I guess the only logical argument against JWB's and my position that I can see, is that for counter-culture movements to have remained as prevalent as they have throughout history, then they have to have some kind of cultural evolutionary purpose, which would make them not anti-social, since they would be serving a purpose that increased human society's progress as a whole, even if the adherents were themselves anti-social.
I suppose they introduce and preserve ideas that would otherwise never exist (for example, the liberal/hippy movements of the fifties and sixties' rebellion against blind government trust that had existed almost unchallenged previously), thereby going some way to prevent cultural stagnation in a society. Whether each individual movement is itself useful or not can only be considered on a case-by-case basis, but in general, they may very well be "social" in a wider sense.
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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