There is nother more counter to the cultural moment then being a traditionally moral, upright citizen who doesnt do drugs, doesnt lie, cheat, steal, has their libido under control, is reliable, whose existence is profitable to the rest of the world (not neccessarily economically, just mean someone who contributes more than they take : financially, emotionally, etc)
Thats about as counterculture as you can get.
I'm sure some exist, just by dint of probability, but plenty more are made of regular stock humans like you or me, or worse.
You're there to get well.
Each church has a board of elders who will hire/fire/correct/counsel the pastors. At most protestant churches at least. I can't speak for all churches.
I've seen a board of elders remove a megachurch founding pastor. They take their positions seriously.
There's plenty of darkness within the strictures of conservative religious communities -- mostly resultant from the evil that corrupt people perpetrate when given (by God) power in hierarchical structures.
Having traditional morals isn't the same as being moral.
Source: Hm... 6, maybe more, different friends who grew up in different versions of these communities, each of whom describes them as "dangerous cults".
If you are accepted by the mainstream, you aren't counter culture, just a flavor.
Counterculture isn't necessarily cool or good or safe.
Perhaps the Amish or something like that? And of course, they have their practices that we would consider unsavory anyway.
The drug use is going down, alcoholism is going down, violent crime is going down, there was mini-panique just yesterday on HN over young people having less sex ...
BTW the "conservative" part is not, strictly speaking, required but if you object to that I don't think you would like the "e/acc" variety of spirituality either. This is powerful stuff, and it makes 100% sense to have some "traditional" safeguards within it.
This rings very true, look at kids not driving.
> Conservative religious communities offer a way out of that predicament.
They play video games. Also, per all available stats they do use porn.
Jihad vs. McWorld is essentially about this point.
The middle ground is productive disengagement. It is deciding to abandon the system and build real alternatives outside of it. You see this with hippy communes, some punk scenes, and homesteaders, ect.
It isnt as common because it takes a lot more work and hardship than simply "laying flat", and doesnt provide much social currency in the mainstream culture. There are also barriers in the mainstream that provide headwinds, but I think these are less of a challenge.
For example, it isnt impossible for people to check out and build an eco-friendly socialist commune in the wilderness. However, it is a lot of work and few are willing to sacrifice the comforts of mainstream life, as unhappy as they may be with them.
Chances are the future generation Punks are either that itch we can't quite name or out of our generational perception altogether.
They started caring a lot about this as soon as they had the printing press, take a look at the career of Erasmus for example.
Previous generations had a substantial number of people who thought that either their jobs could be their passions, or at the very least that doing well at their jobs could lead to a better life. I think Gen-z and below have internalized that trying at your job doesn’t lead to better outcomes, and that’s the real thing that will lead to change.
In my opinion (dont take this personally), I think it is a victim mentality, that if someone self sabotages enough, someone else will fix things or improve their situation.
I think a closer model of reality is that most people are disposable. I dont think that people becoming more disposable less important increases leverage.
A lot of historic change has come from organized striking, but only when the strikers have coherent demands and productivity to leverage.
By definition, you cannot have popular counterculture, as it just becomes "the culture."
However, most of the capital assets of culture promotion are also tied to popularity (e.g. mass-market media publishing, advertising). Denied access, counterculture exists in the woods, but most people don't know.
Which is why you see truer counterculture move closer to popular culture when those assets are (usually temporarily) democratized during technological shifts (e.g. the 1960s and 1990s).
But hey, maybe I just miss zines...
F.ex. Motown Records was literally founded in the back of a house. [0]
It's more difficult to say "There's no market for African American music, so we're not going to make any" when someone is technically able to demonstrate otherwise on their own.
Without technical disruption (mostly, in the falling cost and footprint of capable equipment), it could have been business as usual and a lot of ideas would have remained uncirculated.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown#West_Grand_Boulevard
The left moves society forward, the right holds society back. I don’t like everything the young kids are doing but I know I will eventually be wrong, so I try to understand them and learn to embrace the change they bring. The young left will always, eventually, move society forward. Whether we like it or not. What you’re witnessing is people beginning to understand the paradox of tolerance. Complete tolerance towards all views will always fail because the intolerant will exploit the tolerant. Now that people understand that things are always, or even often, that simple. In order to maintain tolerance, you must also practice intolerance of intolerance. I see the whole “calling people a Nazi bigot” for saying things like “go woke or go broke” or things in that vein, is a part of that realization.
I’ve always of the mind of “free speech absolutism” as Elon calls it. Then I read about how Germany handled things post ww2 and concluded that they could no longer allow fully free speech if they were going to stop another Hitler from rising to power. They had to be intolerant to intolerance. It’s a dangerous precedent that requires great care to avoid a more dangerous outcome.
In general, being an angry hateful bigot of any kind has progressively been moved to the fringe of the right, instead of being smack dab in the middle of the mainstream.
Interracial marriage.
Slavery.
Voting rights for minorities and women.
Jim Crow.
Civil Rights.
Protection of Voting rights
Self ownership / Reproductive rights
Acceptance of LGBT+/GSRM communities.
Acceptance of minorities.
Same sex marriage.
Healthcare for all.
The right has met all of these with protest and violence. They eventually always lose, but not before killing a bunch of people on the left in the process.
You’re on the wrong side of history. I’ve been there. Figure out why you’re so resistant to change/progress. Figure out why you’re so angry all the time. Figure out why you’re so filled with hate.
If you’re surrounded by hateful people, figure out how to leave those people behind. Don’t announce your intentions. Don’t evangelize your views. Just start your path to change. The people in your orbit will either move towards you or move away from you. Expect this. Most will move away, but some will see your example and follow it.
That’s the approach a friend of mine took when he decided he didn’t want to be a violent alcoholic anymore. He just decided to change. He didn’t ask me to change with him. He just did it. He never left my side so I never left his. Eventually, I followed in his example. Eventually, so did a couple of his other friends.
His approach helped me become a much happier person.
I hope it helps you.
There's good conservatism and bad conservatism, just like there's good progressivism and bad progressivism. The latter consists mostly of change for change's sake, while bad conservatism consists of resisting change for no reason. But the good kind of conservatism is an important force in a society that has any sort of progressive energy (read: almost all of them) - it serves as a reminder of Chesterton's fence (that there is a reason (or reasons) why things are as they are, and you should understand those reasons before you change things).
I would not consider myself a conservative (though my kids perhaps would), but I consider that kind of conservatism important even if ultimately the change I want to see overrides it.
I have never, even once, encountered good conservatism.
There is good progressivism, and there is fake progressivism. It isn't too hard to tell them apart.
And conservative counter culture is not exactly going back to X era. You can't step into the same river twice. It's a different path of progress instead with some reflect on history.
We could also say gay rights were conservative, because they were bringing back something somewhat similar to ancient Greece. A lot of progress is reinventing the wheel, with some changes.
I've often wondered how the leaders of the hippie, punk, and more modern movements would compare to classical and romantic leaders of counterculture, like Thoreau or Voltaire, or even music like Chopin or Palestrina. We do have writers today like David Graeber that do seem against the grain. I suppose a major difference is that infuential people back then didn't seem as concerned with being famous and viral (which makes them more punk than punk), and there were less people that tried to follow them. On the other hand, when you look closer, maybe the difference can be explained by how media and money flows today.
At the extremes, it can seem like the only 'genuine' counterculture is self-sacrificing civil disobedience (e.g. self-immolation, not blocking traffic) or truly destructive (terrorism), because these are not scalable within mainstream culture. There should be a middle ground, but somehow I'm having trouble recognizing it. Perhaps this is because having a sustainable counterculture requires tacitly playing within the rules of the mainstream culture.