From decd96e3e848a85080fb41cd33bec5136aad5b90 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: nathan <nathansmith@disroot.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2025 03:38:03 -0600
Subject: The death of counterculture

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+<article>
+  <p>
+    Now days inclusiveness, diversity, lgbtq+... are all associated to
+    corporations, governments, and all those nasty power structures. How did
+    this happen?! Those things should be against the system, power, and
+    control. Why are powerful people and power structures using these things
+    for their own use? Why are the same people claiming to be against the power
+    rejecting certain subgroups of the working class? Shouldn't it be the
+    working class against the ruling?! To answer these questions here is a
+    <b>very rough</b> overview of progressive history.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>Enlightenment</h2>
+  <p>
+    Quite a ways back in europe thinkers started to come together and ask
+    questions and search for answers. They looked back at philosophy from way
+    before their own time and started coming up with new ways of thinking
+    themselves. This was a world controlled by kings and churches and the new
+    ways of thinking brought their power into question. Instead of blind faith
+    people started to use logic and reason. Science, art, and technology took
+    off. Growing distaste for the old ways and conditions for a new way brought
+    about revolution in many places some notable ones being the french
+    revolution and the american revolution.
+
+    Its a common misunderstanding that the french revolution was the poor
+    against the rich. What really happened was there was a growing middle class
+    known as the bourgeoisie. They were once small in numbers and power but
+    were quickly becoming a economic and intellectual force ready to take on
+    the world. The growing dislike towards the kings and aristocrats, a new up
+    and coming class, and poor people in need of better conditions lead to the
+    bourgeoisie uprising. After generations of bourgeoisie in power they ended
+    up replacing the kings and aristocrats they destroyed. People who once
+    talked about logic and reason, freedom and liberty... are now the ones
+    aiming to keep working class people others dumb and compliant. Even though
+    democracy and liberty wise we are back on square one all this didnt happen
+    in vain. New technology and ideas have been brought into the world that can
+    bring about things far greater than what the enlightenment age thinkers
+    could ever imagine. Its just a manner and leveraging new conditions in the
+    favor of freedom and liberty.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>Post enlightenment</h2>
+  <p>
+    The enlightenment thinkers nearly set the framework for history following
+    that time. A lot has happened since than. Some notable thinkers after them
+    are Darwin, Hegel, and Marx. Darwin changed the way we understand
+    species and biology. Hegel improved the way we understand the mind, the
+    world, and the way everything you observe interacts. Marx applied those
+    concepts among others to understand the problems of post enlightenment
+    society and created a framework for understand historical change. Since the
+    cycle of new ways, new rulers, and new ideas improving things only to take
+    hold and turn to shit been observed the question now is how do we break
+    free of that cycle? If society evolves and changes in the same manner that
+    biology does than the hope is society will one day evolve to fulfill
+    material needs, freedom, and liberty. How do we ensure this future?
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>The progressive movement</h2>
+  <p>
+    A growing dislike of the bourgeoisie, and these new ideas lead to a new
+    movement. Workers unionized and went on strike, laws against child labor
+    got made, company towns got taken down, food regulations got put in place
+    to stop food companies from poisoning everyone. One of the greatest (least
+    shitty) american presidents of all time, Theodore Roosevelt himself helped
+    the movement with his admirable amount of stubbornness. The game monopoly
+    was created by a anti-landlord activist and follower of Henry
+    George. Around the world the seeds for socialism, communism, and anarchy
+    were being planted.
+  </p>
+
+  <p>
+    "Thinking is the best way to travel" - The Moody Blues.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>Authoritarianism</h2>
+  <p>
+    Many were feeling that people aren't smart enough for democracy. They felt
+    that <i>free-market</i> and worker controlled means of production are just
+    two sides of the same coin. They wanted to go back to the world of kings,
+    mono-cultures, and state churches. They saw the working class as a bunch of
+    dumb chaotic people who need someone bigger and smarter to think for
+    them. Many looked at darwnism and thought that maybe the same can be said
+    for rulers. That the strongest best leader takes control and its their duty
+    and right to rule. They also looked at the masses and thought about
+    selective breeding them to be more compliant like farm animals. The
+    enlightenment thinkers left a hole. Their ideas of free will and logic
+    didn't include everyone. Under their framework you can quite easily say not
+    everyone can think with free will and logic and those who don't should be
+    lead and controlled by those who do.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>War</h2>
+  <p>
+    Around the around those authoritarian and progressive ideas didn't
+    always clash. Sometimes they merged. People were growing distrustful of new
+    ways because of economic and social issues but were still tired of the
+    old. New fears gave people with answers power and control. Fascism and
+    nazism started spreading. In russia the communist movements to played into
+    it. They decide instead of breaking the pattern of control to leverage the
+    pattern of control. Freedom and liberty were no longer seen as
+    important. The nazis and new age communists (they weren't much like the
+    originals) fucking hated each other for this. Each one demanded a level of
+    control that multiple empires can't all have. <b>The driving force behind
+    fighting nazis wasn't a moral one but a practical one</b>. After everything
+    was over the same people fighting nazis shared similar ideas. America used
+    the war to gain alliances with other nations and grow to a economic and
+    military power even though it didn't do much of the fighting. A lot of
+    americas felt like they fought the wrong enemy though admitting that is
+    dangerous after all the nazis committed so many unmoral actions. American
+    ideas, nazi ideas, and a wall of lies lead way to neoliberalism.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>Neoliberalism</h2>
+  <p>
+    All the american solders who fought a war that wasn't theirs returned home
+    as the good guys but with the ideology of the bad guys. The most powerful
+    of both worlds. Why just beat the nazis when we can replace them is what
+    they ask. Nationalism, christianity, eugenics, racism, sexism,
+    ablism... were all given a place to grow. German scientists who created
+    nazi weapons were brought to america to finish were the nazis left off. The
+    new enemies were the communists. In russia they were also leveraging post
+    war conditions. The weapons became so advanced that now any powerful nation
+    can destroy the entire earth with a press of a button. In the past if a
+    nation had a super powerful weapon they would use it gladly. Now that a
+    weapon that can destroy the whole planet existed and all sides had them
+    war leaders had to reframe from using their most deadly weapon. This gave
+    birth to the cold war. Meanwhile in america there was a rising middle class
+    and countries being rebuilt under american investments would soon
+    follow. This middle class being made up of that ex-solders.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>Counterculture</h2>
+  <p>
+    The middle class of ex-solders had a hell ton of children. These children
+    were born and grew up in the most calm time period in a long time yet the
+    pattern of control was more clear than ever to anyone watching from the
+    side lines. The world they grew up in was completely different than the one
+    past generations knew. New ideas and technology radicalized pulled the
+    entire world into a new age. As they grew up they slowly learned they lived
+    in a world built on lies but they couldn't quite put their finger on
+    it. Pointless war and pointless violence everywhere. Easier access to
+    psychedelics interacted with a growing awareness of the pattern of
+    control. Better education served as a double sided sword for the new
+    control. It needed smart people to operate the new complex technological
+    world yet education can lead to new enlightenment and breaking free of the
+    rulers of the world. The young started creating their own culture. One of
+    new music, new ways to get wasted... The old get drunk in bars while the
+    young got high at rock concerts. They concluded the issues with the world
+    to be a cultural one. The powers of the world spread a culture of control
+    and violence. Instead we need a culture of peace and love. The civil rights
+    movement, women's rights movements, gay rights movements all hit center
+    stage. Every action the leaders did to counteract the new movement only
+    verified what the hippies already knew.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>The death of counterculture</h2>
+  <p>
+    The hole with counterculture is it saw things through a more cultural lens
+    and lacked more economic and historical ones that other progressive
+    movements had. It was a grass roots movement that as a whole lacked much of
+    the deep philosophy progressive thinkers been coming up with and improving
+    upon since the beginning of written history. Counterculture was simply glue
+    of peace and love holding together a bunch of hippies and
+    activists. Counterculture was still deeply capitalist since it was only a
+    cultural revolution that it pushed for. Wood stock was all profits and
+    business under the hood. All the counterculture artists spreading peace and
+    love were feeding back into the capitalist system. All the hippies were
+    plucked from the fields and put in the corporate offices. The system can't
+    defeat them so it joined them and profited off it. The businesses and
+    governments were painted colorful yet its still the same walls
+    underneath. Steve jobs was a hippie tripping on LSD on a farm before he
+    started apple. The military now <i>spreads democracy</i> instead of take
+    over countries. Yes, this is very america centered but everything an empire
+    does spreads. Counterculture crossed the sea back and forward many
+    times. With the hippies in control of the world its now seen as good to be
+    a little progressive but pushing for ideas progressive enough to actually
+    do anything is labeled extremest. A company only has to be moral enough to
+    not be boycotted. Slavery was out sourced far away. Out of sight out of
+    mind. Making the pattern of control less painful is encouraged but breaking
+    the pattern is fought against just as much.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>The reactionaries</h2>
+  <p>
+    A system dominated by strong white men was being replaced. Women, black
+    people, gays... were making their way into the governments and
+    corporations. This was seen as a threat so many doubled down on the
+    post-war version of the status quo. They saw new capitalism as weak and
+    blamed all their issues on it. Nostalgia as we know it was born. "Things
+    were better before <i>insert anything here</i>". "If the hippies like peace
+    and love than lets spread hate and violence". The reactionaries never think
+    deeper than that. They only think about what is instead of what can
+    be. They concluded that if the present sucks than we should go back to the
+    past. They fail to envision a better future. That's the whole point behind
+    "make america great again". How they see it is the pattern of control was
+    in their favor but now its out of their favor. Removing the pattern of
+    control is out of the question.
+  </p>
+
+  <h2>To finish things up</h2>
+  <p>
+    Make sure to spend time going outside, learning new skills, reading cool
+    books, and listening to good music. Don't fall for the traps the system has
+    set. Things will not improve much until we break this pattern. I call for a
+    new type of revolution. This blog post was partly inspired by
+    <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=nST5BggdfUs" target="_blank">
+      this video
+    </a>. Do check it out (: Love you all stay safe and keep your eyes open :D
+  </p>
+</article>
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