Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

You know, I grew up alienated in an awful suburb, so I think I feel qualified to say: that was fucking dumb.

Counterculture is indeed about rebelling against something, and it indeed dies on the vine when corporatized, mainstream culture has already absorbed it and there's no more cheap-and-easy rebellion to be had. But hey: suburbs are fucking alienating for everyone. If your only moral or political principle on which to take a stand is, "I feel alienated in suburbia", you're about as Homo Sapiens as it gets.

The real lesson is not, "counterculture should be preserved by having smart, rebellious, artistic kids grow up in the suburbs." The real lesson is, "This is why the overwhelming majority of people don't choose to live in suburbs when there's any kind of alternative available, but instead in either real cities or real countryside."

Also, for a bonus lesson: you can't spend your life rebelling against the suburbs, or in fact against anything whatsoever. At some point, you will either become just another hipster, or your "rebellion" has to be for something.

You could also simply live the way you want, even if other people see it as some kind of rebellion, without it being for anything.

That is, itself, a cause.

Yes. I don't really get it: why the burning need for fulfilling the definition of rebellion? Does it give you some sort of safety? Want to be both unique and socially accepted? This is an immediate contradiction, you know, as wide acceptance comes at a price of fitting oneself within one or more (couter)culture categories. Instead just do whatever you want man.

It's because you will probably interact with people, and having a socially aware human brain will cause you to recognize surprise and judgement in others, and you'll have to find a way to emotionally deal with the resulting rejection and exclusion.

Most people do this by saying "It's ok: I'm doing it on purpose. I didn't want to be accepted anyway."

And that's what rebellion is.

I agree with you and I've never cared much for being called a 'rebel'. It means you are doing what you are doing/being who you are as a reaction against something/someone, instead of just doing what you want to do/be who you want to be, which, in this day and age, in the U.S., is pretty much available to anyone.

Sorry, but where's the data on "the overwhelming majority of people don't choose to live in suburbs"? Where are all the ghost suburbs that should be all around us?

I know a bit about the other side of the coin: the overwhelming majority of people who would love to be able to live in an american suburb. They are called poor people.

I too would probably want to leave, had I grown up there. But, today, older and a little bit wiser, I know it's not the shit hole that people say it is. Go start a family, go live in somewhere where there are guns going off weekly. The suburbs will have its reason to be. It's not the funnest, most open, most inspiring place to live, not by a long shot. But it's not empty for a reason.

If you look at the rest of the site, the entire thing is similarly pretentious. It's really quite impressive in a "train wreck in slow motion" sort of way.

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