Unlike the US of the 1950s, there is no apparent single pervasive monolithic culture — and thus there is no real “counterculture” that can exist in universal opposition to that dominant culture across the US.
But rest assured that to the people living lives incongruent with their communities — including perhaps any “trads” in SF, NYC, etc. — their lives will feel pretty countercultural.
You don't have to be in NY, SF, or wherever to experience the trendy culture. It is pervasive everywhere.
You don’t, which is why I said:
> or even different parts of the same city
But while it is present almost everywhere, it is not pervasive everywhere. Surely at your private Christian university there are many who hold traditional views — just as there are some at Berkeley, near me — and I’d be pretty surprised to learn that the kids painting your school’s mascot represent a majority perspective there.
In our culture, almost any values from prior generations are treated as suspect. We live in an extremely progressive time when compared against historical periods.
My particular gripe with this is how religion is viewed in popular culture. Despite our supposed multicultural values, much of the discussion on religion remains focused on Western/Abrahamic religions. Psychology/psychiatry is the new religion which is supposed to be able to guide our mental/spiritual health journey, but I'm of the opinion that it is failing miserably in this area, and we should be doing more to integrate ideas that have survived for thousands of years for a reason.
"Present almost everywhere" is in fact what pervasive means :)
The thesaurus lists these words as some synonyms of pervasive:
Widespread, prevalent, common, present, popular, majority, predominant.[0]
Just because the culture isn't accepted by every single person on planet earth doesn't mean it's not pervasive. There were plenty of pockets of communities in the early 20th century and late 19th century that didn't follow the traditional norms of Christianity that existed in the west. But I think we would both agree that Christianity/catholicism was pervasive in the west in those time periods.
After all, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Darwin, Marx, Bertrand Russell and more were popular with different communities at the time, even though they were definitely counter to the pervasive culture of Christianity/catholicism then.
And I agree with you about how it's surprising that even at a Christian university, the traditional values of Christianity aren't taught! The example I gave was just one of the things I thought of off the top of my head. There were several other examples that gave me the feeling that the majority of the students weren't interested in traditional values. Chapel was a running joke among the students, nobody really cared and just went since the credit was required. People in positions of leadership that didn't align with the trendy culture slowly got replaced throughout my time there. We routinely got lectured on diversity and equity and how the university was devoted to it. I have friends who are gay that let me know how widespread the lgbt+ community at the university was (among professors and students).
I could go on, but my point was that even in the rural south, plenty of people are afraid to go against the trendy culture. My experience was simply some anecdata to your presumption that the rural South does not have a significant majority of people also following the trends of liberal cities. It's definitely less pronounced, but it's also definitely pervasive.
Nothing more biblical than that, since the bible is polyvocal and therefore contains positions that are in tension and even on occasion outright opposition with one another.
> The students couldn't care less about the traditional aspects of Christianity.
Which/whose tradition?
And the youths are sometimes less invested in tradition you say?
> trendy culture
"Trendy" isn't an insight, it's a dismissal, and it's one that misses the insight that the parent tried to offer you.
So it seems clear that "mainstream" culture is not monolithic, merely dominant. You can always find bubbles everywhere, but if outside of those bubbles you find one concept being preached endlessly - it's pretty safe to say that that concept is the "mainstream" culture, and those that run contrary to such would inherently be counter-culture.
Well, yes and no. The mainstream culture was far more dominant in the 50s than even 20 years later. And of course there were countless little (and often not-at-all-little!) cultures going on at the time -- and still going on.
But "counterculture" is not merely "alternative culture" -- and no one would write a post describing America today as lacking "alternative culture" because it's both false and also meaningless.
In the 1950s, regular church attendance was over 50%, union membership was at 35% of private sector workers, there were 3 channels on TV, and they predominantly espoused a particular leave-it-to-beaver culture that typified what was perceived as mainstream culture. The fact that it was not actually mainstream in the sense that fewer than half of Americans actually lived that way, is mostly irrelevant.
The '60s counterculture was not merely an "alternative culture"; it was powerful because it made it appear that the progeny of mainstream culture were condemning it; they questioned the power structure of that mainstream culture, despite being its plausible beneficiaries, and they were much more threatening to it than any other alternative cultures at the time (or, maybe, since) exactly because they were perceived as products of that monolithic mainstream culture.
In the US, there is currently no single monolithic culture being preached endlessly in the same way 1950s culture commanded media attention, it's not clear there ever will be one again without a dramatic turn towards the authoritarian, and so it's not at all clear what a national-level counterculture would even look like anymore?
Nothing has that level of control today. There are more major organizations, and they have much more divergent positions. As a result, the culture has fragmented, becoming multiple cultures. There is no "mainstream" any more. There are multiple major streams, but no one mainstream.
Of course people in a movement about freedom, finding yourself, and spirituality would generally respond one way if asked, "Hey should we go get involved in a war on the other side of the world, to try to imperil the reach and influence of a geopolitical competitor?" but the core philosophy was not only apolitical, but largely anti-political: "Do what you want... man." Everything was largely based on a loose interpretation of Eastern philosophy which is similarly much more about the pursuit (and search) for the betterment of one's inner self.
The culture you're describing sounds much more like the Yippie [3] culture, which is something extremely different than hippy. As for authoritarianism - I'd argue that the lack of authoritarianism is precisely what enables counter-cultures. You're not going to see a counter-culture movement in places like Saudi Arabia. And I think something similar is happening in the US. Had the Occupy Movement been treated similarly to the hippies, I think there's a strong argument to be made that it would still exist.
[1] - https://search.brave.com/search?q=were+hippies+political&sou...
[2] - https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-hippies-counter-cul...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_International_Party
