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Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

You're absolutely correct.

Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the government is left leaning.

How on earth could the "counter culture" be the hegemonic culture of the most powerful billionaires on earth, and the people who have the most power over the most people in their daily lives (HR departments for adults, school administrators for children)?

The people who you instinctively dislike, and who society counts as something that needs to be corrected are by definition the counter culture.

That doesn't necessarily need to be seen as a bad thing, btw. It just means that the hippies basically won and have all of the power now.

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> your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, the government is left leaning

.. if you think this, your definition of left leaning is completely broken and your Overton window is in a very strange place.

It entirely depends on where you work. If you work for a municipality or university, it's probably very accurate.

Sounds like they mean `culturally "left"` ie. NYTimes-morality.

Look at California Prop 16 for a concrete example. It was universally supported by left-wing groups, endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce broadly and by many of the state's biggest companies individually, passed the legislature with 75%, but failed at the ballot box with only a touch above 40% in favor. When policies left-wing groups favor are that much more popular among business and government leaders than among the general public, I dunno what to call that other than "left leaning".

I don’t know about that specific legislation. The effect you describe makes me think that business and government are, in fact, right leaning. When left-wing groups agree with right-leaning govt and business, perhaps the general public is a bit wary of bipartisan policies. An argument like: If it’s popular among partisans of both parties, then it must be particularly exploitative of the general public.

Prop 16 was certainly not a bipartisan policy - the Republican party strongly opposed it, and all their legislators voted against it.

Prop 16 was a repeal of a previous amendment to the state constitution that effectively banned Affirmative Action in the state for public positions.

Basically, if Prop 16 passed, various public sector jobs would be able to consider race/sex/whatever when looking to hire.

That's technically a double-edged sword. As while it allows for things like Affirmative Action, it also allows for discrimination based on those attributes as well.

So I can see a perfectly reasonable reason while progressives would also be wary about passing Prop 16.

> your boss is probably left leaning

Where did you work where your boss thought worker-ownership and workplace democracy were the best ways to get work done?

> Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the government is left leaning.

You are doing an awful lot of generalizing from your own experiences. I have met a LOT of conservative managers and business owners, including more than a couple openly sexist and racist ones, who are doing just fine for themselves in life. The idea that conservatives are some sort of tiny suppressed minority is bonkers.

> Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the government is left leaning.

Did you forget this is a US based website? Are you posting from China?

The left can lean much further. Someone advocating for socialist and welfare policies or even communism or anarchy would run afoul of HR departments and the powerful billionaires.

Corporations pay lip service to the left but they don’t really follow through. There’s no divestment from China, fossil fuels, or even Diversity and Inclusion that reaches the board level.

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