Hipsters: Scourge or Irrelevence
- Thread starter josef k.
- Start date
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I don't understand this bit Vim
vimothy
yurp
Did you read the next comment I posted? I think I elaborated on it there. Anarchists are fighting for a world where traditional loyalties (family, class, nation, religion, etc) are done away with. In their place are meant to be loyalties that are personally chosen by the individual. Despite perhaps his being distasteful to many anarchists, one expression of this ideal is the hipster, whose identity is a personal, ironic and playful expression, and not something that points at the higher goods and commitments that transcend the individual.
comelately
Wild Horses
Interesting. It all sounds pretty culty when you put it like that.
I'm not convinced 'hipsters' make particularly personal choices though.
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vimothy
yurp
One of the strange paradoxes about individualism as it appears in practice is how conformist and tightly circumscribed it is. It's a point Zizek makes over and over again:
john eden
male pale and stale
I rather thought that Class War (and anarchists generally) were coming from a more collectivist anarcho-communist angle than this individualist schtick.
Whilst anarchists certainly do believe in freedom of expression and freedom of association, I would think virtually all of them would prioritise the abolition of hierarchy, capitalism and classes over and above this.
Surely the point is that because of the way the world is structured now the rich are able to enjoy freedom of movement, association, expression etc in a way that the majority of the world's population is not?
Perhaps in an anarchist society everyone will be hipsters? I doubt it though.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Wouldn't the abolition of hierarchy also remove - or at least, massively reduce the significance of - the sort of deeply rooted social identities that hipsters are usually defined in opposition to, though?
Or possibly:
"If I can't dance ironically to 80's hair metal, I don't want to be part of your revolution!"
Or possibly:
"If I can't dance ironically to 80's hair metal, I don't want to be part of your revolution!"
vimothy
yurp
If you seek His monument ...
John, do you think it's fair to say, as Wikipedia does, that anarchists advocate a society constituted from "institutions based on non-hierarchical free associations", and that, "anarchism entails opposing authority or hierarchical organisation in the conduct of human relations"?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Forgive me if this is a rather obvious point, but surely the figure of the hipster is defined (regardless of whether this is still strictly true or not) by his/her outsideness? They're the alternative to the mainstream. So when everyone is 'alternative' then the alternative is the mainstream and they very concept of 'alternative' becomes meaningless.
Or perhaps the last few stragglers in suits, patent leather shoes and sensible haircuts become the new hipsters?
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I'm not sure. The discussion in this thread seems to be very much about rootlessness, dilettantism and the idea of cultural tropes as things that you affect for a while without really being committed to the culture that they came from. And this would seem to be a thing that to some extent increases as you reduce the significance of social / racial / sexual / economic hierarchies.
john eden
male pale and stale
I think that's part of it, certainly. The difficulty is that this can lead to several different kinds of anarchisms, including right wing libertarian type stuff but also the more communist forms.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Hmm, yeah I see your point - but are hipsters really still as detached and ironic as all that? The current wave of young(ish) people who cycle everywhere, grow their own beansprouts and wear organic, locally sourced underpants surely represents an inversion of that - a culture based around authenticity, or at least trying hard to be as authentic as possible as life in a developed country in the early 21st century will allow.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
To be honest, I think the whole conversation is mired in contradictions based on the fact that "hipster" is mostly used as a convenient term of abuse - I'd paraphrase Dylan Thomas and say that a lot of the time a hipster is someone you don't like who likes the same things that you do - rather than a particularly well defined concept, and hence covers an unhelpfully broad range of people and behaviours.
On the other hand, I think that there's a perceived difference between someone eating locally grown organic kale in a trendy new cafe in Haggerston and someone eating locally grown organic kale in a local institution of a vegan cafe in Bristol, namely a suspicion that the former will move onto Afro-fusion waffles in a year or two while the latter will still be at it until they're laid in their biodegradable coffin. And it's not really about detachment and irony and distancing per se as much as relative freedom to define your own identity, however "authentic" or not you want that to be.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Not the first time this wonderful site has been posted here. It's the gift that keeps on giving. I love the Creative Director's Skrillex hairdo.
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Woebot
Well-known member
i dunno. i think he is probably genuinely embarrassed about it.
they must privately wish they'd never been such twats for the misery it has caused them.
vimothy
yurp
I'm not claiming that the world as it exists is solely the creation of anarchists. It's more that in the world anarchists have helped to bring about, -- and the end anarchists are oriented towards -- hipsters are a natural result (if perhaps one of many).
Anarchists might dislike hipsters (which betrays an interesting nascent conservatism -- the hipster has no gravitas and is aesthetically unappealing), but it's ultimately a futile dislike. If you do away with peoples' settled identities and throw them back on their own devices, there's nothing to guarantee that some form of wider commitment can be spontaneously regenerated.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
It would be delightful if anarchists had brought about any of that but I just don't think they've got anything to do with the creation of hipster stuff. I'd love it if there was a world that anarchists have helped to bring about. Mebbe in Latin America but not in the UK certainly.