Feels like music/dancing/sports are now for people interested in those specific things qua themselves, not as signaling consumption marking an entire life posture. PBR’s descendants today are just beers for those who like beer. No larger significance.
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id say the signaling via consumption act has expanded to an even larger range of activities (its no longer PBR etc) but thats also pointed out in the piece, that once everyone is aware of something being a signal, its time to move on
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So what exactly the prescient point here? That the entire world has turned into something like the spaces behind dive bars?
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counterculture transforming into self-referential consumption of its own symbolism (and then more or less vanishing altogether)
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Ok I guess I don’t actually buy it. It strikes me as similar to the Bowling Alone argument (which was roughly “mainstream culture is dead”). I think both mainstream culture and counterculture simply took on unfamiliar refactored forms.
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And what seemed to fragment, atomize, and dissipate was dregs that some people were mourning. A kinda left-behind Waldenponding.
“Nobody goes to bowling leagues anymore”
“Err that’s because they’re playing video games”
Similar but for counterculture
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yeah there's a larger question here about what counterculture even means and/or what its value is. i think Bowling Alone is a bit different but it was published in 2000 so the argument prob needs to be revisited in light of the internets development since then
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In general people seem to mistake the death of things they’ve invested identity in for death of the kind of elan vital it represents.
Old conservatives: “young people don’t value institutions anymore”
Old counterculturalists: “the spirit of true subversive rebellion is lost”
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I suspect “culture” = “primary adaptive pattern energy”
“Counterculture” = “primary hedge adaptive pattern energy”
So long as Darwin rules, both kinds of energy exist. But maybe not where you’re used to finding them.
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true. it's possible to take that too far though - when that energy moves from one medium/form to another there are differences even if the underlying dynamic is the same
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The continuity element is often predictable energy sinks. For eg, milquetoast conservatism is whatever David Brooks is drinking. Counterculture is wherever the nearest synonym to “cool” is (“based” today perhaps)
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