Further Thoughs on Culture

[jlh]

I keep having these things I think I'm going to make a post about and then I think myself out of it and never make the post. penelope_z had a great point this week when she said that fandom meta wasn't an argument you could win or lose. So possibly I'll post things when they are a little bit less well thought out just to see how people react to them.

So Chuck Klosterman really struck a nerve for me in the January issue of Esquire. I'd link you to the article but you can only get to it now if you pay, which is irritating. But here's the pertinent part:

[Most people] don't merely want to hold their values; they want their values to win. And I suspect this is why people so often feel "betrayed" by art and consumerism, and by the way the world works. . . . If you feel betrayed by culture, it's not because you're right and the universe is wrong; it's only because you're not like most other people. But this should make you happy, because—in all likelihood—you hate those other people anyway. You are being betrayed by a culture that has no relationship to who you are or how you live.

He goes on to apply this to politics, which is complacent and dangerous, but the main point I think stands. And it not only doesn't matter that the main culture isn't doing what you want it to do, but it really doesn't matter that some of the people you know don't make the same kinds of aesthetic decisions that you do. We naturally gravitate to those who feel the same about Madonna or Jane Austen or what-have-you as we do ourselves, but what does that say? Only that they feel the same way about Madonna. There is bound to be something else they don't feel the same way about, and then where are you? To be clear, I say this not as someone who avoids this; I do it myself, and often. But at the end of the day, it just sort of doesn't matter.

Or: co-consumption of culture is not a signifier of a sensibility, or a set of values, or a level of intelligence, or even class at this point. It really just gives us something to talk about.

Discuss! Push me around!

Comments

[misscora.livejournal.com]

We naturally gravitate to those who feel the same about Madonna or Jane Austen or what-have-you as we do ourselves, but what does that say? Only that they feel the same way about Madonna. There is bound to be something else they don't feel the same way about, and then where are you?

Well then, chances are pretty good you've got someone else who maybe disagrees with you about Madonna but feels the same way you do about this third thing. So when you want to talk about Madonna you hang out with X and when you want to talk about the other thing you hang out with Y.

I totally agree that we end up making our friend-choices on a basis of shared opinions and hobbies, but at some level there're also people you seek out because they disagree with you. I've got a friend who's a non-raving but very active conservative, but we have other stuff in common. But usually we end up talking politics because we like the arguments. And it's why I'd rather hear "I don't like [thing Cora likes] because ___" than "[thing Cora likes] is just bad". You can at least have a discussion about opinions, and I frequently end up having discussions with friends about things we disagree over. It's interesting.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

And it's why I'd rather hear "I don't like [thing Cora likes] because ___" than "[thing Cora likes] is just bad".

That may be more to the point I was thinking in my head than the one I actually made. There are ways to say that you don't like something that are dismissive not only of the thing, but of all the people who like the thing. I feel this is certainly prevalent in online life, but also in some of the people I know, and I really don't like it. There is a way to say that you don't care for something that doesn't insult the people who like it.

And I guess that led me to wonder if they really did mean to insult the people who liked it, and if they found that a friend liked it, they'd be, "?" But I like talking to people who don't like everything I like, because they are the ones that will help you grow. And I don't like feeling defensive because I like, say, Anne Shirley even after she grew up and got married.

It's that whole, "that SUCKS!" culture, as if you are making an empircally true statement instead of just reflecting a preference.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

-nod- In college I think "personal opinion is objective and personal" became one of my catch phrases, simply because I have a friend who was all "HP sucks and has no redeeming values and anyone who likes it is wrong. And LotR is perfection, and anyone who doesn't like it is wrong." It got to the point where I wouldn't even talk to her about books because every time we did I'd end up picking fights just so I could tell her she was full of shit. Which, given she was actually a friend of mine, was rather counter productive.

At some level, I think it is meant as an insult to the people who do like whatever it is you're talking about. I know quite a few people who will tend to say "this is bad" rather than "I don't like this" and it's implicit in their statement that if you disagree with them you're too stupid to know better. But then, I went to school and hung out with a lot of elitist snobs.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I have known a lot of snobs, and people who were snobby about NOT being elitist, and it's really boring, as they're always trying to one up each other about how pure their love is for this or that. And I have found that people who are really snobby are all about the "no" rather than the "yes".

The funny thing is, people who are really honestly into culture, rather than into looking cool or being a snow, are all about the "yes" rather than the "no" because finding something they love gets them so excited that they have to tell everyone. C and D are like that; I hear a lot more from them about some new band I must check out than how much they hate something else. C doesn't really give a shit about Ashlee Simpson except that in some pictures she's hot and D thinks she's a riot. Maybe the concentration on finding things that you love rather than eradicating what you hate, maybe that's the key.

Right now I'm all about the YES rather than the NO, quite clearly. But I'm trying to work out how to say yes without it being another way to say no.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

Totally. Snobs tend to be very boring, I agree. Because there really are so many ways you can say 'no' before you start to sound like a broken record.

Not sure what you mean about 'yes' just being a different sort of no, though. The 'yes' types are all about new experiences, and very, very rarely, I think, can't find something worthwhile in things. It's the idea that while I may not like something, I can recognize some value in it and can see why someone else might.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, because being a person who says YES and being annoyed at people who say NO can be another way of being snobby, really, because you think people should say YES rather than NO. So what I meant was that I'm trying to work out ways to both protect myself from the effects that negative people have on me, without becoming overly concerned with what other people are doing. Make sense? I'm finding this to be a really tough balance, though, to be indifferent to what other people are doing while still acknowleging that what they do affects me and take the right steps to avoid that. To get away from the negative things that people do, I mean, while not doing a number on myself that they affect me.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah, ok, I can see that.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

[Most people] don't merely want to hold their values; they want their values to win.

This is something I've thought about lately specifically in regards to politics. This past election was really frustrating to me because it each side was the polar opposite of the other on emotionally fraught issues. Both sides also seemed to have a very 'our way or the highway' attitude, which hasn't exactly gone away. I know *I* felt that way - the things the Bushites believe and wanted to work for weren't just repulsive to me, they were scary, so I didn't really want to even consider a world in which they were a reality. I didn't want to take them seriously.

But I heard something a little while back that sort of put me in my place. The gist was that democracy is not just about the right to vote - it's about taking multiple ideas that fail (i.e., don't work for everyone) and compromising. I loathe the idea of compromising on certain issues, but I agree with that assessment. In the climate under W, I don't see how compromise can happen, because he and those like-minded fanatics he surrounds himself with are the least likely to compromise on anything. But I hope that aspect of democracy doesn't fade entirely. What good is voting when all it does is divide the country into winners and losers? 49% of the entire country unhappy and ignored is not democracy in action, is it?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about that part of the quote is that it wasn't about politics. He was talking about Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, a book about Nirvana by Gina Arnold:

"It's not that everything will change at once. It's that at least the people have voted for better principles. Nirvana's being on the radio means my own values are winning; I'm no longer in the opposition." I have never forgotten those three sentences, and there are two reasons why. The first is that this was just about the craziest, scariest idea I'd ever stumbled across. The second reason, however, is way worse. What I have come to realize is that most people think this way all the time.

While in his article Klosterman does say that this applies to politics, I would say that someone making that statement about culture is crazy, and someone making that statement about politics is normal.

I totally agree with you that the actual problem right now is that things have got so polarized. And I think, ironically, it was the very centrist Clinton administration that got us into this mess, because he so completely frustrated the right wing. He was able to capture those old Reagan Democrats back from them, and they didn't like it one bit. You cannot overemphasize how much he drove them crazy--much, MUCH crazier than Bush makes us. And so they marshalled their forces and they put up a big hit. And the Democrats haven't been able to bring up someone with a force of personality big enough. Let's face it: the Left breeds policy wonks. Bill was just a policy wonk that people liked.

But the thing is, in order for compromise to happen there have to be people who are being radical on either side. All you can hope to do, really, is move the middle to one side or another. And to be honest, all of these other people chiming in from their country thus-and-such shrieking about what is going on is big with the not helping. Go make your country better, dude, and stop worrying about mine--and I'll try to do the same for yours.

So anyway, I don't think that this article applies to political culture as much as it likes to think that it does--and also, I don't think that political culture and popular culture are as linked as your average cultural theorist likes to think that it is.

[1anonymous1.livejournal.com]

Just a question, but why do you think it's dangerous to apply that to politics?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Because if someone doesn't like Duran Duran, that doesn't really affect my life. If the culture decides they've had enough of Duran Duran, all that happens to me is no more new Duran Duran records. But that has to happen on a truly massive scale; with today's fragmented culture you can still get a cultural product for a fairly small audience unless it's network tv.

But if someone doesn't want to give me reproductive rights, that does affect my life, and I think being extreme and being worried about where the culture is headed in that sense is absolutely right. And being somewhat distant from the political culture such that you are like, oh, look at what people are doing, I think is dangerous. Politics is not a spectator sport.

[1anonymous1.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, I think I get what you mean.

About the spectator sport thing, do you ever just feel like were all being lead around by the powers that be? I'm not saying we are, I just...sometimes I feel like it doesn't matter what I do in regards to politics.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

First, your vote matters, always always. And you can become more active than just voting; you can work for a PAC or in a party or in some other group. When people come together they have a great deal of power. I think what you have to do is become very directed in a very specific way. Also, local changes are always easier to accomplish. And, you know, change happens very slowly. You can't let one election completely discourage you. There is always another one!

[1anonymous1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm feeling all encouraged now.lol, I think I'm just paranoid about The Man sometimes.;)