There has been an emerging trend in the music and magazine articles that I have been consuming lately. It seems that there are three cultural groups that are seeking to define themselves. The first group is pop culture proper. Here we find all the trends of the majority, its conventions and conversations. The songs, gossip, celebrities, and fashion are recognizable, if not well known. The second group is the counter-culture. Dismissing pop-culture as “cliché,” “kitschy” or “fake,” there are dozens of sub-groups and cliques that exist to critique the mainstream. The third group, at least expressed in songs, is condemning this second group as just another fake. Say Anything calls them “proto-typical noncomformists” and The Grouch simply pronounces in “You ain’t artsier than me,”
“So what you’re a vegan?
It shows in your presence you be geekin’
and you be seeking the same life
speakin’ the game like the enemy”
While I want to contend that I fall into the third category, I’ve been thinking about whether or not this third group is just another cultural trend that is being appropriated by the “edgy” and “avant-garde” artists in order to differentiate themselves in the musical field. Is it that in failing to be popular or cool, they simply want to be contrary and create their own version of what cool means? I guess I’m questing counter-cultural claims in general.
There are two things that can happen to a counter-culture that is directly criticizing mainstream culture. Either the counter-culture can essentially “fail” and remain an underground footnote to the general history of culture, or it can “succeed” and its ideas become mainstream. If your movement has no more message than rebelling against the typical culture, then “success” is just as destructive as “failure.” There must be more to a movement than “change the system.”
It doesn’t matter what you stand against. Especially in a group that, however temporarily, thinks the same way you do … complaining about the way things are is ultimately easy. The difficult thing is to stand for something. Cynicism has always been safe. Causes for something have always been hard … and always more worthwhile.
put down the chesterton and pick up the revolt of the masses by jose ortega y gasset.
I am fairly constantly thinking of the quote that it is far easier to know what you stand against than what you stand for. And it’s true, it is far easier, even to the point of seeming like the only really way to define oneself (e.g. I’ve found myself unable to affirm any concrete political truths I can get behind one hundred percent, but boy can I talk about the stuff I hate).
(I also remain impressed by the pictures you find to head your posts.)
It seems like a big circle….the second group is condemning the first, the third condemning the second…but isn’t the third just as guilty?
I was intrigued by your sentence ” If your movement has no more message than rebelling against the typical culture, then “success” is just as destructive as “failure.” But isn’t that what these messages are all about? To challenge one to think? What about the Underground? I would call it a success :)
I saw an ad awhile back with this punk-type band playing one of their songs. Punk outfits, punk lyrics, everything. But it was an ad. For Target.
Needless to say, it made me laugh.
@Aleece:
To some degree, yes. A lot of messages are about challenging people to think, but the point that I was trying to articulate was that it isn’t enough to just tell (or even shock) someone into thinking. The most significant of messages isn’t simply “escape” but carries with it an identity or idea to “escape to.” The Underground, perhaps, is a targeted instance of asking people to consider deeper things, but it isn’t so much a movement as it is an experiment. I would, however, call it a success as well.
@Pops:
That’s how we are so often told to “rebel” today … by consuming from huge corporations. It’s a strange oxymoron.