[karolinepauls]

Sadly, the minorities (in the Anglosphere at least) don't deliver at either "think" or "independently". Their counterculture is as countercultural as joining a church. Just another way to fit in. Be be slightly different and they'll chastise you - a high-profile example of this mechanism has just happened again https://archive.is/qeDfU. Unless that's what it's always been.

Hooligan-like countercultures are also excluded as far as "think" or "independently" goes for an obvious reason.

Thus, the only independent thinkers I've encountered are individuals who don't aim to have all the answers, who can accept disagreements, who attempt to know themselves - but those are individuals, not countercultures.

I'm erring on saying that countercultures were never about independent thinking. They were about fitting in with different people.

[armchairhacker]

> I'm erring on saying that countercultures were never about independent thinking. They were about fitting in with different people.

This is my understanding. Was it really different in the 60s/70s?

Being unique, by definition, means you don’t fit in with a “culture”. There’s something inherent in human nature that causes people to form tribes (and copy others leading to cargo-culting, groupthink etc.); those who are too different to want to join the mainstream group still want to join some other group, they want to be accepted, which means they still have pressure to conform.

The main thing I see today is that most liberal “countercultures” don’t tolerate political differences. But they seem to tolerate other differences (at worst if nobody else has your difference it’ll be ignored which has always been the case), and perhaps 60s/70s counter-culture tolerated political differences more but had some other taboo.