Hip to Be Square

Can you get an amen? Oh yes, my brother, you can get an amen. Your annoyance with the "hipster" kids seems to result at some level from what I call "The bland sameness of non-conformity". I keep meaning to blog about it, but you seem to have covered it pretty well.

You are NOT a unique and individual snowflake. We are all a part of the same compost heap. We are the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world.

Is cynicism brave? Questioning the societal norms and status quo can be brave. Questioning the relativism and materialism of our culture is certainly brave and worth commending. If by cynical he means "questioning" then I don't have any qualms with that. If he is actually referring to a "there is no hope" viewpoint, you're right, there's nothing brave about that. It's the viewpoint to be expected of a person without Christ, our only hope.

You're also right in saying there isn't an epic battle between Matt as an individual and "the man" but there are always idealogical battles being waged within the greater culture. So, as a movement, I think you could say the hipsters are engaged against the status quo. What will become of it? Only time will tell.

There are some good things that could become of it, though. One being a greater appreciation of quality art in pop culture. If the hipsters win their war, we might have a pop culture built around music like that of Interpol and Wilco instead of around half naked pop princesses and the "thong song." Another more plausible benefit could come from their anti-establishment attitude towards work. "The man" would have you working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, so you can get that promotion and buy that new Escalade. The hipster who finally entered the business world might say "I'll work 30 hours a week and spend more time with my family at the expense of some material goods."

Every person, and every "movement" has its problems. Elitism and snobbery is a problem of the hipster movement. It's much easier to look down on and dismiss someone who likes Sugar Ray than it is to introduce them to the White Stripes. And really in every group of people there are poseurs, who are just trying to fit in with somebody. Maybe there are more poseurs in the hipster crowd than there are in other circles. So? You can't say that there aren't some authentic hipsters any more than you could say there aren't authentic jocks or authentic kids on the yearbook staff. Uncoolness doesn't automatically grant you authenticity. Neither does being broke. And neither does being rich and cool. Authenticity is utterly personal. I'm reminded of a C.S. Lewis quote: "no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

Another thought just came to mind. You say that the hipsters are all about "not being cool" and the implication is that it was a proactive choice. Could it not be that in some cases they were simply admitting "hey, I'm not cool according to the status quo" and then following their interests on a path that led to being a hipster. They started looking into music and literature that the cool kids didn't have any idea about, and maybe they picked up their fashions and lingo from other people on the same path. Somewhere there has to be some organic nature to it and some authenticity.

Great thoughts. I used to go crazy over this stuff. When I was in college, it had more to do with rants against people who wore Patagonia and had bike racks but who didn't "really" care about it. The fact that people even got worked up over who was the authentic one who deserved those clothes and those activities always struck me as strange. As though somehow, because a person knows where Patagonia is on a map, then somehow they're better than the person who wore Patagonia simply because it was warm and they liked it. As you point out so well, both the person who is desperately trying to fit in, and the person who defines himself by not fitting in, are both more or less playing the same game. They're so concerned with what people think of them that they're willing to reorient themselves in light of that fact.

I definitely fit into that third group. It's a bit alienating at times. You don't quite know where you fit. I do it even now in a more grown-up way. It hit me the other day that most of my life is probably going to be marked by this kind of feature. I simply don't know who I am, and I am always looking for some kind of answer to that. Not to sound glib, either, but I think it's more clear to me that a lot of what you're talking about gets closer to basic Christian principles - like finding myself in Christ. There's a certain freedom in that, too. I used to idolize this, now passed-away, theologian named Greg Bahnsen. I thought about him all the time. I tried to memorize his style and rhetoric. Someone told me something, though, recently that was interesting - that made me think about my interest in him. He said something about how these people I always want to be like - they are not Jesus and they are not me. It's a weird realization to have. I'm always searching for both of those people I think - Jesus and me.

That stuff about fitting in, and proclaiming true, authenticity is, when it comes out of my mouth, always abuot identity. It's always about the stuff you're talking about in your post. And I think it never simply stops after high school either. I think professional economists, for instance, (my world by the way), are still doing the same things when they line themselves up to some large, epic battle between capitalism and socialism - regardless of the side they take. Not always, mind you, but I see that as being real solace for the people you're talking about. Or maybe just the people I'm talking about (if those people aren't the same people you're talking about).

On a different note, aren't you loving Love in the Ruins? I was astonished by how much I loved it.

Scott, I am absolutely loving Love in the Ruins, I wish I had more time to read it...I guess I would have more time if I didn't spend so much blowing it on goofin' with CSS, JAVA, .ASP and other crap, as you can probably tell by the new design of my blog.

Man...you idolized Bahnsen. Holy Crap. I did the same thing...the man was amazing, and a great guy in my opinion. He wasn't perfect, but he sure did get a bad rap. He became a guru to many, and most of his "followers" suffered from "Theological Prick" syndrome as we've talked about before. Heck, I was one of them...

Josiah. You're new format is very appealing, but i can hardly read the text. Would it offend your aesthetic sensibilities to make it a tad bit darker?
Jnet

I like your comments, too. There is a sense where "fitting in" with society maintains a certain amout of peace, though, that is acceptable. (To be true, there may be a time with the status quo is unacceptable, perhaps for moral reasons.) For instance, I don't have a thing in common with the majority of the ladies in my church. But for the sake of Christian fellowship, I endeavor to "fit in". I rack my brains for tales of domesticity that I can bring to the brief minutes of chatter after a service or in eachother's homes. In that sense, trying to become the status quo, at least functionally, is the right thing to do. And I've actually acquired aspects of their society that I really like. For example, a penchant for discussing food. I've always liked to cook, but to really think about the food and the tastes and their combinations. That's an amazing world!

Oh and for unusual results for trying to fit in that have really gone awry, I recommend the Woody Allen film "Zelig".

Josiah, this is your best post ever! I was in that third group! I know exactly what you're talking about--not accepted by the "cool" but not in with the "non-cool."

Every culture has it's idols. I would describe the American idol as the quest to be defined by the best stuff possible. This is not just materialism, oh no, its the worshipping of the process of materialism.

Now in my mind it can be said that the truest mark of the hipster is the unwillingness to bow down to this idol. Hipsters don't worship the American Dream. Now of course your garden variety hipster probably has her own idols, thing's like high-brow coolness, or thorough-going cynicism.

However it takes a certain degree of bravery to buck with the norm in ones society. More than it does to reflixevely conform.

Matt,

I don't think it's any less materialistic to buck the status quo materialism and wear, consume, listen to, partake in, other materials that just happen to be different or anti the materials of the status quo. I think either way it's just as materialistic.

Bucking the status quo, doing your own thing, being and "individual" is as American as they get. Hipsters are a thoroughly American subculture, they'd like to be like Gypsies in eastern Europe, but they're not becuase NOBODY is persecuting them.

The American Dream IS to be able to march off and do your own little thing wherever you want to whenever you want to, the American Dream IS to be a Hipster, or a Mormon, or a Mennonite, or a Presbyterian, or whatever the heck you wanna be. Show me one facet of hipster culture that can't be subsumed in a broad sense of what the American Dream is?

Especially because in America, it takes NO bravery to buck the norms. I buck the norms all the time. I dont' receive and inch of persecution. I've got a great little group of Chattanoogan friends that let me be me, which could be argued, isn't the "norm" of society. There's no bravery there, only acceptance on the part of ones friends.

America lets you be who you want to be. Nobody cares about the hipsters (except us maybe) doing their own thing. They're irrelavent, they matter nothing to the everday joes they idolize. That simple un-essential nature of the hipsters (and that America provides that freedom) is what allows the hipsters to be who they are. There's little I see that's brave about it.

And finally, after thinking about this alot, I've realized that what bothers me about the hipsters thing is that it's so anti-culture, like it maintains a warped sacred-secular dichotomy between the hipster and status-quo world. It's like they're waging a culture war. It's like, if they were evangelical, they'd be reading WORLD Magazine or something.

Which again, is stuff I don't think fits with what little sense of the Christian life that I have...

Whether someone is "oppressed" is, to some extent, irrelevant. Whether the hipsters really feel (or really can feel) threatened is debatable, rather wallowing in supposed or actual oppression is pretty dumb. A whole lifestyle created out of what is essentially self-pity is pretty lame.

I would take argument with you on the impossibility of feeling oppressed by "society." I have felt this all my life! Kind of for silly reasons, too. I liked classical music exclusively as a kid and in high school, and it really affected my coolness factor. Whatever the social equivalents were for being the last chosen in kickball, happened to me because I liked classical music. Like on our senior trip to Minneapolis when I chose to go see the Minnesota Orchestra and everyone else went to a professional basketball game (I can't even remember the team's name)...for the rest of the trip I was somehow marginalized. Even now, being into musicology has had uncomfortable social implications. Nobody likes musicologists except musicologists, because they want to study music when everyone else wants to experience music, so we spoil their party.

And then my even wanting to a Christian woman scholar creates marginalization factors in the church. Every Sunday, whether I should or not, I feel like I don't fit in. Because we don't have some kind of weird DougWilson-y kind of marriage, because we aren't having kids yet, because I want to be a scholar and have my own independent thoughts, I am so different, and I feel it acutely. (Now this is a huge generalization...will begin to break down a bit when I get to talking about specific individuals in the church who I feel "safe" with.) It is so hard for a woman to be a scholar in traditional Reformed, evangelical circles. I'm supposed to be at home, having babies, and homeschooling them. You wouldn't believe how many people out there actually think that women are more emotive and men are more rational. Well...I could go on and on...but I won't.

Jeanette...you mean, women aren't more emotional? You crack me up, really, you do.

But onwards...even though you may have experienced "not fitting in" I think that's a far cry from the type of oppressions, racism, persecution etc. that occured on African Americans or other groups all around the world. You can get a job. You CAN become a scholar. You can do anything you want. You could move to a church where you DO fit in, anything you want really. This isn't anything like the oppresion I'm talking about, nor is it necessarily the type of oppression the hipsters are talking about...

And even so, getting really angry and subscribing to Adbusters seems rather lame...

To be sure that I'm not describing that kind of persecution. But, as you say, the hipsters aren't really either. Perhaps "oppression" or "persecution" is the right word for the subtle daily vibes, pressures, or whatever it is we're talking about received from whatever context/society we're in.

I'm not talking really about my church here in particular. I'm talking about the Church. Moving won't change the whole culture that has developed around American, evangelical Reformed Christianity. And it is precisely the sentiment that I can do anything I want that is the problem.

But, can I, really? Will I succumb to pressures from the Christian society I live in to create a family in a particular way? Can I really get a job? Who would want to give a tenure track job to a woman with a baby who potentially has diversions other than a life solely devoted to publishing? Aside from the church, being a woman in academia is definedly different, subtle but acute. At Covenant they go on and on...there should be more Christian woman scholars. But they say that high on the hill, treating their female students with equal opportunities as their male students. But there is a difference. I can't describe it very definitively for you. But other women I have talked to have confirmed similar sentiments . Sorry...this is a tender nerve with me and nothing I haven't said before.

Did you ever meet Bahnsen? If so, please tell me about it. I agree- he struck me as a wonderful man. I have some old tapes of his talking at a conference in which he criticizes the christian reconstruction movement, from the perspective of a pastor being on the inside of it (in other words, "let's look at where we've come, and who we are" kind of thing), that made me cry like a little baby. He talks about all the real problems in it, involving all the fighting and on losing his wife and other stuff. At the end, he really seemed broken and humbled by all that he'd gone through in life.

More things to make us think we're somehow secretly related, right Josiah? ;)

He was an immensely caring guy, and exceptionally patient. That stuff with his wife was unbelievable. I remember one time I got really ticked off at one of my professors for making a snide comment that evidence of how corrupt theonomy was as a system is evident in the fact that Bahnsen's wife left him. Pretty pathetic.

The one time way back when I was on this Van Til discussion list, and some guy was on there bashing Theonomy, then David Bahnsen (Greg's son) came on there and pointed out it was the guy who had had the affair with Bahnsen's wife.

I remember the day Bahnsen died, my dad was crying in his study. My dad isn't even a theonomist, he just really respected Greg.

Dr. Bahnsen was a good friend of my dad's. He was an incredible man. Having him at our house was always fun...he was just a regular guy, watching basketball, talking about movies, music, etc.
I remember taking my dad to the airport when Dr. Bahnsen was in the hospital and not expected to make it. I can't remember ever seeing my dad so sad. What an incredible loss for my family and for the Church.

You are joking! The guy was bashing theonomy and David Bahnsen pointed out that that guy was the guy who had had an affair with Bahnsen's wife? Man, that must just have eaten David Bahnsen up! What a jerkwad.

It's interesting that you tie individualism to the American Dream, Josiah. I think that might be the root of our misunderstanding re my post on 4 July.

I think the identity between individualism and Americanism is a corruption of Americanism. What I find peculiar about it is that in many cases it is not a consistent individualism. That is, Americanism now seems to consist of a demand for individual freedom of choice but without the willingness to accept responsibility for one's actions.