: WHY I DISLIKE HIPSTERS
For the most part, conversations about hipsters are almost as irksome as hipsters themselves. But I think this is largely because these conversations usually have a very adolescent quality to them. People make threadbare comments about the conformity of hipsters, who seem superficially anti-establishment, and debate whether the subculture is still cool. I think there is a more interesting conversation to be had, however, and it regards the factors undergirding this pop culture phenomenon, and some of the implications it has for national and generational values.
I want to stress that this post has nothing to do with the aesthetics of hipster culture; I'm not interested writing about its musicality, fashion sensibility, cinematic aesthetic, or literary quality. That topic has been beaten to death, and is really unsatisfying since aesthetics are so deeply personal and subjective. There are some indie rock artists I like - e.g. Cat Power and Yeah Yeah Yeahs - and some that don't. However, that's neither here nor there.
What I am interested in are some of the themes that constitute it. We largely know this subculture through its soundtrack, which is mostly indie rock, though a folk revival seems be bubbling up. There is also a cinematic genre that is associated. Modern hipsters love classics by Jean-Luc Godard, and celebrate more contemporary directors such as Wes Anderson. Lastly, its literary heroes include Nick Hornby, David Sedaris, and Dave Eggers. From that, we can paint a rough picture about the themes often represented: self-pity, disillusionment with adulthood, uncertainty, unrequited love (and when requited, it's unfulfilling), disdain, nostalgia, angst, and existentialism. There is also a lot of conspicuous display, and a tropism towards the spectacle of consumer cool. The last is particularly puzzling since so many of its themes revolve around its desperate need for "authenticity," and a criticism of the modern age.
These themes are contrasted against the cultural movements of the mid-century. Popular culture from that period was about people with self-possession, self-sufficiency, self-direction, discretion, charm, and wit; such a people were lionized as being "cool." What made one cool wasn't about what you achieved, or haven't achieved. Instead, it was about how you went about things. Furthermore, the movies and music of the age seemed to suggest some people were just born with this quality. It didn't demand that we all be such people; in fact, it was assumed not all of us could be. It did make obvious, however, how each of us should respond to those who were.
So who were these people? In movies, it was Cary Grant, John Wayne, and Paul Newman. In music, it was Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, and Frank Sinatra. In literature it was P.G. Wodehouse, Jack Kerouac, and the fictional character, Phillip Marlowe.
And there I think we can at least see the cultural shift. Over Steve McQueen's understated cool, paint in Dov Charney's flashy sexuality. Over John Steinbeck and George Orwell's concern about the world, paint the Richie and Margot Tenebaum's narrow self-obsession. Over Frank Sinatra's savoir-faire, paint in David Sedaris' stories about awkward moments.
I've been curious what has caused this shift, and I’m still not sure. At the heart of hipster culture, I believe, is a deep sense of alienation and angst. In that perspective, some of it at least makes historical sense. Alienation of modern man has been a long time coming. Industrial capitalism alienated man from his labor; state bureaucracy alienated man from his government; Protestantism alienated man from his God; and technology alienated man from his community.
For industrial capitalism, the argument is familiar. In many ways, the pre-industrial capitalist world was no less insecure than today's world. However, work and community life were at least ordered on a human scale. This meant three things. First, people lived in tightly knit communities, and the productive unit was often still the family. Second, the tools for work, pace of work, production of goods, and distribution of gains, were all controlled by human capacity and need. Finally, work itself was still closely integrated with the total life of individuals and communities, not separated from what we now call "leisure activities." The disintegration of this human ordering happened with the tremendous growth of mechanical power and information technology. Through mechanical power, the craft production system gave way to the English system of machine tool manufacturing, which then led to a division of labor. Through information technology, managers could break up the production process and monitor labor productivity, thus making labor a more regulated commodity. These two shifts in production organization has made man alienated from his labor.
What industrial capitalism did to man and his labor, state bureaucracy did to man and his government. Max Weber once wrote that rational state bureaucracies were particularly suited for industrial capitalism because "the more bureaucracy 'depersonalizes' itself, the more completely it succeeds in achieving the exclusion of love, hatred, and every purely personal, and especially irrational and incalculable, feeling from the execution of personal tasks. In the place of the old-type ruler who is moved by sympathy, favor, grace and gratitude, the modern culture requires for its sustaining external apparatus and emotionally detached, and hence rigorously 'professional' expert."
A similar story can be seen for Protestantism and man's relation to his gods. For most of human history, man has been embedded in mythologically instructed communities. This religious ordering, however, fell apart as newfound knowledge and power was discovered at least since The Age of Enlightenment. In the West, one of the most significant contributors to the destruction of mythologically instructed communities has been Protestantism. In its attack against the dogma, power, and ritual of the universal church, Protestantism helped free man for worldly activities. This resulted in great social and economic revolutions. However, since Protestantism made man face God alone, without the community of the medieval church, and stressed the fundamental evil and powerlessness of man, a great price was paid for those gains. Man has been made more alone and isolated, and has intensified feelings of insignificance and powerlessness. As Will Herberg noted, Protestantism has made it possible for us to have religiousness without religion, and that religiousness is more about sociability and belonging, rather than a way of reorientating life according to God. Protestantism, therefore, is religiousness without serious commitment, internalized conviction, or genuine existential decision. Through Protestantism, and subsequently secularism, man thus became alienated from his God.
Lastly, personal technology has played a more recent role in alienating people. As social animals, we find emotional support, identity, and a sense of purpose and direction through our communities. We gain happiness and fulfillment by helping people, participating in groups, gossiping, and forming relationships. Unfortunately, people demand less of these things now, partly because of the progression of personal technology. We don't need someone to come by to show us how to do something when the instructions are posted online, or we already have a machine at home that can do it. Additionally, things that used to be social, such as shopping, are now done online. And even more significantly, television and the internet give us the opportunity to be entertained at any moment, more accessibly and more easily. We no longer need to rely on people to fill our leisure time. Robert Putnam once lamented that we are no longer part of bowling clubs, but now bowl alone. I contend that we don't even bowl alone anymore, we just don’t go bowling at all. Even the marginal socializing one gets from being in a public space is gone, and consequently people are more alienated from their communities.
Now we have a view of man alienated from his government, bereft of his religion, isolated in his community, and chained to his monotonous work. In this condition, we have built "mass culture" as we understand it, and it is in mass culture we form and transmit our core values. When modernity weakens traditional human orders, it leaves the individual at the mercy of impersonal forms of communication such as newspapers, radio, and television -- what Veblen called the "laughing gas" to an unsuspecting mass audience. Most of this communication tends to be a one-way street, with consumers more on the taking end rather than the giving end. As a result, those who control the channels of communication largely determine the shape and direction of opinions, values, and cultural movements. Perhaps some of that is changing now with the internet, but it's not at all clear to me that agglomerations, buy ups, and co-optations of small, successful subcultures, where two-way communication might be more prevalent, isn't inevitable.
So although there is a basis for alienation, I’m bothered that hipster culture is about continuing and celebrating the alienated adolescent experience. Self-pitying, disaffection, alienation, and angst aren’t seen as terrible things, they’re in a way celebrated and made “cool.” This subculture, then, broadcasts these values through communication channels. From there, we first ape the images, and then we internalize its values. Our generation’s values, apparent in the music, movies and literature we consume, look so poor when compared to any other age. Whatever holdover virtues there are from the previous era, they've been exaggerated so far that they've only become a semblance of the original thing. Reticence, as a quality of character, has become just awkward shyness. Clint Eastwood's "thousand-yard stare" characters are now just American Apparel models with vacuous looks. Clark Gable's wryness and wit has become a 35 year-old record store employee's mugging knowingness. Whatever isn't a distortion of an old virtue just comes off as whiney, self-pitying adolescence.
Our present age of cynicism, halfhearted irony, and angst succeeds a quite different period of hope, certainty, and optimism. Sixty years ago, man still believed in himself and the work of his hands, had faith in the powers of reason and science, trusted his gods and conceived of his own capacity for growth and progress as endless and his widening horizons limitless. Today we have hipsters who pity themselves, buy into the post-modern critique of traditions and reason, mock gods, and consider history progressive only when their children listen to the “proper” bands and don't like Barney, the purple dinosaur (though vintage episodes of Sesame Street are fine). In a time with so much materialistic wealth, information, and technological capability, we have a nothingness that yawns before self-pitying, self-obsessed men. When I tell people hipsters really bother me, I mean it in the sense that we've prolonged the stage of adolescence and celebrate all the wrong values. It's not that I'm concerned with the aesthetic. Styles may change, but virtues should abide.
