Monday, January 23, 2017

Countercultures of the next few years

In the 60s, Timothy Leary told everyone a catchy slogan Turn On, Tune In and most importantly, Drop Out. There was a kind of romantic notion, you could hear in the Crosby Stills and Nash song, Wooden Ships, of splitting away from conventional society.  We are leaving, you don't need us.There were new ideas of living in communes and other ways that shocked people who were still onboard with the Eisenhower era 1950s lifestyles.


I'm not sure radical ideas of dropping out of society like this will spring up again, unless you already count doomsday preppers, Christian homeschoolers, and others survivalists. It all seems like a photographic negative of the hippies. It's these current dropouts who have seized power in a populist uprising while no one noticed.

Sadly, we're all going to remain really pissed off for just a little bit longer.

I would be surprised if something like Punk Rock, Grunge, or Dada takes hold, but it might make a quick appearance. Nihilism in its different guises never stays cool for long. Punk of the 70s is not really from the Middle Class, and it's certainly not something you buy at a store. I'm suspecting we see different Folk music traditions bubble up to the surface, as they are grounded in place and history, and people are going to want that kind of meaning in the years ahead.

But I haven't really a clue as to what the next counter-culture will look like, or what its actions will be. I'm not sure that what we saw with the huge Women Marches across America are a counter-culture. In my mind, that's mainstream culture, fearing that it will lose everything. Hopefully not.