I got that beat. My youngest aunt was a biker babe. I grew up around outlaw biker. Then I got into table top gaming in jr high. Then I joined the scifi world. Now I work on a scifi convention. I also hangout with music dweebs. And frankly they’re way more interesting than people who kneejerk reject them.
What you’re missing is that ALL culture was once a rejection of the mainstream. Even the mainstream now. Every aspect of your life was once a rejection of the mainstream.
Do you belong to a religion? Well that religion started because some people didn’t think the religion around them fit.
American? America was colonized by people rejecting European culture.
Live somewhere that was one of the original 13 colonies? American expansion was fed by people rejecting the “settled” parts of America.
And here you are on FR, a place that started by rejecting mainstream media.
Every aspect of culture you surround yourself with, your clothes, your food, your language, your home, your worship, were ALL at some point rejection of the mainstream. And some still are.
The only religions that can be based on a rejection of other religions are untrue religions.
When a religion is true, then it is based on and in truth. This is not the same as something based on a reaction to another religion or idea. The postmodernists haven’t comprehended this vital distinction.
All of progressivism (blue-haired ideology) is false because it is founded on a rejection of objective truth. This is seen for example in Epicurus, Rousseau, Hume, Emerson and Marx all the way up to the postmodernists and existentialists of today.
(By the way, where is the knee jerk rejection in our conversation, hmmmmmm?)
When our ways are accepted for their own value without regard the ways or ideas of others, then they cannot be based on a reaction to those other ways or ideas.
It takes focus, more than high IQ, to understand these points (although it all adds up to comprehensive IQ). So put aside your mechanically high IQ and focus. But first, put away the knee jerk rejections.