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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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thats whats so interesting to me though - when a concept like counterculture gets decoupled from one meaning or set of associations and then reattached to something else - the tension between what remains constant and whats different
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Does anything remain constant from generation to generation? Or are some tech shifts merely bigger than others? Eg. Boom boxes made musical countercultures kinda location independent relative to record players or older tape decks. A very light version of going online.
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i think the evolution of "community" as a concept has been interesting in that regard. you can argue that online communities are simply the adaptation of trad community to the medium, or that the word isnt really appropriate as a description of what online groups are
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