> The Beatniks gave way to the Hippies who, to their credit, offered an affirmative vision for the world. Many were in it purely for the rebellion of drugs, sex and faux-Eastern spirituality, which is a big reason why the hippie aesthetic was eventually co-opted and commodified just like the Beat aesthetic (so much so that it was subverted by Western governments into an effective tool for turning youth in the Soviet Bloc against Communism).
> But under 20th century secular social democracy, it had gradually been relegated to a minor background role. The teenagers in the suburbs of Bergen, Stockholm and Göteborg faced neither the domineering cultural pressure exerted by Christianity that their American counterparts experienced, nor the firsthand knowledge of trauma inflicted by fascists wielding religion as a weapon that the Latin Americans had. To them the attraction to Satan was fueled purely by bourgeois nihilism – a sort of ennui experienced by all white middle-class youth when they come to realize how low-stakes their lives are. It was in this environment that the first truly reactionary strains of metal manifested.
> [...] geeks are people who forge an identity outside of and in opposition to the dominant monoculture through consumption of products tied to a particular subculture and through this consumption (representative of their dedication) accumulate symbolic capital within that subculture.
But that bit show author’s bias very well. As ex-USSR metal head, visiting West festivals was complete culture shock how different attitude is. Yet the spirit is very similar.
Another good example is hippies in West and USSR at the time. While West hippies were left-leaning, USSR hippies were anti-USSR. Many of them, especially in non-Russian parts of USSR, had quite a bit of nationalistic sentiment too.