Writing worth Reading

[Fade to Black]

^ haven't commented till now, but that was a good one, Faust.

http://bombsite.com/issues/99/articles/2882

Not so much "writing," but an interview between John Yau and painter Bill Jensen. A solid read for those interested in art.

[Faust]

Generation Sell: Hipsters as Cultural Movement

I would like to know what you think about the above article? I found it interesting, and I agree on some points, not sure about others. More soon.

[lowrey]

Some valid observations, and I do agree that this generation is very entrepreneurial, but obviously not all of it. The way it was linked with the entire generation was a bit vague.

Also, social background was entirely overlooked and it plays a big role. This is of course generalizing, but I would imagine many of the types described here come from middle class families who (well, until recently I suppose) have had more wealth than the families of those kids who were hippies, punks or whatever, and this has had an effect on their views on life and interests and also in being entrepreneurial.

[galia]

A lot of hippies were rich brats. Punks were more working class/lower middle class, generally speaking.
I thought the interesting point of the article was the disappearence of rebellion because of the stifling emotional comfort of the world we live in.

[Faust]

/\ Yes, that's the bit I found interesting. The idea that commerce trumps criticism. There is something to it - art criticism became irrelevant just when the art world became an art industry in the 80s. Same with fashion.

Another bit I found interesting in the article is that making money and being cool have become confluent. Cool has become a huge commodity. A number of social critics, like Naomi Klein and Frank Rich have commented on that.

And the rise of bobos seemed fitting. This is the hipster market essentially - people that make money but don't want to live a soccer mom lifestyle. Although I don't exactly know what Bohemian about them is - going to brunches in the williamsburgs of the world and buying artisanal honey?

[lowrey]

There is less to be angry about so kids can focus on wearing cardigans and drinking tea

[galia]

There is a lot to be angry about, but it's hard to be angry when you are well fed and wear ugg boots. Excessive comfort is the golden cage, but it's bound to become just as stifling as 50's/60's americen suburbia soon enough. Just wait until the hipsters have kids, it'll happen

it's also hard to be a young rebel when all the adults idolize the rebellion of youth. Rebellion and anger is approved of by the parents, so whatever the kids do, it's not real rebellion since it's what's expexted. This is especially true in France with the mythology of May 68

[michael_kard]

So is hipster a subculture in the same way punk and hippie culture were? It doesn't feel that way to me, given its wide appeal and accessibility. For me, it's almost like saying being young and having a bad sense of style is a subculture, seeing how 99% of my city are aspiring hipsters.

[viv1984viv]

So is hipster a subculture in the same way punk and hippie culture were?

no not at all, infact I read it as being almost a polar opposite manifestation of historically outlined 'youth cultures'

Just to throw something else into the pan, I think there is a massive confluence with sexual capital and hipsterism, wealth, upward mobility etc... sex drives, and so this aspect of wanting, reflexively to be 'sexy' is a massive motivating factor for hipsterism - totally different to slacker/hippie/punk dynamics.

Hipster culture seems to be less about counter culture and more about an aggressively youthful iteration of sunday magazine aspirations.

[Faust]

I think it's more about the acceptance of rebellion into the mainstream. Rebellion is no longer relevant, because it's quickly absorbed, monetized and rendered toothless. Kurt Cobain was probably the first major cultural figure to understand this very well.

[zamb]

All things have been liberated,
including liberation itself
Men are free everywheres
Capitalism has triumphed the great communist experiment
All beliefs are equal and valid
life is meaningless and without purpose

be tolerant of all belief systems
dialogue is the great answer to human cooperation

fit in
be a face in the crowd
eclecticism is the new ointment..........

rail not against anything
rail not against anything
because all are equal
and no child will be left behind........

[zamb]

I am a lover of learning but a skeptic of schools

[Faust]

/\ hahaha, very zeitgeist (the badass part)

[t-bone]

Wasn't sure where to put this but writing worth reading is writing worth supporting as well, right?

My friend runs Primary Information, a non-profit press for small-run printing of artists books, and they are doing an artists writing program for 2012 for which there is a Kickstarter campaign. The incentives are really amazing and I think should appeal to a lot of the SZ crowd so I thought I'd post it here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/873085725/primary-information-2012-artists-writing-program

And you can see their past works and info about them here:

http://primaryinformation.org/

They're most of the way there but there's only a few days left. Check it out!

[MJRH]

Malcolm Gladwell's archive

What Tea Partiers Really Want, by Jonathan Haidt.

To understand the anger of the tea-party movement, just imagine how you would feel if you learned that government physicists were building a particle accelerator that might, as a side effect of its experiments, nullify the law of gravity. Everything around us would float away, and the Earth itself would break apart. Now, instead of that scenario, suppose you learned that politicians were devising policies that might, as a side effect of their enactment, nullify the law of karma. Bad deeds would no longer lead to bad outcomes, and the fragile moral order of our nation would break apart. For tea partiers, this scenario is not science fiction. It is the last 80 years of American history.

One of the biggest disagreements between the political left and right is their conflicting notions of fairness. Across many surveys and experiments, we find that liberals think about fairness in terms of equality, whereas conservatives think of it in terms of karma. In our survey for YourMorals.org, we asked Americans how much they agreed with a variety of statements about fairness and liberty, including this one: "Ideally, everyone in society would end up with roughly the same amount of money." Liberals were evenly divided on it, but conservatives and libertarians firmly rejected it.

A compelling definition of conservatism. Living in a rather liberal city, it's a breath of fresh air to see the psychological motivations behind it so fairly explained, instead of being reduced to religious and political brainwashing.