The key here is the counter culture starts and ends in your heart. Get out and break out of the matrix.

Half of Americans don't have that in their account.

Counterculture has nothing to do with either.

Your examples of counter culture are alternative lifestyles.

The author (Kirk Thaker) and his cited author (Ted Gioia) were talking about media and entertainment content. Basically, the "long-tail" of obscure/experimental content not being widely exposed and whatever content they do see all looks the same to them.

Those are orthogonal areas of counter culture. E.g. You have a digital nomad living 100% in a camping RV ... but watches the same popular Netflix shows as everybody else. Or, you have the person that ignores popular sports and tv shows and only reads obscure Japanese comics... but works at a conventional 9-to-5 office job.

Your examples do show that we are (thankfully) not a monoculture. But they place themselves outside of our culture, instead trying to influence.

A good example of counter culture is BLM, Extinction Rebellion or Occupy Wallstreet.

Only thing: those are movements, not cultures. And they are, IMHO, generally ephemeral.

I think some of my examples do try to change wider society, but it is just more subtle and less overt/wholesale. I think there will be activists/evangelicals in any sub-culture.

Counterculture may or may not be explicitly political. It typically involves criticism or rejection of currently powerful institutions, with accompanying hope for a better life or a new society.

But if I'm completely besides the mark, apologies

This might sound quaint to some critical ears of the US, but that is the basis of the law and US systems. The US citizens only need to be reminded of this fact and decide whether they want to reinforce that fact with their personal choices - nonviolent protest, voting, etc.

Edit-That might not seem related to the definition of counterculture, but it absolutely is. The US has a culture of multiculturalism. It has the Amish and lets them largely have their culture within the larger culture. There are many such examples with gradients all over and within the US. Sure, sometimes some of those subcultures get political and exert themselves. But they do it within the peaceful political system as a strong trend.

>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

This is an important element of "cool", which is essentially the ebb-and-flow of ideas between counterculture and mainstream culture.

I can’t think of a way that BLM was ever counter-cultural.

Fighting the police is about as counter as you can get.

Counterculture is a like a good stock tip - if you're hearing about it, that ship has already sailed.

It was the polished, highly educated, upper-middle class version of the activists that sprang up around the Ferguson protests. BLM was the mainstream corporate replacement of a street level movement, whose leaders acquired a habit of being found executed in the trunks of burned cars. A rehearsal for #TimesUp.

And FWIW, lots of big companies have DEI departments that preach this stuff internally and market it externally (my wife is a marketing consultant with these big companies and they eat this shit up so much that their contracts are dependent on proving their commitment to DEI by centering their “diverse” employees, holding internal and external DEI ceremonies, etc). I’m sure there’s still a profit motive, but there’s quite a lot more than an annual profile photo update.

Of course it did not. The flower children, the back-to-the-landers, the bikers, the free love communers all remained a tiny slice of the population (and a shrinking one by that time).

What the late 60s/early 70s US counterculture had going for it was a kind of credibility as "the new thing". It was not "the culture" (and it never really became it without mutating heavily), but it was interesting to many people who did not participate in it. It remained a counter-culture until it had changed so radically (and this was years after Coco-Cola first tried to ride the hippy chic train), and then, indeed, it was no longer subversive in any meaningful way.

As actor Peter Coyote noted of that era, that particular counterculture won the culture war in the long term - you can find yoga classes and wholewheat bread in almost every small town in the USA now, our attitudes towards sexuality and the environment and women and racism have been fundamentally altered - but it lost almost every political battle that it was concerned with. Wars continued, economic inequality, corporate control, the military-industrial complex ... all continued unabated.

Surely you understand that Coca-Cola wasn't "the entire establishment"?

Were Gramsci alive in the 80s, he would be like "See? See? This is EXACTLY what I was talking about!"

It's just like the way that the 90s mainstream culture in the UK was not based on punks ... not because absolutely no punks "crossed over", but because, as a percentage of the population, there were hardly any punks to start with (just a lot of media noise).

As Coyote's observations note, this can work for "culture" issues, which do indeed tend to be the result of individual choices about consumption, but it rarely works for issues rooted in the distribution of political and economic power. These require political movements demanding change from the mainstream.

Meh. "really supporting it" or "poseur supporting it" is irrelevant, what's relevant is that it's mainstream, not counter[1] to mainstream.

[1] That's what the "counter" in counterculture means, dammit.

On the other hand every Christmas/Easter thing happening at your local supermarket - it's not support, just seasonal reason to get more money.

Capitalists have co-opted the least disruptive demands of advocates in an attempt to draw attention away from the actual point. They think if they focus on saying words and not doing deeds, people will move on and forget.

They do. One of the most successful directors of all time built his career telling stories about faking low cultural status.

Perhaps that’s too abstract. But if people don’t fake low culture, then what is Hillbilly Elegy?

The very opposite.

It seems hard to argue that there haven’t been disruptive changes considering violent crime levels (esp homicides), but I fully agree that “capitalists” (or maybe corporatists?) embraced BLM and other identity stuff because it’s a convenient distraction from substantial policy issues. A lot of folks made themselves into “useful idiots” over the last decade.

[citation needed]

> consequentially violent crime is way, way up.

You're claiming that the US, unlike the rest of the civilized world, can't address crime without having death squads summarily execute people for trivial or imagined offences every other week?

Sure thing: "An event study design finds census places with early BLM protests experienced a 10% to 15% decrease in police homicides from 2014 through 2019, around 200 fewer deaths." - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3767097

> You're claiming that the US, unlike the rest of the civilized world, can't address crime without having death squads summarily execute people for trivial or imagined offences every other week?

The US obviously doesn't have "death squads" who "summarily execute people every other week". Lol I can't imagine asking for a citation about police killings and then tossing this claim out there.

I'd also contest whether activists really got much of what they were asking for. They generally weren't asking for simply no-police. Rather they were asking for issues like poverty, mental illness, and homelessness to be addressed rather than just being policed.

> Rather they were asking for issues like poverty, mental illness, and homelessness to be addressed rather than just being policed.

I’m sure some were asking for those things, but mostly this was a media retcon when it was becoming apparent that “abolish the police” was jeopardizing Biden’s election campaign (“when protesters say ‘abolish the police’ and ‘all cops are bastards’, surely they’re really advocating for more spending on social services, right?”).

Protesters wanted to re-allocate resources away from the police towards other services, so that cops are not the first responders to every situation, they often wanted fewer police with more training.

Crime goes up as a result of the material conditions of people. The more unequal society is, the more poor and desperate people get, the higher crime is going to be. Acting like it's merely a function of enforcement is silly.

Richard Rosenfeld speaking to The Guardian: “The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson Effect”

Vox reporting on Travis Campbell’s research: “Campbell’s research indicates that these protests correlate with a 10% increase in murders in the areas that saw BLM protests”.

Harvard’s Roland Fryer and Tanaya Devi found that prominent BLM protests were associated with 900 excess homicides in the 5 cities they examined and 34k excess felonies. They report that the leading hypothesis is a change in policing activity, and the cities they studied had precipitous drops in the quantity of police-civilian interactions following the protests.

These are professional criminologists and economists—I doubt they’re being “silly” as you suggest.

The solution is obvious. Start rolling heads of Police Chiefs until they get their hierarchies of people in line. If it ends with the entire police union fired so be it, insubordinate lawless police are worse than useless.

Black people are still being murdered by police every day in America.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...

But if you do any real analysis on the subject, you’re racist, right? Maybe burning down another city will help?

As if they say anything about the rural parts of this country, like my hometown, half an hour from where Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/us/jarrett-hobbs-camden-count...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507322/Georgia-dep...

The "but black people are more likely to be violent criminals" rebuttal is a despicable one, and if you can't see the absence of causal links that you're deliberately hopping over in an attempt to shoehorn that in, then I doubt I'm going to make you see it in a HN comment. That said, I sure hope you don't ever correct someone on "causation vs correlation", as you'd be a tremendous hypocrite.

Notably, we can correctly observe that black people commit more violent crimes per capita than other races without implying any of the following:

1. black people are biologically disposed to crime

2. a significant percentage of black people are criminals

3. any given black person significantly more likely to be a criminal than any given non-black person

I definitely think your decision to pick your battles more carefully is the right one, and I encourage you to be even more judicious.

Maybe take some time to compose yourself, scan the HN guidelines, etc before commenting?

Enjoy your day, Literal Statistician. :)

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 police accountability or limit police interactions are the way to go, which I again think would be agreeable.

I think the level of violence and aggression that police enact on certain communities would probably not be tolerated if it affected people with more political power -- they target people with less political power, which has racial components in the USA is why race matters, but is not exclusively "black and white", sure.

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 mention of white victims of police violence was an aberration, an outlier.

> I think the level of violence and aggression that police enact on certain communities would probably not be tolerated if it affected people with more political power -- they target people with less political power, which has racial components in the USA is why race matters, but is not exclusively "black and white", sure.

I mean, I think virtually everyone agrees that police killings are classist. Of course, BLM wouldn't have been controversial if the message was merely "police target poor people (who are disproportionately black)". Something like 90% of Americans in 2020 (per Gallup or Pew--I forget which--but think about how big this number is particularly in light of the polarization of American politics) agreed that police brutality was a problem and police reform was needed--this was extremely uncontroversial. But the claim wasn't "classism", it was "racism"--police target ("hunt" was even commonly invoked) black Americans because of their race.

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, 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, you can't work with people who agree with you while having this analysis, on solutions that make sense to all, instead of considering them somehow on another side. "you" being you personally, or anyone in this category.

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?

“In essence, this is equivalent to analyzing labor market discrimination on a set of firms willing to supply a researcher with their Human Resources data!”

True perhaps, but very misleading. Consider that blacks are far more likely to end up in jail (and for longer) for the same crime a white person commits. Consider that ending up in jail and with a criminal record puts someone in a situation where they're more likely to commit crimes in the future. Sounds to me like racial bias is creating a higher likelihood of the police encounters that may result in shootings occurring.

https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-d... https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/racial-disparity-us... https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2019...

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

The Tyre Nichols incident response shows some improvements, but those responsible have not yet been charged, and because US police are so fragmented it will be a very long time before standards are raised nationally.

Which (snarkily) I guess is fair.

It’s on flags at schools, supported by government, roads are named after it, they have an enormous foundation with staff, and it’s even in college course curriculum

We've had pictures of MLK in schools, Civil Rights has been "supported by government", roads were named after people, there were and are enormous foundations with staff, and it's definitely in college curriculums - and it's been that way for an entire human lifetime...

...and yet the same fight is being fought again.

I'd figure if something achieved "mainstream", it wouldn't have to happen again and again.

Colour-blind antiracism, preparing for global warming instead of pushing green deal & capitalism are countercultures now.

The AP even has it on tests for college credit

Until then, if police forces are upholding a mainstream concept of law and order resulting in said disproportionality, BLM is countercultural.

Otherwise, if acknowledging the aims of basically what's a human rights movement via flags and spots on AP tests constitutes inclusion into mainstream culture, then the mainstream culture is absurd and perverse.

Just because something occurs does not mean there is no mainstream opposition.

I would go further and say that the most basic elements of the BLM were never countercultural.

opposition to excessive police force has been mainstream since the 70s-80s.

The only part of BLM that is actually controversial and countercultural is the idea of abolishing the police. As a result, the majority of BLM supporters reject this aspect.

And while hedonism may be a side-effect in some situations, even that comes from eschewing the standards of wider society. I'd argue that is the definition of counter-culture.

But at the same time gay marriages and civil unions are both illegal. Adoption for gay couples is illegal too. Even if they are performed abroad. The state still treat gay couples as if they were roommates or something.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/15/about-six-i...

In many states support is around ~50%. So opposition to same sex marriage isn't a fringe opinion in a lot of places in the USA. Even in liberal California 33% still don't support it.

The states where a majority are still opposed are all states nobody wants to live in for a variety of reasons including poor educational standards and lack of economic development.

There might be some relations between these facts. Maybe not. But it is interesting, isn't it? That those are the places where these opinions stick around the longest?

Hell most of them won’t even acknowledge Christmas anymore.

The remainder are not inherently more hedonistic than being straight.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33267641 (Oct 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30880209 (April 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349726 (Dec 2020)

I'd say today's counter culture is people eschewing corporate life, sort of like it was before corporate culture took over.

The real counterculture is showing up to work and feeding your kids

Take a look at Twitter on pride month, even Raytheon changes their logo to a rainbow version. That stuff is so mainstream it hurts. It's a counterculture in Saudi Arabia where the logos don't change and they throw gay people off of buildings, but in the US/Europe it's part of the dominant culture.

Primary culture loves to pull from counterculture after the morsel has been thoroughly sanitized and monetized.

A counterculture isn't defined by whether or not it's considered cool, but by whether or not it is actively participated in and shared among the majority of people. Queer identities may have a lot of public support (and even that's debatable), but queerness is not part of most people's lives. Western societies are still cis- and heteronormative. Queer culture is an other, not the mainstream.

You make it sound like a bad thing. I'm happy we don't throw people off buildings as often.

People lie about anything they can get away with.

When only one side of the story is being heard, people claiming victimhood because of a singular external issue are almost always grossly misrepresenting the situation.

See also: "I got fired because my boss / my car / my dog / etc."

> It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them.

The idea that deceiving someone into having sex with you is considered "shocking" and not "rape" astounds me. You can't induce arousal in someone, lure them into a position of vulnerability and spring surprises on them in the dark-- unless you're trying to become a martyr and add to the body count.

We already had to outlaw "pozzing" since the gays couldn't be bothered to disclose minor things like positive HIV status to unsuspecting partners. Now we're supposed to be cool with "stealthing"/"surprise sex" from the trans? It seems there is a pathological dishonesty at play here.

The laws should be changed-- LGBTs should be held more accountable for deceiving others. Murder has never been an acceptable response to fraud, so that needs to change too. This is not an example of sympathetic behavior on either side. I don't understand why you even brought it up.

I think if you didn't know what a legal thing was, you could've googled it, instead of making up some crazy hypothetical. Sorry, I'm dipping from this convo.

And you think weapon manufacturers are sincerely concerned about discrimination and human rights in general?

Mainstream culture has been co-opting countercultures since decades. There are even words like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing.

Music genres like punk, rock, rap etc have been watered down in the same way. And many other things.

That's the opposite of going mainstream.

Then greenwhashing is real ecology?

“Trads”. Young people with super traditional values doing exactly the opposite of most of what you just listed.

No one would seriously suggest the trendiest most mainstream supported or glorified lifestyles (van life, queerness, gig work) are counter culture…that IS the culture; there’s very little cultural risk in living those glorified identities.

But say you’re an 18 year old with radically traditional values…that’s counter cultural now.

Not supporting either direction. Just observing.

Another point on trads being a counter culture: You can tell a counterculture is real by the presence of posers and wannabes. Trad culture has this too. Ex: men who hide behind marble statue pfps and are actually single dudes living in a big city.

Tradcath: traditional lifestyle Catholics

Trad homeschoolers: arguably some of the most steadfast and longest holding countercultures. They literally have children and raise them opposite or tangential to the current culture norms.

Trad Christian theonomist: complimentarian views on marriage, anti secular government, often homesteaders.

Trad chads: men pursuing lives of purity at any social cost. Staunchly opposed to todays hookup culture and LGBT influences.

I see this becoming the norm in the future. Hook up culture is simply too dangerous (for both men and women) to be sustainable long term. It's a cultural hangover from the days of "free love" that simply does not map to the modern world anymore.

If you say you support traditional values, you immediately get insulted as an “incel” or similar.

TC would be different in that the premise is opposite, that they're pursuing heterosexual monogamy and are voluntarily foregoing a life of sexual promiscuity in light of that pursuit. This group highly values the person they're pursuing and places a high degree of respect on the opposite gender.

It's literally in the name: involuntary celibate

I've always taken issue with that term. Any guy who bathes, doesn't say mean things, tries to make himself more attractive, doesn't consider a woman unattractive because she isn't an 8+, and learns to strike up a conversation with the opposite sex will find someone sooner or later.

I don't know much about them, but people presented as incels generally seem unwilling to put much effort into any of that. If I had sat at home all day, played video games and really let myself go, does that make it involuntary or just lazy?

Originally it was a label they chose for themselves because they couldn't figure out why they kept getting rejected. It was only later outsiders caught on, then turned it into an insult. Beyond that I also don't know very much.

And if he doesn't, clearly it must be because he isn't trying hard enough amirite?

There are plenty of guys out there who listen to what they're being told (which is hard, because there's a lot of contradictions), try as hard as they can, and yet can't find anyone.

Maybe I just need to stop taking public transportation and walking the city. Perhaps suburbs feel further from the precipice.

Like I see that America is in decline and has a decent chance of falling apart in my lifetime (I'm 34), but what exactly am I going to do about it? Nobody in charge cares, they're too busy fiddling. If you can't stop the decline and have to live it, why not try to enjoy what you have while you have it?

However, my daily commutes through seattle runs me right into the Pioneer square station and I swear it’s like something from “the Wire”. It feels like hamsterdam, a hell on earth. So while I generally resolve to do whats best for myself I still run into the effects of the society I live in everyday and it’s depressing/demoralizing. This city is diseased with an aggressive malignancy.

The thing that's interesting about this is that human beings in acute distress are less adept at planning ahead and being creative. Which means that people in the doom cycle can't start building new institutions to challenge the old ones that are decaying and pillaging. The perverse incentives that got us to this point are also disincentivizing fixing the problems.

I don't even want to think about what Pioneer Square is like now. It was sketchy when I lived in Seattle and that was 10 years ago. I agree that even with some healthy distance/putting on your own oxygen mask first, it's very demoralizing. My trust in people is much lower than it used to be.

I'm not sure rural or suburban areas are much better. Most of the malignancy just happens in private.

The area around Pioneer square is all boarded up now, even the court house! During the summer/fall it was much worse with indigent drug use and florid psychotics but now that it's cold and wet there's less. The station is still used as a toilet though.

Funny enough the stairs at exit A in Pioneer Square have inscribed on them as you walk up "Why are you not afraid?". And I always say to myself, "I fuckin am!"

Seattle needs some chemotherapy but that would require its citizens to recognize they have a disease and actually seek treatment. Instead they put on their airpods and stare at their phones and completely live in a parallel reality.

I was part of this so-called doomerism group when I worked in a more traditional 9-5 job in IT about 8-10 years ago. Now I'm solidly in the homesteader/freelancer/homeschooler counterculture.

Maybe there's a natural progression where you begin to question your life/the system/who you're serving and then you do something about it. I'm sure many people get stuck and never make that transition because of the perceived risk in doing so.

It says more about how we view the past than how the present is: we remember only the glorious good times, and forget nobody could read 200 years ago, or nobody could eat 400 years ago. They all said they were in decline, the values of their grandfathers diluted by a constant change.

But while I sit on my toilets, on the 44th floor of my hyper tower, writing to americans in a language nobody in my ascending family can speak, before tucking my trilingual kid to bed, well, I think the decline isn't so bad, if you zoom out a few decades.

Here’s a random example:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nj3z7ieVrCcgyQkq6myNZ.jpg

Doesn’t look like decline to me. I could cite dozens more examples and not just around technology.

Russia is a good example of a nation in decline: hemorrhaging young people, horrible corruption, cynicism, delusional leaders, and the use of imperial war and dramatic ideology to try to paper over it all.

We do have a lot of dumb problems like a homelessness epidemic that are due more to lack of political will than inability to fix them.

Some are also due to the high priority we place on individual freedom. We’d rather have freedom from detention and to move about than round up the homeless and force them into institutions. We’d rather have shootings than remove the individual right to bear arms. We’d rather have strong property rights than eminent domain people to build infrastructure. Etc.

Hardly "random".

> hemorrhaging young people, horrible corruption, cynicism, delusional leaders, and the use of imperial war and dramatic ideology to try to paper over it all.

So which of those is missing from the US? I see fewer and fewer young people, the corruption may not be at the level of handing over banknotes but the distrust is just as real, and everything else on your list is much th esame.

I can only speak to the American (and somewhat the Canadian) situation. I don't know what on the ground sentiment looks like in France or Hong Kong.

Democracy does work. People do make a difference every day. Don’t let the internet get you down.

Public policy discussions that start with the assumption that the only possible solution is for the federal/state/county/local government to dictate policies from above are almost always non-starters for me. The higher up in the hierarchy the more evidence I need to support a solution at that level.

I'm not absolutist on this matter, there are concerns that are best addressed at all those various levels but I prefer to get there through bottom-up policy experimentation and iteration rather than top-down diktats. There are also ample lessons from history about the dangers of expansive government powers.

Absolutely agree.

The fact that GP thinks LGBTQIA+#[}! nonsense & freelancing is counter culture is laughable.

Come on, do we need this here?

There's an even worse comment, IMO, in this thread that's near the top voted response to the Trad Counter Culture nonsense.

Specifically I think the counter-cultural part in terms of the rise of like...young trad Catholics/religious people is the idea of not partaking in the world. Our current attention economy spends a lot of time trying to get people (including adolescents) to spend their time watching/consuming/interacting, be constantly available, etc. The idea that you don't have to participate is the counter-cultural part.

Warren Buffet can't have a side gig running scrap in an unregistered truck with a Newport hanging out of his mouth.

Several US states are trying to make it illegal to be trans or even dress in a gender nonconfirming way. Queerness still carries a certain amount of real, physical risk; Norway Pride 2022 was cancelled because somebody shot up a gay bar and murdered two people.

I nominate being an unapologetic white male as the counter culture of our current time. Just watch how many downvotes you'll get on any social media platform for having this position.

There’s routine cases of institutional actors like teachers and their unions trying to groom kids into being “trans”, without talking to the parents.

Counter culture is saying that you’re not allowed to do that — eg, that drag queen story time is a bad idea.

That's not happening except in the fevered minds of the far-right. Get a grip.

It's nothing but a moral panic we've seen again and again (in the 60s hippies, 70s punks, 80s goths and Satanists, then gay people, now furries and trans people - all coming for your kids)

Meanwhile we endlessly discover Catholics, Southern Baptists and other sects have actually systemically covered up child abuse by their leaders across the US. But you don't see anyone warning you against bringing your kid to church.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Can you cite more than one example when and where this has happened?

https://mobile.twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1618271512158...

And that's just within the past two weeks.

There are a great many subcultures that would like legal boundaries shifted, and when they care enough they become interest groups participating in the democratic process.

Even the blandest bland blandy that ever blanded is not going to agree with all the laws and societal boundaries being set exactly the way they are. Either that means there's no such thing as a mainstream culture, or we have to understand noisy clashes between subcultures don't make one or the other a counter culture.

I think the way we're discussing that something obviously SUBculture is being confused for a COUNTERculture is an argument in OPs favor that we don't have much (highly visible) counterculture right now.

A counterculture is in the face of the mainstream culture, trying to change the cult. It is countering the mainstream. It is activist or, at the least, unabashed with the intention of normalization.

white men have to apologize for the color that they were born?

Being an unapologetic white male would imply that you felt like you could give your opinion freely without having someone immediately attack it as invalid because of your race and gender.

But I guarantee that every time a term like this gets used, the replies will imply that anyone identifying as an unapologetic white male is in fact racist.

It's a great demonstration of how the counter culture has in fact become culture. Anybody who really doubts this probably doesn't have kids or spend much time around younger adults.

The 30 under 30 sure doesn't look like what you suggest, and I'm not sure where else you'd look for a list of examples

So if you get downvotes, it may be because you made a bad argument, not just because you come off as having an axe to grind.

In fact, I do lump them onto one group. Many subgroups inside a group. You know who I am referring to when I say queer culture. The group exists, it isn't false. Colors keep getting added to the flag. Rather than engage with reality you prefer to have useless rhetorical debates. Let's move past that.

>Second, you assert that being in the overwhelmingly dominant racial group, the overwhelmingly dominant sexual orientation and the undeniably dominant gender should somehow be interpreted at "counterculture" even though the group that fits that definition is numerically larger, wealthier, and politically empowered than any other group.

Culture is often not aligned with majority opinions, majority positions or majority orientations. The culture of the 60s was hippies. Most people were not hippies. Your premise is false here that culture is the same as majority, or political empowerment.

I welcome a more honest response.

In fact, many queer people force themselves out of the community by living within the norm to feel more acceptance from the majority (counter-counter culture).

Your perception is also obviously very specific to where you live on this planet.

The same thing goes for anything that could be described as "queer culture". Plenty of queer people have, and want, nothing to do with the groups and spaces that present themselves as "the community".

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. Low 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.

The (US) culture of the 60s was nuclear families, medium haircuts, fitted suits, and the Space Race.

The counterculture was hippies, mop-topped youngsters, and civil rights activists.

Your closing line is laughable.

There is no "mainstream" culture anymore to counter. Everyone is living in their own little cultural bubble that they believe to be a counterculture to a non-existent mainstream culture.

The hysterical thing is the OP said what they said exactly because everyone knows someone would respond with your exact rhetorical devices like an automaton or a bot.

Pretty sure one of the canonized characteristics of post-modernity (or the post-cold war era if you dont like pretentious art terms) is pluralism.

This spicy thread seems to reinforce the feeling that the dominant culture has (and maybe always was) some horrifying unknowable ever-changing organic mass of competing counter-cultures.

Paraphrasing some dead social philosopher, history and cultures aren't bedtime stories or cartoon characters and we create dangerous false narratives, policies and hierarchies when we indulge the impulse to reduce them into these.

Obviously cultural norms change over time, and many ideas that were once fringe are now mainstream. But that doesn't mean that the majority white, straight, Christian(ish) majority in America doesn't still wield most of the power.

yeah, except for finance, media, academia and politics. I do agree that straight white christian(ish) males do wield the most power in the other intuitions that matter (thought I'm drawing a blank on which those might be).

But those are dominated by straight white men. A simple demographic survey of Congress and org executives will show that. What are you talking about?

To people even know that the US ethnic group with highest average income is Indian Americans?

Because there is no one majority group. The only way you get a majority group is by drawing dumb lines around non-adjacent cultural groups because they happen to be of the same economic means or vote the same way.

The WASPy power structure is still dominant in the corporate landscape and disproportionately high in the political one. But it has been losing ground on the cultural front for a while now.

There's a reason WASPy individuals complain about "the culture war" - it's the one they are losing. The slogan, "get woke, go broke" suggests they have started losing ground on the corporate front as well.

Great explanation. Very proper. Much explanation. Thanks for the example /s

Arguments you cant argue against are not a “dishonest script” what does that even mean? Just give an example of what you say Republicans do a good job of.

For the benefit of other readers though, I'll bite.

For instance, former congressman for Iowa Steve King tweeting about slavery [0] is pretty explicit. How about the slightly more abstruse but still pretty glaring white supremacist dog whistle [1] in response to a random Dutch guy complaining about muslims. He was in congress 2003-2021.

Of course Great Replacement rhetoric is also pushed pretty openly to rally white voters, with Tucker Carlson saying things like "demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions", and congresswoman for New York Elise Stefanik running ads saying "[Democrats'] plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington".

Do you accept these examples or do you need the GOP leadership to issue a letter signed by all party members stating they like white people?

[0] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1612505990305308672?s... [1] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1614259933469462528?s...

Because why do they have to dog whistle about it? Why do they have to resort to subtlety at all?

It's forbidden from public discourse to such an extent that can only be found between the lines, hidden in vague allusions, or more likely, asserted as baseless accusations slandering conservative politicians, while the GOP explicitly tries everything it can to promote their non-white figures.

They try to promote their non-white figures because their agenda and campaigning for the most part is so overwhelmingly targeted toward white voters that they have horrible reach into other demographics.

This is like the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter debacle. Minorities are brought into the spotlight because there are systems and large groups of people actively working against them. Meanwhile, you don't need to "promote" whiteness, because that's seen as the default in America.

But why? If this is really the majority sentiment, why on earth leave any room for plausible deniability?

> their agenda and campaigning for the most part is so overwhelmingly targeted toward white voters that they have horrible reach into other demographics.

Not really, though. Voting levels are low enough that they could conceivably focus their energies simply on getting more non-voting whites to vote.

If you read the comment you're replying to, it answers that question immediately.

> Not really, though. Voting levels are low enough that they could conceivably focus their energies simply on getting more non-voting whites to vote.

They could, but their agenda fits white people better, for reasons that are evident to anyone with critical thinking skills. Hint: think about the dog-whistling some more.

Culture is what's uncontroversially and fearlessly blasted on front pages, and on mainstream TV.

> They could, but their agenda fits white people better, for reasons that are evident to anyone with critical thinking skills.

Evidently the millions of non-white Republicans, and the millions of white Democrats, all lack these critical thinking skills, then.

> Culture is what's uncontroversially and fearlessly blasted on front pages, and on mainstream TV.

My comments on dog-whistling were specifically targeted toward the one commenter talking about how politicians don't seem to care about white people.

If you want to go back to the broader discussion, on culture, then yes I agree. And what is blasted on front pages and mainstream TV is overwhelmingly white, with tiny pockets dedicated to other groups. To say that "whiteness" is a counterculture is absurd.

As an aside:

> the millions of white Democrats

The Democrat agenda also fits white people better than non-white people, though they make more effort than Republicans to acknowledge minorities.

As for why non-white Republicans vote that way, maybe they miss the dog-whistles, or maybe they think the racism of the party isn't directed at them (e.g., since they're "one of the good ones") or that it's outweighed by other factors (i.e., they hate taxes), or maybe they think the Republicans are the better of two evils. Not really relevant, since they aren't in this discussion. Do you have the critical thinking skills?

Are you saying that stupid people "think" it's the same, which is why they exhibit poor behavior?

Anybody could be in power at any given time. If your argument for why your group should be in power depends on who is currently in power then it isn’t valid because it stops being true as soon as you win. No idea what you are saying about stupid people.

> my argument [“Advocating for those in power”] has nothing to do with who should be in power

Saying what kinds of arguments are acceptable in support of the group in power has a lot to do with who should be in power.

Parent comment was stating that people who support the minority are using the same fallacious reasoning those who support the majority do and that is not true.

In the event the power changes, the people who supported the previous majority class might be the same or use the same reasoning but that has nothing to do with how both groups reason separately.

As an example, imagine it's The Great Depression, The Majority would say something like "Wow I really wish we had more food, I'm going to vote for this candidate who says that we'll get more food". In this instance the Majority is not tied to the ruling class, do you see how implying everyone is knee-jerk reacting is misleading?

Whites are nowhere close to being the wealthiest group in the US.

And yet, it's remarkably unpopular to announce the simple truism that "white lives matter", or that "it's ok to be white", and our top universities interrogate "whiteness" as problematic, so evidently much further nuance is required between numerical size and cultural sway.

I think there's a valid point lurking there, but you botched it. Surely you appreciate that multiple things can be true at the same time, and there are numerous ways that white men have advantages still.

Why is it okay for one side to be angry, but not the other? This is such a commonly used accusation to deflate someone else's point. Making them seem emotional, and therefore illogical.

FWIW, I don't think the person you're replying to looks even a little bit angry in that post. The point of view seems well considered.

If you think he sounds neutral, unaffected, rational, I wonder if it's just that you already agree with him.

It's also pretty absurd on its face to believe the straight white male is persecuted. I don't believe you need me to refute it.

Oh come on, that is not their main goal. Its all a scam to cover up things like unchecked military spending/war, unchecked government corruption at the corporate level among many other things.

There is a reason why this meme continues to float around the web.

[1]:https://i.imgur.com/dmzLLKe.png

Letting the trads speak a bit more might shock us just as much as the past minorities shocked our forefathers, but look where are: we evolved have't we ? Maybe we can ditch some dictat we imposed on ourselves in our chase for ever deeper reactionary counter-traditionalism.

All evidence points towards LGBTQ always existing but just becoming more open.

Trads being Counter Culture? That's the same double speak that gets us Citizens United and Right to Work. Where did these trads get their radically traditional values? From the majority.

This is only because Catholics and Christians often don’t mention when workplace behaviors make them uncomfortable. I’ve been in multiple situations where coworkers have used names of God as expletives or made jokes about things I consider holy.

And if you’re a Catholic and “trad” and planning lunch with colleagues, things like “is it Friday” or “is it a Friday in Lent” would affect others (except that, today, there’s a lot of vegetarian options for independent reasons).

So, in fact, some people will have to do something different to include me in some of their activities.

The other fun one is if you actually try and pray the hours and ask the same accommodations your Muslim colleagues receive so you can pray the office.

You are not made unsafe because I said the fuck word...

If not, then this is pointlessly hyperbolic.

Same as you would have been discriminated against for being trans, gay, or black 30 years ago.

Having worked in the Bay for ~9 years I never met anyone that cared what religion a fellow employee was. So if we're just running off anecdotes and impressions, there's mine.

"However, Cheatham said she doesn’t think this means Christians ― particularly conservative Christians ― are being persecuted for their beliefs."

That is a poor basis for believing widespread, asymmetrical, discrimination is happening. I would honestly take an anecdote over that.

Oh, sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. The point I was trying to make was not that it doesn't exist, but that it's not widespread and not significant enough to worry about. It exists, but I don't believe being Christian today is like being gay or black in 1990. You're more likely to be discriminated against for your height than your religion at this point.

What's worse? Not getting a job or getting murdered?

Not trying to minimize the discrimination of the religious but can't you see why most would try to minimize discrimination against a class who has a history of discriminating? Additionally, the severity is not comparable. Maybe if we were in the Crusades things would be different...do you see what I'm saying?

That doesn't mean anything. Discrimination is a matter of degree. Everyone gets discriminated against pretty often to lesser degrees. If you tell me about your horoscope I'll roll my eyes and probably not want to hang out with you very much because of your spiritual beliefs.

Are people refusing to sell you good and services? Calling you names? Throwing bricks through your windows?

Is it putting more of a damper on you living a happy life than the occasional moment of discomfort because someone thinks something you think is dumb? People think lots of my beliefs are dumb, and that's fine, as long as I can go about my day.

> Announcing that your are LGBTQ is the quickest way to advance in the company and receive accolades.

First, I doubt a gay new hire can reach C suite with nothing but a couple of rainbows and dildos for qualifications.

Second, office politics are crappy, but you either cope or move on, with maybe a lawsuit if you have a legal leg to stand on.

Where do you live?

Yes in very progressive environments you will get more support for announcing the later but that's because being in the later group is actually a challenge while religion has built up a reputation for maligning groups of people for things out of their control and for generally anti-scientific beliefs. Being part of a group that largely denies evolution and climate change is obviously not going to grant you any favors in groups with an academic (especially STEM) background.

My wife and I are fairly traditional in that I work full time and she's a housewife/mother. Most people are mildly surprised that she doesn't work, and there's definitely been the occasional awkward social interaction where she was clearly being judged by other women (notably non-parents) for that decision. This is in an extremely blue city, I imagine if we moved out even into the suburbs things would shift.

Counter-culture is location-dependent.

These are all reasonable questions. I'll answer as best as I can, but please understand that I'm not any kind of formal authority.

> If you cannot use requested pronouns, does your religion also ban you from using nicknames? Is it okay for you to be called User23?

I don't know of any Catholic doctrine that says people can't use pseudonyms, nicknames, or even change their name altogether.

> Is it okay to say someone's cat is cute even if you don't really care for cats? What do you do if your partner asks if they look good or bad in something?

Is it a lie, which is to say a falsehood told with the intent to deceive? Then yes it's wrong. Wouldn't you want to be told the truth if you in fact looked bad? Wouldn't you want to know that when you're told that you look good that you really do?

Personally, supposing I didn't think the cat was cute, I wouldn't say I thought it was. I would most likely treat it as a good opportunity to say nothing on the subject. Some theologians put forth a doctrine of "mental reservation"[1] which somehow makes lying OK, but I have to admit I'm not capable of the necessary mental gymnastics in any but the most clear cut cases.

[1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10195b.htm

As another Catholic commenter said, we owe Christian charity to all other human beings, including those affected by gender dysphoria. However, charity doesn't mean being "nice" or "accommodating," but it does require respecting the dignity of the human person. One way to respect that dignity is by not encouraging or condoning disordered behaviors or beliefs. I wouldn't offer a recovering alcoholic a drink, even if it was really great stuff.

That leads to another pragmatic matter. No matter what disordered beliefs or behaviors a person has (and I have my own share), we should want to help that person come to a rightly ordered place. There's really no one size fits all approach to that.

You know you can do this with trans people too. Or do they not have names?

To your first point, pronouns and nicknames are not the same thing. Pronouns indicate that a man can become a woman or vise versa which is not what the Catechism teaches. Additionally, calling a cat cute if you don't care for them is lying which is a venial sin (meaning you probably won't be damned to Hell for it but one should confess if they sin regardless).

Catholics are called to Love (God is Love) and to love all sinners but hate the sins. We know that Church is a place for imperfect humans and thus we do seek to purify our souls with prayer, works of mercy and the Sacraments.

So with all the above in mind, we usually tend to avoid pronouns and refer to transgenders by their name instead. However, out of basic respect and good manners we can all call them what they want if they insist.

Jesus commands us that we must be known as his disciples by our love. Christian love begins with basic respect and good manners. Selfless love does not begin with requiring others to conform to our doctrine.

St. Paul said that he became all things for all people so that he may save some. We should do the same.

1 Peter 3:15-16 be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence,

Oh the Bible isn't the end-all-be-all and you need someone to make an executive decision sometimes? Who's that?

The Pope? Oh you're not of that kind of denomination? What about the President of the Mormon Church?

That leaves it up to personal interpretation and opinion. Considering that the overall message of Christianity is supposedly something about "love and grace" the not transphobic opinions are a lot more compelling.

People (including Catholics) supporting trans rights agree with that.

Of course, most of the Catholic heirarchy and supporters of trans rights disagree on who are men and who are women to start with, but, I mean, the former at least should be familiar with the idea of an entity having the observable physical characteistics of one thing but being something radically different because of its innate essence.

> Catholic teaching is that lying is sinful.

Catholic teaching is that lying consists of objectively false statements told with intent to deceive. (CCC 2482)

> Practicing the Catholic faith by saying "I'm sorry, but I can't 'use your pronouns' because that would be a lie by falsely saying you're a woman when you can't be" will get you reprimanded or fired at most any major US company.

But this is not something that the Catholic faith teaches is lying, even if some Catholics may see it as lying or some other offense against truth. Why?

(1) As Catholic traditionalists and trans rights activists agree, “gender identity” is not the same thing that Catholics see as binary sex. Acknowledging that a persons gender identity is this or that is not a fact claim about the construct of sex, but also

(2) Preferred pronouns are a distinct (though sometimes correlated) issue to gender identity (people with different gender identity can have the same oreferred pronouns, and vice versa), so even if acknowledging the validity of gender identity waa making a claim about sex, and even if such a claim would be false, respecting preferred pronouns isn’t acknowledging gender identity, its just respecting preferred pronouns.

(3) On top of all of the above, the purpose of use of a person's preferred pronouns by a Catholic in a work environment would, presumably, not be convince anyone of some false claim about the subject's sex, and without intent to deceive, it would not be a lie even if its content were an objectively false claim. (Which, for the reasons discussed previously, it is not.)

If you wanted to make an argument against respecting preferred pronouns that was grounded in Catholic doctrine, you would do better to argue that it is adulation (CCC 2480) from the view that transgenderism is inherently wrongful and doing so, lacking the intent to deceive required for lying, is a form of encouragement; OTOH, you could equally argue that failure to do so, in many circumstances, is detraction (CCC 2477) on the same assumption and calumny (also CCC 2477) without it.

> Of course, most of the Catholic heirarchy and supporters of trans rights disagree on who are men and who are women to start with, but, I mean, the former at least should be familiar with the idea of an entity having the observable physical characteistics of one thing but being something radically different because of its innate essence.

I'd love to know where you found the teaching that God miraculously transubstantiates people into a body of the wrong sex.

> Catholic teaching is that lying consists of objectively false statements told with intent to deceive. (CCC 2482).

My conscience tells me that it's objectively false and if I say it isn't I'm intentionally deceiving. (CCC 1778)

> (1) As Catholic traditionalists and trans rights activists agree, “gender identity” is not the same thing that Catholics see as binary sex. Acknowledging that a persons gender identity is this or that is not a fact claim about the construct of sex, but also

Motte and bailey.

As an aside what Doctor of the Church has anything to say about "gender identity?" Presumably if this is part of tradition one of them must have had something to say on the subject. In fact, where are you finding any Catholic traditionalist who is leaning on 1970s era radical feminist linguistic novelties?[1]

> (2) Preferred pronouns are a distinct (though sometimes correlated) issue to gender identity (people with different gender identity can have the same oreferred pronouns, and vice versa), so even if acknowledging the validity of gender identity waa making a claim about sex, and even if such a claim would be false, respecting preferred pronouns isn’t acknowledging gender identity, its just respecting preferred pronouns.

More equivocating. Everyone knows the confusion is intentional.

> (3) On top of all of the above, the purpose of use of a person's preferred pronouns by a Catholic in a work environment would, presumably, not be convince anyone of some false claim about the subject's sex, and without intent to deceive, it would not be a lie even if its content were an objectively false claim. (Which, for the reasons discussed previously, it is not.)

Then why would he care when I use pronouns appropriate to his sex?

[1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender+identit... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender+roles&y...

Someone changing their gender identity is pretty surprising and asks that you change how you interact with them.

And I think the traditional people are doing so in much more subversive ways now - plenty of our friends are going private and Catholic school to get their kids out of the public schools, which are getting pretty wild in the indoctrination.

Across every single metric, trans people, especially trans POC face disproportionate adversity. i.e. income, murder rate, housing insecurity, education etc...

Nope. The number of letters keeps increasing as more people are brought in. In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight.

Big disagree. You carry a pride flag in the wrong parts of town where I am, you'll get beat up.

Walk around preaching hellfire and damnation and at most you'll get a lot of annoyed looks and at best you'll get people cheering you on.

> In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight.

In high schools in my town people get beat up for coming out. A friend who went to college out of state was mocked because people thought he was gay, despite him being straight.

Also, you appear to have a misconception of what the LGBTQ acronym includes.

LGBA - these are related to attraction. TI - These are for Trans/Intersex individuals and have nothing to do with attraction. Q - Questioning/Queer. Can be used by those who don't feel as though they are properly described by the above descriptions, or who are opposed to them for some reason.

There are other letters, but for the most part they are subsets/synonyms of the above labels, at least as far as the use case here is concerned.

Anywhere in California you would not experience any of that. In fact it really is as OP describes. Look at polls of kids in elementary schools where 50%+ of young kids are identifying as non-binary because it is trendy.

Hello, I have a close friend that was jumped by a small group of people for holding hands with his boyfriend. He was hospitalized.

This was in Oakland in 2015.

But even then, there's a lot more to California than the Bay Area and LA.

I don't feel very safe being trans and living in Lake County, but I can't afford the Bay Area anymore. So I just don't go outside anymore.

https://www.fox19.com/2022/04/19/gay-couple-says-man-screame...

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/peoples-park-uc-be...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/13/proud-boy-d...

Physical violence (and any indicator of physical needs- shelter, food, safety) basically signals 'cheap animal unit', and animals are useful tools to be managed by the machinery (of capital, patriarchy, globalism, blah blah etc whatever left or right wing flavor of 'power structure' you mentally choose to sketch it out, it's there churning, by whatever name you like)

you seem to confuse elite signaling and countersignaling with personal sufferings when in reality, both are exactly how it's supposed to go

The cultural machinery works thru contradiction and desperate elite mimicry, people trying to aspirationally sound like the class right above them, leading to tragedy of the commons, for example:

Rich women support bail reform/ islamic immigration/ transgender craze/ porn-culture that gets poorer women raped/ scared/ fired / cheapened, and that's the new feminism

Pragmatic feminists/terfs/lesbians/mom groups/anti-vaccers are the new witches to be burned as the purity test for desperate psuedo-middle-class aspirational women, supplying the cultural fodder content mill, while Republican women/Christian evangelicals make popcorn...

Abortion rights are a cheap voting lever, the more passionate you are the more the machine knows how to use you, people are putting their carrots and sticks in their bios, announcing the best ways to control them with a smile lol

Women in Iran and Afghanistan not allowed to go to school, that is defacto no longer a feminist issue but something something 'why not both' meme-mumbles by nonbinary mental illness connoisseurs.

Gays getting beat up by rural whites so they move to metropolis and work for the rainbow utopia of corporate America is exactly how the machine eats :)

Let's try to disentagle this gish gallop shall we :) ?

> the people beating up anyone are the underclass/proles, be it rural whites or ghetto blacks -- by definition these are not cultural elites.

But they do make up the culture of the parts of society people actually live in.

> Physical violence (and physical needs, shelter, food, safety) basically signals 'cheap animal unit', and animals are useful tools to be managed by the machinery (of capital, patriarchy, globalism, blah blah etc whatever left or right wing flavor of 'power structure' you mentally choose to sketch it out, it's there churning, by whatever name you like)

"People who have needs are manipulated by people who have money". Shocking.

> Rich women support bail reform/ islamic immigration/ transgender craze/ porn-culture that gets poorer women raped/ scared/ fired / cheapened, and that's the new feminism

> (Pragmatic feminists/terfs/lesbians/mom groups/anti-vaccers are the new witches to be burned as the purity test for desperate psuedo-middle-class aspirational women, supplying the cultural fodder content mill, while Republican women/Christian evangelicals make popcorn...)

You uh... might want to back of the OAN/Fox

> Abortion rights are a cheap voting lever, the more passionate you are the more the machine knows how to use you, people are putting their carrots and sticks in their bios, announcing the best ways to control them with a smile lol

No machine cares enough about an individual to look through their bio.

> Women in Iran and Afghanistan not allowed to go to school, that is defacto no longer a feminist issue but something something 'why not both' meme-mumbles by nonbinary mental illness connoisseurs.

"People put the most focus on issues directly impacting themselves". What a shocking discovery you've made.

In my church, there's a frequent saying "you can't help others until you've helped yourself". You have to have yourself on a stable base before you can lift others. In addition, there's a conversation to be had about interventionism in there, it's bit off topic but clearly didn't go so well last time.

> Gays getting beat up by rural whites so they move to metropolis and work for the rainbow utopia of corporate America is exactly how the machine eats :)

I'll admit this part confuses me. You go drop all the right wing talking points up above, and then go "All the right wing people are being manipulated to make educated lgbt people go to cities and work"... and instead of the solution being to help educate more people, it's to make things worse for LGBT people everywhere?

why not just get stuck on 'what IS culture even', 'what is a trend Really??', and other forms of useless filler-think that magically only crop up when middle class people are made uncomfortable by the working class actually 'noticing things' with their eyes and ears...

Policy-wonks aren't gonna be in the family rooms where people say things that matter to them, where populism and/or prejudice brews.

Get to know some immigrant communities, they don't understand english to watch fox or cnn. Black folks didn't make vaccine decisions based on what channel you think they should watch. Wealthy white people buying property or voting with their feet/dollars aren't going to tell all the friends they went to college with exactly why, revealed preferences and all that.

I'm a radical feminist, if american conservatives/rep have common cause then all the better

Imagine understanding capitalism, the state, warfare, or the history of any nation.... and still having party loyalties??? sad :)

"I can explain away anything you say, because in my worldview internal consistency doesn't matter"

> I'm a radical feminist, if american conservatives/rep have common cause then all the better

And then all became clear.

The only people who I've met who describe themselves as radical feminists are described by everyone else as TERF's.

Indeed, I now hear acquaintances on the right referring to them derisively as the 'alphabet mafia.' I wonder if maybe it's gotten meaningless when there are so many letters. Sometimes I see "+" used instead, after the first few letters. In that case, do the members of the groups that come after feel marginalized compared to the big ones that make up the first few letters?

And what about the people who self-identify as one of the groups but don't want to advertise it as their defining characteristic? What do they do? That's a hard one, I think there are quite a lot of people that are in that situation.

I suppose the holy grail will be if/when we just decide that such labels don't matter.

Outside of those spaces, I generally prefer LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ for that reason.

Is Christianity also meaningless then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denomination...

Is that possibly because of the Traditional dominant culture?

I can name a number of people in my family who are openly gay but not politically active. If you asked them if they identified as LGBTQ+ they would probably say "sure" but they don't wave flags, have stickers, clothes, or anything else proclaiming their sexuality. They're not trying to hide it (as if that were possible, they're all married to partners of the same sex), but it isn't a fundamental part of how they interact with the world.

And I know people in my family who are quietly bisexual or gay, too. Plenty of folks would accuse them of being in the closet, as if that were bad (because they should want to advertise it, right?). It must be fear of bigotry that keeps them in the closet, right? In my experience, no, they aren't actively hiding anything, not using subterfuge to make people think they are straight, they just keep their sexuality to themselves.

I am very interested to see how it plays out with my kids as they mature, and as their cohort matures into adulthood. It's fascinating, a little overwhelming perhaps, but not particularly threatening. They aren't at all militant, and I don't know if that's an age thing, or if the culture is evolving away from it.

Because it's icky?

I am still on the fence whether or not this is a left-handedness situation. (The number of people who are left-handed sharply increased within 1-2 generations once we stopped beating children for primarily using their left hands. But this was generally not considered a social contagion or some grooming behavior from left-handed teachers or something.) If it is, then we should see identification level out within a generation or two.

I mean yes, physically they are a minority. Culturally, they are incredibly mainstream. There are examples everywhere.

There are tons of big movies and TV shows featuring gay people coming out.

_Every_ company changes their logo during pride month.

Look at the Apple Watch or iPhone, they come preloaded with Pride wallpapers and watch faces, they produce pride bands for the watch, which sell very well.

Disneyland has Gay Days.

Defcon has a massive attached event called Queercon that dwarfs all other subcons.

Googlers who are gay are called Gayglers.

So many famous actors and politicians are openly gay.

Biden literally just did a major interview in the Whitehouse with a TikToker who's only claim to fame was making videos about becoming trans.

I could list SO many more examples of this everywhere in our culture, and these are random things I could think of off the top of my head, but they are decent examples of culture I think.

I don't have a problem with any of this, I think it's great. But there is absolutely no way you can claim that this is not the mainstream now.

It sounds like you consider talking about trads that way to be dangerous, like it might bring them back or something.

So 0.

I get why you might not want to participate in the those things but the point that Trads as a counterculture phenomenon are new and distinct from the previous mainline Protestant or evangelical Christian cultural movements.

All of these things you listed merely acknowledge that non-cis gendered people exist, that's it. There is no massive shift in the mainstream culture. In fact, there are legions of reactionaries incredibly aggrieved by having this existence "shoved in their faces" such that they will push for laws banning discussion of sexuality in schools, call bomb threats in to hospitals, or lose their shit when gay people kiss in a movie.

Criticize it in even the most mild way at most companies and expect to be fired from your job.

The dominance goes even further. Direct criticism isn't necessary. Try to promote straight culture and you'll also get dogpiled and fired. (Brandon Eich)

Mozilla doesn't say he was fired. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/faq-on-ceo-resignation/

It’s borderline a Big Lie to accuse the other side of doublespeak when the LGBT community so aggressively pushes “trans women are women”.

We just refer to them as women in social situations so as not to hurt their feelings - not because they are actual women.

So why are they being shoved into the mainstream everywhere you turn your head.

The poster you replied to has it right. In a world where everyone wants to wear a non-conformist uniform, Trads are the new counter-culture.

They're non-conformists because they wear conformist clothing?

I'm not even going to address this "shoved" nonsense. No one shoved Tucker Carlson to go crazy about woke M&Ms.

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 everyone else she competes against.

A perfect example is the MMF fighter who as a man was decidedly mediocre, but absolutely dominated when fighting as a woman. That is grossly unfair to the women she was competing against.

Trans supporters are fond of loudly, but falsely proclaiming anybody that holds this position is some kind of bigot. Except that biology is real and it is distinct from gender identification. Conflating them isn't helpful.

'Flamboyant' people were ALWAYS in mainstream entertainment, they just previously were required to have 'beards' in public or be called 'flamboyant' so that people like you wouldn't have to see them. When I was a kid, Liberace, Little Richard, Richard Simon's were all visible celebrities that I can name off the top of my head. Were they being shoved onto people? Now people don't have to make their sexuality a running joke in order to be themselves and that is somehow crossing a line? They don't have to hide like mainstream film star Rock Hudson. It's like my ex-girlfriend from eastern Europe who didn't think gay people actually existed and were some kind of agenda until her best male friend came out. I don't think more gay people are in the media eye, it's just they can be themselves visibly without having to do it Liberace style. And most people are OK with that.

Obviously, if an entire community needed to be loud to survive, that community is going to retain its loudness into the next generation. The "original sin" as it were was ignoring their suffering in the first place.

  > I think this is ridiculous, LGBTQ is a minority. 

The idea that LGBTQ is a minority in the population is true, but they are a plurality of contemporary expressed culture

The thing is despite the media focus, it still is the actual case that such minorities do not have actual power in society in terms of actual statistics, but the media is just a mirage, the reality is that certain disparities still exist, despite media representation. This might be the slightly different aspect of modern culture, that it does not amplify the already existing power group explicitly.

The thing is the statistics still speak for themselves. Despite the media, the PR campaigns, for example, software development still skews largely male. The spoken culture extols DEI, but the actual reality is still what is it by statistics.

On some level, this might just be recuperation in action, but the point is that it still is ironically the culture of the majority. It isn't being "pushed" by the minority because the minority is by definition, the minority. It is being adopted (even recuperated) by the majority, often into a form that is acceptable for it. The difference is that the majority isn't really centering itself in that media. Except that on some level, if you listen to Slavoj Zizek, it actually is.

Anyway, whether media or external culture really makes a difference materially (like minority representation in workplaces of high paying careers matching that of the population) it at least clear at this point that it either would take a lot of time to take effect, or possibly (probably even likely at this point) it has no real effect on actual power relations in society.

[0] putting this in quotes because progressive encompasses more than what is accepted by the mainstream culture.

  > By raw statistics, white men still wield most power in American society (and thus the world), and so the progressive culture that is dominant in media is the culture being written and put into vogue by people who are white men if you merely draw on the statistics. 

An astonishing SIX Supreme Court justices are Catholic. Was there ever a time a countercultural group had that kind of representation in government? Were there ever six justices who were hippies, or beatniks, or hobos? If you sincerely believe that

> Trads are definitely the counter culture now.

may I invite you to name another counter culture that comprised a majority of the US Supreme Court?

The problem is that people conflate feeling aggrieved with being marginalized. The reality is that "trads" have plenty of representation and power, up to the governor or multiple states (like Desantis) and a former president. Self-identified trads may feel like they're exploited, or something. But the reality is they are a huge part of the population with ample political power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_...

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/391649/relig...

How many TV shows, movies, or songs have come out in the last 10 years that featured Catholics in any way or catholic imagery, or even just general traditional values? Like maybe 1?

How many TV shows, movies, and songs have come out featuring gay people or gay culture? A huge number.

Compare this state to the 60's when the hippies were the counterculture, how many mainstream movies and shows came out featuring them? Were they the cultural mainstream? The answer is obviously no. Movies of that day were being made by the then-mainstream trads.

We were never talking about representation in government. If you want to have an honest conversation about religious representation in government you will very quickly be labeled an anti-semite.

The opposite is also true. How may TV shows, movies, or songs have come out in the last 10 years that featured a guy working in a cubicle making Excel spreadsheets all day? Were they the cultural mainstream? The answer is obviously no.

> We were never talking about representation in government

Who wasn't? Culture isn't just what's streaming on Netflix. It's what people live every day of their lives. Hippies in the 60s weren't counterculture because they were making memes. They were counterculture because they were creating communities that were counter to the mainstream culture of the rest of the country -- communal rather than individualistic, based on chosen family rather than biological family, in pursuit of enlightenment rather than material success, etc.

>If you want to have an honest conversation about religious representation in government you will very quickly be labeled an anti-semite.

There it is! The anti-semitic dog whistle that is the foundation of so much "trad" identity. Literally 100% of US presidents are Christian but somehow it's the Jews who are in control of everything. And if everything is degenerate and wrong, then Jews are the ones promoting a conspiracy to undermine and destroy America.

This is literally the same underpinnings as Nazi Germany. No wonder there is so much overlap between "Trads" and white supremacy.

I love Jewish people, I have many friends who are Jewish, I have no problem with their representation anywhere. In fact, I have seriously considered joining the Jewish faith.

I am just saying if you go down the path of comparing religious representation in government, you are literally not allowed to have an honest conversation without doing exactly what you just did. All you have to say is "I found the dog whistle, this conversation is over".

> It's what people live every day of their lives. I see Pride stickers and representation in all forms of media every single day for the LGBT community. How is that not what we are all living every day of our lives?

At this point we're just trying to define what culture actually is.

You literally said that you can't talk about how Jews (allegedly) have too much power in government. This is a classic anti-semitic trope. To say so and then respond with

> idk I never said anything about Jews, but calling people a Nazi is a great way to shut down conversation.

is dishonest and cowardly.

> I see Pride stickers and representation in all forms of media every single day for the LGBT community. How is that not what we are all living every day of our lives?

What is your conclusion? That pride stickers give people power of some sort? If that were true, transgender people wouldn't be 4x more likely to be victims of violent crimes.

Representation in pop culture is not power. Power is the ability to create and enforce laws, or the ability to not be shot and killed for your religious beliefs, as happened when 11 Jews were killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue -- killed by a man who followed neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Their killer would no doubt agree with you that "traditional" values were under attack, and that you couldn't even talk about it without being labeled an anti-semite.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-pres...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting

I really don't believe that we can have any kind of productive outcome here. As I said, I don't hate anyone, I don't even have a problem with any of the representation that I'm talking about.

I was simply pointing out that the fact that I see these symbols plastered everywhere, including at Target, means that this is no longer an underground counterculture kind of thing. It's very mainstream.

If you want to insist on projecting your ideas that the world is filled with secret Nazis do it with someone else.

The last one I can think of was "Touched By an Angel" and that is over 20 years old now.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2021/12/24/the-e...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2019/01/11/widely-...

No one is hiding any of this, and it’s trivial to read a memoir from many musicians and see a story about how they wanted to feel more included in the increasingly secularized holidays so they wrote music that was about the stuff that included in them.

The norm these days is for people to fall away from their religion, not to join one. I think this is obvious for anyone to see, but Pew has done lots of surveys on the decline of Christianity in America: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the...

Wearing rosary beads sounds like a counter culture move against the church if you ask me. Rosaries are almost sacred.

Wearing a rosary around the neck is common and accepted in some Catholic cultures and frowned upon in others. There is no general Catholic religious objection to it, it is just a matter of local cultural practice. (Publicly flaunting it while engaging in scandalous behavior is more generally frowned upon, of course, as heaping hypocrisy on top of the already-bad behavior.)

Wearing a 15-decade rosary on the hip, in the same place a soldier would wear a sword, is traditional for the Dominican order.

[1] For a cousin-in-law's son's christening in an extremely old Church. Super cool.

I want to be charitable but it's hard to interpret this attitude as anything other than willful ignorance of very obvious facts.

Long hn thread about it from some months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31886687

Unlike the US of the 1950s, there is no apparent single pervasive monolithic culture — and thus there is no real “counterculture” that can exist in universal opposition to that dominant culture across the US.

But rest assured that to the people living lives incongruent with their communities — including perhaps any “trads” in SF, NYC, etc. — their lives will feel pretty countercultural.

You don't have to be in NY, SF, or wherever to experience the trendy culture. It is pervasive everywhere.

You don’t, which is why I said:

> or even different parts of the same city

But while it is present almost everywhere, it is not pervasive everywhere. Surely at your private Christian university there are many who hold traditional views — just as there are some at Berkeley, near me — and I’d be pretty surprised to learn that the kids painting your school’s mascot represent a majority perspective there.

In our culture, almost any values from prior generations are treated as suspect. We live in an extremely progressive time when compared against historical periods.

My particular gripe with this is how religion is viewed in popular culture. Despite our supposed multicultural values, much of the discussion on religion remains focused on Western/Abrahamic religions. Psychology/psychiatry is the new religion which is supposed to be able to guide our mental/spiritual health journey, but I'm of the opinion that it is failing miserably in this area, and we should be doing more to integrate ideas that have survived for thousands of years for a reason.

"Present almost everywhere" is in fact what pervasive means :)

The thesaurus lists these words as some synonyms of pervasive:

Widespread, prevalent, common, present, popular, majority, predominant.[0]

Just because the culture isn't accepted by every single person on planet earth doesn't mean it's not pervasive. There were plenty of pockets of communities in the early 20th century and late 19th century that didn't follow the traditional norms of Christianity that existed in the west. But I think we would both agree that Christianity/catholicism was pervasive in the west in those time periods.

After all, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Darwin, Marx, Bertrand Russell and more were popular with different communities at the time, even though they were definitely counter to the pervasive culture of Christianity/catholicism then.

And I agree with you about how it's surprising that even at a Christian university, the traditional values of Christianity aren't taught! The example I gave was just one of the things I thought of off the top of my head. There were several other examples that gave me the feeling that the majority of the students weren't interested in traditional values. Chapel was a running joke among the students, nobody really cared and just went since the credit was required. People in positions of leadership that didn't align with the trendy culture slowly got replaced throughout my time there. We routinely got lectured on diversity and equity and how the university was devoted to it. I have friends who are gay that let me know how widespread the lgbt+ community at the university was (among professors and students).

I could go on, but my point was that even in the rural south, plenty of people are afraid to go against the trendy culture. My experience was simply some anecdata to your presumption that the rural South does not have a significant majority of people also following the trends of liberal cities. It's definitely less pronounced, but it's also definitely pervasive.

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pervasive

College kids on a university campus being fearful of speaking out against "trendy culture" is not evidence of "a significant majority of people also following the trends of liberal cities" -- not least because that is a very small population in the rural south. Even merely attending college is something only half of 18-22 year olds do.

Universities are also one of the specific geographic concentrations I was alluding to in my earlier post, that can exist within an area that is otherwise culturally distinct. A culture being dominant on a university campus does not necessarily make it dominant elsewhere in town -- and it does not mean that folks holding traditional values constitute a counterculture. But do they on a college campus? Sure.

Nothing more biblical than that, since the bible is polyvocal and therefore contains positions that are in tension and even on occasion outright opposition with one another.

> The students couldn't care less about the traditional aspects of Christianity.

Which/whose tradition?

And the youths are sometimes less invested in tradition you say?

> trendy culture

"Trendy" isn't an insight, it's a dismissal, and it's one that misses the insight that the parent tried to offer you.

So it seems clear that "mainstream" culture is not monolithic, merely dominant. You can always find bubbles everywhere, but if outside of those bubbles you find one concept being preached endlessly - it's pretty safe to say that that concept is the "mainstream" culture, and those that run contrary to such would inherently be counter-culture.

Well, yes and no. The mainstream culture was far more dominant in the 50s than even 20 years later. And of course there were countless little (and often not-at-all-little!) cultures going on at the time -- and still going on.

But "counterculture" is not merely "alternative culture" -- and no one would write a post describing America today as lacking "alternative culture" because it's both false and also meaningless.

In the 1950s, regular church attendance was over 50%, union membership was at 35% of private sector workers, there were 3 channels on TV, and they predominantly espoused a particular leave-it-to-beaver culture that typified what was perceived as mainstream culture. The fact that it was not actually mainstream in the sense that fewer than half of Americans actually lived that way, is mostly irrelevant.

The '60s counterculture was not merely an "alternative culture"; it was powerful because it made it appear that the progeny of mainstream culture were condemning it; they questioned the power structure of that mainstream culture, despite being its plausible beneficiaries, and they were much more threatening to it than any other alternative cultures at the time (or, maybe, since) exactly because they were perceived as products of that monolithic mainstream culture.

In the US, there is currently no single monolithic culture being preached endlessly in the same way 1950s culture commanded media attention, it's not clear there ever will be one again without a dramatic turn towards the authoritarian, and so it's not at all clear what a national-level counterculture would even look like anymore?

Nothing has that level of control today. There are more major organizations, and they have much more divergent positions. As a result, the culture has fragmented, becoming multiple cultures. There is no "mainstream" any more. There are multiple major streams, but no one mainstream.

Of course people in a movement about freedom, finding yourself, and spirituality would generally respond one way if asked, "Hey should we go get involved in a war on the other side of the world, to try to imperil the reach and influence of a geopolitical competitor?" but the core philosophy was not only apolitical, but largely anti-political: "Do what you want... man." Everything was largely based on a loose interpretation of Eastern philosophy which is similarly much more about the pursuit (and search) for the betterment of one's inner self.

The culture you're describing sounds much more like the Yippie [3] culture, which is something extremely different than hippy. As for authoritarianism - I'd argue that the lack of authoritarianism is precisely what enables counter-cultures. You're not going to see a counter-culture movement in places like Saudi Arabia. And I think something similar is happening in the US. Had the Occupy Movement been treated similarly to the hippies, I think there's a strong argument to be made that it would still exist.

[1] - https://search.brave.com/search?q=were+hippies+political&sou...

[2] - https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-hippies-counter-cul...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_International_Party

Beyond that, I was not claiming the mainstream culture as authoritarian, only that reconsolidating media control could perhaps be a result of a resurgence of authoritarianism.

I think we mostly agree, btw.

Rainbow capitalism isn't LGBT culture. It's attempts at getting our money.

The large majority of queer culture cannot be commercially re-packaged and will never be part of the dominant culture.

A counterculture is a set of social norms that clash with the establishment to the point of generating a credible threat of replacing it and creating a new cultural reality. LGBTQIA people living in warehouses and doing orgies is not a common way of living for sure, but it sounds more like a bout of isolated risky behaviour than a new cultural norm.

A rainbow flag is not techno/house/zines/novels, advertising is not culture. Advertising is by definition the antithesis of culture, adopting cultural norms. Ultimately it will be hollow and opportunistic because that’s its mission. An ad showing a leatherbear is not culture, and I don’t think you will ever see a leather show on prime time, if at all. Yet a culture it is (and possibly a lifestyle, but one doesn’t imply the other).

Wherever you go online or offline you see gay flags. Every political institution of the west and every company big or small support gays and are loud about it. If you don’t like gays you are severely shunned. I can’t believe anybody thinks that’s the counterculture now. If anything, heterosexuality is the counterculture.

We see what we focus on.

>If you don’t like gays you are severely

And rightly so.

> If anything, heterosexuality is the counterculture.

That's just nonsense.

If I were gay, the calculations change dramatically. There are now no-go areas. Places where I'd have to be either closeted or just not go at all due to the risk. Sure, I could take a little comfort in Raytheon throwing up a pride flag once a year. But that doesn't change the fact that in many places I would be shunned, imprisoned, or executed for my sexuality. That even in a haven like San Francisco, there are still people who would want to physically hurt me if I was gay.

There is little in this world more mainstream than heterosexuality.

The other clear thing to me, is that enough people find the dominant culture so objectionable that they are inclined to form other cultures, even when there are massive social barriers to doing so.

I think that one positive change, and this seems to be what TFA was really trying to say, is that it has become somewhat less punitive to seek out these other cultures and join them, largely because of our digital connections.

One thing I have found valuable in thinking about our culture, is living outside of it for a while. Experiencing another dominant culture and trying to gel with it gave me a lot of perspective on both how systems we take for granted can be different and work just fine, and on how hard it is for foreigners in our country to just exist here.

So yeah, I think counter-culture is alive and well, perhaps a bit too easy to access, but that's for the most part a good thing.

It's possible that maybe the reality is that there's some aspect of abiltity-to-be commercialized that has always limited counter cultures reach? Or maybe that's an alternate way of valuing culture - can it produce concepts that can be adopted by the majority.

Ironically, given the replies, it seems that Christian communities (i.e., Hudderites or Mennonites) had discovered what you discovered a century ago, but the very nature of the counterculture they express limits their impact on the mainstream?

Does the second Q stand for something else than the first? Or is it a typo?