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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

It's not that it's an unpopular position, it's that the argument is flawed and the point you're trying to make falls flat. First, you lump all of queer culture into one group, a false categorization without which your augment fails. 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.

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.

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> First, you lump all of queer culture into one group, a false categorization without which your augment fails.

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.

The culture of the 60s was not hippies, they were the counterculture by any possible definition.

I guess I just have the view that if I am turning on the radio, the TV, watching a movie, a tv show, celebrity voices, the state department, etc - and I am seeing the counterculture, then I am actually just seeing the culture.

Seeing a government body virtue-signal by putting up a flag is not the same as the actual lives that queer people live, which varies WILDLY from the norm thus making it counter cultural.

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 very obviously specific to where you live on this planet.

> Seeing a government body virtue-signal by putting up a flag is not the same as the actual lives that queer people live

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".

A given queer person's level of identification with the broader community is of no relevance to the question of whether the broader culture of the community is countercultural. When the culture itself is used as a political tool by a state actor, I no longer classify the culture as countercultural. Rather, I see it as a weaponized mechanism of cultural subversion.

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.

You most certainly were not seeing hippies endorsed by the state department in the 60s. (Though, that we look back on the hippies of the 60s fondly does say something about the direction we've charted since then.)

The culture of the 60s was hippies.

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.

I'm pretty sure the word counterculture was literally invented to describe hippies in the 60s.

Close. It was invented in 1960, prior to the hippie movement and referring to their predecessors, the beatniks of the 1950s.

I wasn't alive so I'm just going off casual web searches, but most people seem to credit this 1969 book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_a_Counter_Cultur.... It was not the literal first usage, but the word was definitely not widely known before the 60s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=counterculture.... But I said literally and it wasn't literally true, so my bad.

I'm guessing beatniks in the 50s myself.

The whole argument is stupid on both sides.

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.

You haven't really challenged the argument. Just made several unverifiable claims and then accused GP of having an axe to grind.

> 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.

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.

Counter to what? Minority groups are in charge of America so the majority traditional culture IS the counterculture.

If minority groups are "in charge", why is most of the wealth, corporate power and political power in the hands of majority groups?

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.

Cultural power is different from political and capital power. The influence of an musician, a political candidate, and a wealthy CEO can all be different in their scope, message, and the audience that they reach.

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.

If you are unsure of what he meant, try and explicitly advocate for "majority white, straight, Christian(ish)" people in the same way every other group gets to do in america and see how it goes. And if your knee jerk reaction is to say "well only a racist white nationalist would do that", you have proved my point, and you are using the same fallacious reasoning that leads to people thinking that all gay rights advocates are pedophiles or all criminal justice reform advocates are thugs.

Advocating for those in power doesn't carry the same reasoning as advocating for those who are not in power so it is not the same type of fallacious reasoning you claim.

Edit: I removed my second sentence since it appears to be confusing others of my tone and intention.

>Advocating for those in power doesn't carry the same reasoning as advocating for those who are not in power

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.

My argument has nothing to do with who should be in power.

I'll say it again since you edited your previous message to reply to the message following it, I wasn't arguing about who should be in power, or placing my chips in any direction. I was plainly stating that people will have different reasons for supporting the class in power vs supporting outside of that class.

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?

>If minority groups are "in charge", why is most of the wealth, corporate power and political power in the hands of majority groups?

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.

> ... 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).

>except for finance, media, academia and politics.

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?

Did the janizary rule the ottomans or did the ottomans rule the janizary? The janizary held most if the powerful positions after all.

I'm not familiar enough with that part of world history to comment. Speak plainly.

I think we have a diff definition of white.

What other definition would there be?

Sports commentating.

In an equal society the majority population will have the majority of most things.

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

Case in point—-Name one recent president that didn’t need go pander to christians to get elected. I’ve always found this tiring being a non-christian myself. Christians are not oppressed no matter what the terminally online right-wing on HN seems to think.

I couldn't agree more. Why do you think politicians never explicitly pander to white people?

Nice try, but Republicans are doing a good job of that.

I have never heard a republican say something positive about white people. Can you give me an example? For the amount of dog whistling the GOP has done over the years the complete dearth of any explicit pandering to white Americans is actually shocking and deserving of a proper explanation.

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.

You are being dishonest because examples of the GOP pandering to white voters are well-documented and easily accessible. Either you never looked, in which case arguing at all is dishonest since you don't know what you're talking about, or you looked and ignored the mountain of evidence denying your view. The "script" part is likely about you shifting the goalposts. Why doesn't dog-whistling count as explicit pandering to white Americans? That isn't to say the GOP are always subtle, either. All in all, it seems pretty clear you're sealioning.

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...

> Why doesn't dog-whistling count as explicit pandering to white Americans?

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.

If you read the examples I gave above, they're not vague. Dog-whistles are more for plausible deniability than subtlety, and it's because (shocker) white supremacy is frowned upon. If you think liking white people requires openly advocating white supremacy, and anything else is an implicit statement that you don't like white people, then that really says more about you than anything else.

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.

> Dog-whistles are more for plausible deniability

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.

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

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 not required to take subterfuge in dog whistles. Only counterculture is.

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 not required to take subterfuge in dog whistles. Only counterculture is.

> 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?

No, I’m not engaging with the dishonest script you’re trying to run me through, and looking at your short post history it’s obvious what you’re trying to do. Have a nice day.

A much more gracious way of answering this might have been "no, I can't, because I was wrong".

lasftr: those are examples of dog whistles. They dont use the word “white” anywhere. The GOP has dog whistled for decades and the whole point of a dog whistle is that it DOESN’T explicitly pander to white people. Dog whistles are IMPLICIT by definition. I hope that clears up what I was saying. Thanks for trying to provide an answer my question: “Why do you think politicians never explicitly pander to white people?“

Edit: Not needing to do something is not a reason for not doing it. Do you have a hypothesis for why they wouldn't explicitly pander? It seems you adamantly refuse to address this monumental question.

Ok fine, here's my answer then: they don't need to, because their voters know the GOP doesn't work against white people. I suspect it's different from your answer.

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

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

Median income is a very different measurement from "wealth, corporate power and political power" within a group, especially one so large.

Ok, find a metric that supports the assertion.

I don't know if the original assertion is true. I'm only pointing out that median income doesn't say much about wealth and power within a group.

Fair point. I struggle to find metrics myself.

But they explicitly don’t wield that power as a group and attack people who suggest that they do. Powerful white men are all liberals who defer to the group interests of minorities and attack the group interest of the majority.

Yeah this is all making me wonder why we're looking for a singular dominant culture to which there are one or more counter-cultures.

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.

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