Do we live in a society without a counterculture?
I am old enough to remember the hippies and related counterculture(s). (I was very young.) This is something to keep in mind: the counterculture then was a place where people made a living. And the cost of living was cheap. You could raise kids on an organic farm, sell in the local alternative stores, have a live show on pirate radio. And pay your modest bills. Health insurance and college tuition was cheap. Jeez -- in California even the UC system was free! The hippies were the pot growers back then and all of Humboldt was one big counter culture. There were lots of niche markets and vendors who could sell to them and pay their rent.<p>A big part of what has happened is a huge rise in basic bills (rent, health insurance, tuition) and that has forced the counterculture people to make more money. It&#x27;s an economic transformation and it has narrowed our culture in many ways. Smell the desperation.<p>Part of that, in turn, is the slow death of the American working class. This is a much harsher society economically. That is why you step over bodies in San Francisco&#x27;s Tenderloin. It wasn&#x27;t like that when I moved here (early 80&#x27;s).