Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think the word 'hand' is missing.
What about a black guy who wears a suit and works in an office - is he 'inauthentic'? Is he a 'blonkey'?
Patter
- Thread starter Martin Dust
- Start date
I think the word 'hand' is missing.
What about a black guy who wears a suit and works in an office - is he 'inauthentic'? Is he a 'blonkey'?
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Hmmm, can sort of see what you're getting at here, but something seems a bit dodgy about this. It's coming close to saying 'Hey, let's just leave everyone in their own little corners, with their own petty little prejudices'.
At the very least, I don't see why people who do wish to totally isolate themselves from the outside world like this need (or deserve) our support and protection in doing so.
Apologies in advance if I'm misinterpreting/misrepresenting you here.
Really don't get why are equating authenticity with matching prevailing norms.
I'd say in most cases someone who uncritically (or deliberately) attempts to match up to some 'prevailing norm' (as many do of course) is going to be quite inauthentic (alienated) at least some of the time.
If that really is a popular conception of authenticity then it's obviously an inauthentic one.
I think theme bars for the most part quite clearly set out to celebrate an exaggerated and simplified lcd caricature that's amusing / reassuring. It's not really claiming to be true to life is it?
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
My friend's Dad, who's Nigerian, wore a suit every day of his life, just to fit in and be 'taken seriously'. What I'm saying is that inauthenticity that goes that way, is usually* predicated on need to fit in, etc.
*let's say often, rather than usually.
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
OK, quick real world example, black pub/club in Herne Hill that I went into with a couple of white friends (i'm white, too) - we weren't made to feel utterly unwelcome, but it was clear that our presence wasn't 100 per cent desired. Other black pubs I've been to/go to, no such feeling.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
not 100 per cent, but in my experience it definitely does, and crucially, there are difference reasons for doing so (see ^^). sorry, gotta dash, would expand on this.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
except none of these are far-fetched devil's advocate questions. they're very basic objections to your unified theory of the authentic. you don't seem to have an answer for them, which doesn't surprise me as it's a kinda indefensible theory.
oh I see. so some people are OK with a certain thing and other people aren't? right. see how quickly you run into those problems when you try to make sweeping statements?
it doesn't, though. maybe that's just what you're most aware of. and even if there has - of course - been a great deal of white people borrowing from black (& other) cultures who's going to determine what is OK & what's not? when it's expropriation and when it's homage?
oh I see. so some people are OK with a certain thing and other people aren't? right. see how quickly you run into those problems when you try to make sweeping statements?
it doesn't, though. maybe that's just what you're most aware of. and even if there has - of course - been a great deal of white people borrowing from black (& other) cultures who's going to determine what is OK & what's not? when it's expropriation and when it's homage?
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Well you can be authentic a) to yourself (your current behaviour fits well with previous behaviour) or b) to others (your behaviour fits with surrounding behaviour), as, by my earlier definition, authenticity is degree of fit to context (either temporal, which would load on personal behaviour, or spatial, which would load on fit with others' behaviour). Alienation would involve a tension between a) and b) (note that this tension exists because of the (assumed) consistency of personality within the person afflicted).
That said, I would expect most people to have little difficulty inadvertantly matching prevailing norms, seeing as these norms are embodied in people in the first place.
The middle class, white rasta is behaving inauthentically with regard to others (his behaviour is unusual in the immediate social context and cannot be explained by what is known by others of his past behaviour), but, I suppose, might be authentic to himself (if it has some fit with his previous internal states). Similarly, Madonna's inauthentic (unpredictable) behaviour could be said to be personally authentic, as she is wont to behave ostensibly inauthentically in the way that she does.
I suppose there is that, but 'authentic' behaviour by the other is usually expected to satisfy either a (fit with previous behaviour) or b (fit with immediate context). Simplification and caricature emphasises both fits by reducing incongruous behaviours and emphasising congruent ones, as well as, with some poetic license, recreating the wider context with reference to which its authenticity is to be judged.
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
hey baboon - clear your pm box dude.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Box cleared.
But I wasn't trying a unified theory of the authentic at all...of course there's no such possibility. I don't have an answer for some of the marginal questions, no.
2nd point - analogy: one jewish friend is offended by a contentious jewish joke. another jewish friend isn't. do you tell the joke in front of both of them? Probably not - more important is to avoid offending the first person, in my view.
3rd point - Ok, fair enough to say that - I don't agree. A certain kind of 'cool' has become soemthing attached to being seen to be street, ghetto, whatever - people who don't live those realities can pick and choose the tropes of that 'lifestyle' without ever having to confront its reality, and I think that's kind of fucked up.
For me, that sort of behaviour is embarresing and makes me uncomfortable because it makes me think that the other person is perhaps ashamed of who they are and is trying to cloak it, probably for the sake of other people. Whats wrong with being a normal white guy from some normal background?
I'm still in my mid-late 20s but i like getting older because more and more you just accept who you are, who you aren't and get comfortable with that. People who have confidence and acceptence in who they are, are in my experience, good to be around and interesting. Also honesty is a good characteristic thats attractive and good to be around.
So white guys pretending to be rastas doesn't sit right with me. It seems insecure and dishonest, and when it comes to first impressions it would probably put me off someone because of those characteristics.
I'm still in my mid-late 20s but i like getting older because more and more you just accept who you are, who you aren't and get comfortable with that. People who have confidence and acceptence in who they are, are in my experience, good to be around and interesting. Also honesty is a good characteristic thats attractive and good to be around.
So white guys pretending to be rastas doesn't sit right with me. It seems insecure and dishonest, and when it comes to first impressions it would probably put me off someone because of those characteristics.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Would I sound like a total dick for suggesting that this sentence makes me think of university-educated, middle-class white blokes who listen to hip-hop, dancehall and grime all the time? That's not a rhetorical question, and I'm not sure I even really think that...I'm certainly not saying that people "shouldn't" listen to some kinds of music. I don't listen to tons of hip-hop myself but I can listen to old blues records without feeling the need to imagine I'm a black plantation labourer in the Deep South in the '30s. And taste in music is a bit different from taste in clothes, which of course affects how you come across to other people the moment you step out your front door. So I suppose I've answered my own question, really.
Very good points from Papercut about people who seem to be insecure that their ethnicity and social background makes them 'inherently' uncool, too.
vimothy
yurp
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Thing I find difficult about these threads is a) remembering what the various different strands are, and b) forgetting to repeat a precondition of what I'm arguing in each different post!
Think I said somewhere (if I didn't, I meant to) that I was thinking not about consuming culture, but about pretending to be something you're not (by taking on an accent, for example) in order to gain some kind of cultural cachet that is attributed by the group you're part of to a group with more disadvantages than your group has, attributed in some way because these disadvantages are glamorised - having your cake and eating it, really. To be honest i don't see what's particularly controversial about that. And of course that's an oversimplistic formulation, cos life's not simple etc etc.
Which is what you've said with the difference between music/clothes. And then of course there's accents.
Obv groups bleed into one another etc etc, and I'm sure it's possible to pick many holes in the above formulation, but that's roughly what I'm trying to say.
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baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
it's, er, acting. i guess my problem would be with people who can't see the difference between that and reality. Maybe I just dislike a particualr kind of fantasist...
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Bit of an aside but I often think when people chat about hip-hop & black culture being adapted and appropriated by whiter and less deprived people that it's not one way traffic.
Look at Wu Tang - a bunch of black New York junior mcs sitting around watching kung fu movies and before you know it they have taken the name from the Wu Dang area in China, rechristened Staten Isloand Shoalin, taken Chinese kung fu personas etc and generally we think that's cool (at least I do) rather than cheeky or fake.
Likewise Hip hops notorious obsession with Scarface, Godfather and Italian mafia narratives - you can see it in Wu Gambinos, Scarface (the rapper) and lots of other things.
Haven't read the whole debate but maybe this is interesting.
Look at Wu Tang - a bunch of black New York junior mcs sitting around watching kung fu movies and before you know it they have taken the name from the Wu Dang area in China, rechristened Staten Isloand Shoalin, taken Chinese kung fu personas etc and generally we think that's cool (at least I do
) rather than cheeky or fake.Likewise Hip hops notorious obsession with Scarface, Godfather and Italian mafia narratives - you can see it in Wu Gambinos, Scarface (the rapper) and lots of other things.
Haven't read the whole debate but maybe this is interesting.
I remember getting some pills with a mate and him affecting this bizarre northern accent that made him sound like he had a head injury. We were already northern, and the dealer didn't talk like that, so I dunno what he thought he was doing. I asked him when I got a moment and he was like "Just go with it," so I dropped it and lurked on the periphery, thinking this guy must think he's an absolute idiot.
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
He already scored and left the rest of you out
Like a wink between both, “pls don’t say I gripped a dozen of the stronger batch yesterday and haven’t shared a single one with anyone else here because = hoarding”
Drug etiquette is another matter worthy of a thread in itself
Like a wink between both, “pls don’t say I gripped a dozen of the stronger batch yesterday and haven’t shared a single one with anyone else here because = hoarding”
Drug etiquette is another matter worthy of a thread in itself