pjc50 6y ago> your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, the government is left leaning .. if you think this, your definition of left leaning is completely broken and your Overton window is in a very strange place.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoLook at California Prop 16 for a concrete example. It was universally supported by left-wing groups, endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce broadly and by many of the state's biggest companies individually, passed the legislature with 75%, but failed at the ballot box with only a touch above 40% in favor. When policies left-wing groups favor are that much more popular among business and government leaders than among the general public, I dunno what to call that other than "left leaning".
- ttyprintk 6y agoI don’t know about that specific legislation. The effect you describe makes me think that business and government are, in fact, right leaning. When left-wing groups agree with right-leaning govt and business, perhaps the general public is a bit wary of bipartisan policies. An argument like: If it’s popular among partisans of both parties, then it must be particularly exploitative of the general public.
- jandrese 6y agoI mean if you can't openly express your dominance and superiority over some other group of people is life even worth living?
- mdoms 6y agoCounter culture should make you uncomfortable. Otherwise what's it counter to? By the way, a lot of people here seem to think that the term "counter culture" has positive connotations. It doesn't, necessarily.
- klyrs 6y agoIn your original comment, and to a lesser extent here, you seem to be saying that counterculture necessarily has negative connotations. I listed some counterexamples in another comment, but take "bronies" for another. Does the notion (grown men obsessing over a kids show) make people uncomfortable? Yeah, kinda... but is that because dominant culture says only girls should like ponies? Or is it because we assume men who like stuff meant for kids are pedophiles? I find both of those viewpoints to be intolerant of diverse expressions of masculinity. Many countercultures are pretty much neutral (LARPing, for example -- which offends only the most religious and closed-minded). But, like the bronies, they make space for folks who fall outside social norms in harmless ways. They make space for diversity of thought and expression -- that is generally seen as a positive thing. Contrast to the rally in Charlottesville, where self-described nazis showed in force. Sure, folks who desire a white ethnostate tick the "diversity of thought and expression" box at a surface level (it certainly is different), but their stated desire is to eradicate (or evict) all other such diversity. So I don't see that particular counterculture as a positive thing.
- helen___keller 6y agoComparing to my comment[0], I think we're seeing a divergence in the meaning of "counter-culture" as either: a. Counter or opposing the dominant culture b. An uncommon or rare culture I argue in [0] that (a) is increasingly likely to be negative as society grows more just. However, as you mention, (b) can include all manner of neutral cultures, which are of course not necessarily negative. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26440512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26440512
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- klyrs 6y agoLARPing with boffer swords is counterculture. Kink is counterculture. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is counterculture. You don't need to brandish a tiki torch to be sufficiently different -- but that's the loudest counterculture, and they're getting all the attention. I know of an ancient forum related to a counterculture intentionally not listed here, and it's ticking along just fine, thankyouverymuch. Of course, there's a difference between "unpopular" and "intentionally or callously offensive". All of my examples are of the former kind (so long as the kink happens in private spaces, I guess). Church of Satan is borderline in my mind, but I suppose that some Christians might put it in the latter category.
- ALittleLight 6y agoI agree those things you mentioned aren't very popular, and possibly where you are the mainstream culture is different than where I am, but I don't see any of those things as counter-culture in the sense that none of them are opposed by the dominant culture. e.g. If it came out at work that you were a member of a group that fought with foam swords, had unusual sexual preferences, or were funny atheists, you wouldn't be fired. People might say "oh, that's weird" but they aren't going to hate you. I'm not saying any of those things are bad (in fact, I like fighting with fake swords) but there's not hostility to them from the culture and they, in turn, are not hostile to the mainstream culture, so I just don't think they're countercultural at all. By definition I think countercultural groups will strike you as weird and bad unless you belong to them specifically. Q-Anon, for example, which speculates that the leaders of society are <bad things>, is a countercultural group because they both hate and oppose elements of the main culture and are hated and opposed by it. The kind of antifa or anarchists who are attempting to burn down courthouses or police stations in Portland are another clear example.
- klyrs 6y agoI think that FSM does satisfy your stricter definition of counterculture. Like the Church of Satan, one of the stated goals is to force legal examination of whether or not "freedom of religion" actually means "freedom to practice Christianity". LARPing and kink also have some opposition by fairly mainstream religious-types. They're seen as counterculture, even if they don't define themselves that way. Sorry. Changing my mind on kink -- that's a really big umbrella. Some people get off on being shamed for whatever it is they're into. Those folk are only satisfied when seen as counterculture.
- bitwize 6y agoNo, that's not the counterculture. Those are just bigots butthurt by the fact that society is starting to enforce norms of human decency which the counterculture has promoted through example for decades. Meanwhile a child who stands up for trans people is being censored. As in, actual censorship, by the government: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/cancel-culture-censorship-1137782/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/canc...
- NotChina 6y agoSame words were said in the 70s and 80s of non-christian/conservatives. They were absolutely adamant about their "norms" as the standard.
- bitwize 6y agoThe difference is that our norms promote an expansive view of human rights, both in terms of what counts as a "right" and who counts as "human". The conservative Christian norms... did not.
- Alenycus 6y agoFreedom of speech, religion, conscious and the right to bear arms are all vigorously opposed by the modern left. I cna also think of a group of people who the right fight for who the left don't even consider people.
- throwitaway1235 6y agoLGBTQ+ are establishment identities. Being straight with a nuclear family is counter culture. In 2021 Rolling Stone magazine is the epitome of establishment culture media.
- danbolt 6y agoReally? Most people I know are straight and in nuclear families.
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- astrea 6y agoAh yes, the playground bully martyr defense: "Anyone who disagrees with me is just proving my point."
- heavyset_go 6y agoThe bog standard opinions of CPAC, a recent President, nearly every straight-laced conservative, and the majority of Republicans aren't counterculture, they're just grievance culture. There are some grievances they like to complain about, but it is still part of mainstream, popular culture to do so, and plenty of people have ridden to fame and fortune repeating those grievances to mainstream audiences.
- pointer_pointer 6y agoThis comment is exactly on point. Hippies were counter-culture against their 'square' parents. Now 4channers are (extreme) right-wing against liberal boomers and reddit millenials. They really are the new punks and as punks did, will litter their posts with nazi references and imagery to scare-off 'normies'.
- echlebek 6y agoThis self-indulgent rhetoric is so tiresome, and its aims are so blatantly transparent.
- dariosalvi78 6y agofunny to see how the term "counter culture" went from being associated to communists/anarchists to being associated to conservatives or even fascists.
- krapp 6y agoWhen your "counter-culture" comprises the ideology of half of your country, is based on a traditional religious and cultural status quo, and is the doctrine one of your two political parties, it is not in any conceivable way counter-culture. It is simply the death-throes of the establishment desperately trying to maintain its credibility and relevance in the face of changing demographics.
- SyzygistSix 6y agoNo it isn't. (Sub)cultures are not the same thing as countercultures. Right wing vs. left wing is the same as choosing between Coke and Pepsi. There is no way to get to a modern counterculture when the focus is on Identity and Individual Consumer Choice.