Cohesion has disintegrated within society and overall consensus has been subordinated to the whim of individual perference. Society has broken down into battling factions and new groups have emerged proclaiming some degree of distinctness or separation from the mainstream, some claiming to be an answer to one or another fault rooted within wider society.
This phenomena of emerging subcultures have come in common usage to be known as alternative cultures, a title full of emotive connotations and implied radical status which have been embraced with fervour by both the subculture and the mainstream.

So-called alternative cultures are typically formed in reactionary circumstances, more often than not in answer to a percieved slight on individual freedoms, whether that be a restriction of ones desire to have sexual intercourse with another of the same gender, or the freedom to grow ones hair long and submit to their aggressions.

So prevalent have they become that the phrase 'alternative culture' is now a part of every day language.

Alternative cultures, which would more accurately be described as subcultures, create alot of bluster about being gateways to greater freedom, means to escape the boredom and hopelessness of modern society; worlds unto themselves existing by an entirely new set of rules. Indeed to their primary base of membership, adolescents, they must indeed look like relatively exciting options when compared with the prospects offered by mainstream society. If one looks amongst the inevitable mass of drones and halfwits within these subcultures one will often find individuals of above-average intellligence, disdainful of modern life (to some degree) and possessing an idealistic streak which they hope to fulfill through the subculture. The purpose of this article is to explain why those idealists will not see their hopes realized within the context of the alternative culture and why, in their essential nature, alternative cultures do not escape the failings of modern society.

Superficially, alternative cultures have all the appearance of new, distinct cultures.
They have their own symbols, language, dresscodes, art styles - outwardly at least they have all the observable signifiers that mark a group as distinct from others. However when examined more closely, ie one looks at the values that these things represent, one finds at most them to be of deliberately ambiguous origin and purpose subtly reflecting the modern belief in indvidualism, though more often one finds them to be overtly abstracting the same materialistic, liberal worldview as upheld by the mainstream of this rotten society society.

Beyond the adoption of the purely superficial aspects that define a culture, these modern alternative cultures present no clear sign of being fundamentally any aternative at alll to the society they claim to be reacting to.

Within the context of a traditional culture, symbols, artistic styles, forms of dress and so forth evolve alongside appropriate norms and values over a considerable period of time coming to reflect either something innately unique within the population or a distinct factor of their environment.
The superficiality of alternative culture belies the falsity of its attempted portrayal as genuine culture by the traditional definition.

Occassionally one can observe symbols within the subculture that seem to hearken to something of substance, as in the case of heavy metal subcultures use of ancient, classical and overtly romantic imagery, or in the case of the hippy subculture who justify drug abuse through the potential for esoteric enlightenment. The origins of these things can be found in the individuals and ideas the subculture traces its lineage from. In the case of the metal subculture, having developed amongst fans of the metal music genre, its members will display their affection for and enjoyment of heavy metal music by adopting in some way the imagery used by the artists of the genre.

Hippy culture began as an idealistic youth movement influenced by eastern mysticism and indo-european paganism seeking to infuse pacifism, environmentalism and shamanism to form a new lifestyle.

It could then be proposed that subcultures like those mentioned, possessing vestiges of ideas distinct from those of the mainstream may in fact be considered legitimate cultures on the basis of an ideological consensus within them. This claim to cultural status fails once it is taken into consideration how little belief in these ideas is to be found within the populous of the subculture. The Heavy metal subculture requires no ideological subscription to the romantic idealism communicated by heavy metal music, nor any serious comprehension of the significance of such imagery. Hippy culture, having gained massive prominence within western society, became overwhelmed by people whose sole goal was hedonism and quickly had what were once the expressions of its ideals turned into justifications for individualistic excess.
Thus the majority join alternative cultures purely for, non-ideological reasons, most often simply for egoistic, selfish reasons, therefore disqualfying these subcultures as genuine cultures on the basis of an apparent ideological consensus.

The idea that subcultures are worlds unto themselves also is significantly undermined when taken into consideration just how intrinsically tied to the mainstream of modern society they are. For instance, though the individual is enticed into participation on the basis of being able to exceed the hopeless tedium of mainstream modernity, there is no actual means for them to sever the ties of infrastructural dependence on modern society, such as in political and legal control, locality, employment and consumerism that are in essence, tenets of the tediousness of modern society.

Offering no new insight into the failings of modern society nor any fundamental alternative,
I conclude at this point that so-called alternative cultures are not escape routes from modern society but in fact are extensions of the corrupted modern worldview and further expressions of the same subversive influence that has been acting upon the vestiges of traditional culture within the Western world and the nations of the British isles for a long time.

It is seldom percieved by those within the subcultures just how deliberate a construct the subculture is of its parent mentallity; individualist materialism.
Within the marketplace and in everyday social interaction, alternative cultures have become accepted and exploited as 'safe' outlets for ideas, thoughts, urges and emotions that are dangerous to the fundamental nature of modernity.

Expectations have developed around the periods of a persons life when they reach a point of contemplation, wherein the futility of modern society becomes apparent (particulary during adolscence when ones outlook is beginning to take shape and one is reaching a physical prime and so is capable of causing the most damage to property and people) they will turn to what is presented as the only other option, ie the carefully marketed, ruthlessly groomed 'alternative' culture. In the search for meaning the dissenter is ushered toward alternative culture and like the tale of Cúchulainn battling with the sea, are encouraged to direct their aggressions into unthreatening, unproductive outlets that will ultimately, beyond the control of the individual, overwhelm and pacify them.

This is no more strikingly illustrated than by the phenomena of the mosh pit particular to the metal subculture, a curiously mindless spectacle at which social gatherings even form around.

This itself can be likened to the way professional sports, pop psychology, purchasing, computer games and even sexual conquest are used as deliberately inconsequential vents for aggressions and urges that root deeper than the actions taken to sate them may fulfill. Like Karl Marx's metaphor for religion as the "opiate of the mases", all of the mentioned aggression outlets ensure the populous remain subdued, unquestioning obedient workers. Interestingly this situation also creates a moral staff with which society may beat an individual who chooses to object to any objectionable social groups or interests asserting their influence or status at the expense of social cohesion, the reasoning behind which amounting to "you are allowed your lifestyle choices, why should you not allow others theirs?", which echoes the secular fable of equality and the "golden rule" of christianity.

The majority of people who join a subculture are there purely for personal enjoyment and nothing more. Too vain, too stupid and too concerned with the immediate gratification they may derive from any given situation that they fail to transcend the values of modern society. The subversion of those subcultural movements founded on principles and aspirations that exceed those of mainstream modernity begins when the masses overrun the mebership population. Rather than adopting the difficult new values of the subculture they hijack those things most easily processed (ie, symbols) and apply them to the liberal humanist values of mainstream society that justifies a lazy, hedonistic existence. This is true even when the symbols, by other associations, seem to contradict these values.

Owing no part of their existence to a steady, organic development within a stable, refined population, nor reflecting in their symbolic components inherent tendencies shared by the members of the group, the modern alternative culture does not fit the traditional definition of a culture.

In the modern age though it is not the ethnicity you belong to, the ideas you stand for, your level of intelligence or the quality of person you are that defines you, but precisely what you choose to buy into, the modern subculture is no different from this fact.

In an age where we are offered nothing to believe in and equally little to belong to, It is only inevitable that one will turn to whatever they have available to them that appears to possess more meaning than the mainstream of society currently presents. Through the development of the union, the growth of industry, the rise of materialism and the revolt of the masses the cultures of the British isles have been reduced to a hollow carcass; vaguely resembling their original form but lacking the substance they once had. Whether we percieve it or not, the subculture phenomena are also further undermining the native cultures of glorious nations. Culture is the most effective weapon against the materialism and the despondancy of the era. The very reason people obsess with the trivialities of egoism and materialism is precisely because they lack they guidance and purpose instilled in their lives that a healthy, vibrant culture would rudimentarily provide. There is no guarantee that within the subculture the people one will interact with will share the same values. Once absorbed in the subculture it is difficult to break free of the social networking and practices that lock one into an unhealthy lifestyle. An idealist labouring long and hard to produce something of meaning and force within the subculture will only find themselves despondant and lost. One can observe this in the historical decline of the black metal movement, essentially a cultural revivalist movement, but at insisting association to impotent, idealistically spent subcultures (those of punk and heavy metal) lost track of its goals and was overrun by hedonistic spilling over from those communities.

It is the advice of this author to avoid seeking a meaningful alternative lifestyle in the subcultures of modernity. They fail to escape the insane ideological trappings of mainstream society and offer only an illusion of distinction from the prevailing mentallity. Those searching for a purposeful escape from the farce of modern society should look to their traditional ethno-culture and the wisdom that have carried there nation through the ages. By peeling back the layers of damage done to our cultures by the processes of modernisation, we may reveal the core substance of our society, the very values that they were formed upon and return to a semblance of a saner order.