I started reading a book called The Rebel Sell a while ago, and I was quite taken with. Unfortunately had to stop half-way through, but I've got it on order so I'll be able to finish it and then pass it on to you.
As far as I remember, the authors are arguing something similar to what you're saying here. Part of the attraction of things (products, behaviours, whatever) that people profess to be adopting because they're better or more ethical is actually that they're cooler, and coolness is something that can only be held by a finite percentage of the population. One of the examples that they cite is Naomi Klein's complaint (in No Logo, I think) about the gentrification of her neighbourhood. She emphasises, basically, that she had her lovely loft apartment in her arty neighbourhood before all those others decided to move in, and hence is different from them . Which of course leaves out the fact that her neighbourhood has been expensive (in a bohemian kind of way) for a while.
I'm not sure that I'm conveying this all that well. But I get what you mean and I think The Rebel Sell expands on the idea, in part by talking about how it ties in to consumerism. Wearing 'no sweat' shoes or shopping at Oxfam or using Ubuntu or being vegan get a lot of their cultural cachet from the fact that they're not mainstream. If everyone did those things, they wouldn't have the same attraction - "cool" doesn't work like that. So once fair trade or environmental standards attain a broader level of acceptance, what's "cool" has to move on... which of course means buying new niche products, as well as declaring the previously-cool flawed. And this ties in to one of my common complaints, too... a lot of these things that are meant to show how terribly radical you are are really just a way of expressing your supposed difference through niche products, which is hardly a radical act.
Anyway. And about 'false consciousness'... I get what you're saying, and I'm loathe to buy into the idea of "a proletariat stricken with false consciousness", but at the same time I think we all operate at a sub-optimal level that's brought about by a kind of false consciousness. This is still an idea I'm trying to work through, but to give a rough outline of my current thinking... I don't really agree with the Marxist idea of false consciousness, although I don't have enough knowledge about it to talk about it in depth. I think everyone takes on a variety of behaviours that aren't necessarily rational or ideal, for a few different reasons. The two main reasons, though, are that:
1) one of the things that makes complex human societies run is our ability to pass on systems or technologies. Rather than having to create the world anew each generation we take on 'recipes' for how to live, from how to run a democracy to how to make toast. We need these. Everyone uses them, and everyone probably questions some of them, but to question them all would just take too much time and wouldn't do much to make us happy.
2) most of the 'recipes' we get work "well enough," even if they're not "best possible."
And I don't think that there are a set of "best possible" recipes out there, which I guess is what differentiates my current way of thinking from the 'false consciousness' argument (at least to me). I think you can keep aiming for more optimal recipes, but because they'll differ across people and contexts, there's no point thinking anyone's solved it.
And I guess to address the difference between advocating something just to be a 'hipster' (albeit in a geeky or activist garb) and trying to create real change, one way to go about it might be to look at: a) does it just lead to buying more crap, or in some other way just affirming the values of the culture it claims to be protesting against? b) can it work for 'the masses'? and c) will whatever's nifty about it remain nifty if it's adopted on a broad scale?
I don't think that advocating change needs to be about singing a dirge for humanity's stupidity. I think that it can work by saying (repeatedly, and in a very excited voice), "Hey! look at this cool thing! Want to try it? It's pretty awesome."
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2007-03-14 06:04 am (UTC)As far as I remember, the authors are arguing something similar to what you're saying here. Part of the attraction of things (products, behaviours, whatever) that people profess to be adopting because they're better or more ethical is actually that they're cooler, and coolness is something that can only be held by a finite percentage of the population. One of the examples that they cite is Naomi Klein's complaint (in No Logo, I think) about the gentrification of her neighbourhood. She emphasises, basically, that she had her lovely loft apartment in her arty neighbourhood before all those others decided to move in, and hence is different from them . Which of course leaves out the fact that her neighbourhood has been expensive (in a bohemian kind of way) for a while.
I'm not sure that I'm conveying this all that well. But I get what you mean and I think The Rebel Sell expands on the idea, in part by talking about how it ties in to consumerism. Wearing 'no sweat' shoes or shopping at Oxfam or using Ubuntu or being vegan get a lot of their cultural cachet from the fact that they're not mainstream. If everyone did those things, they wouldn't have the same attraction - "cool" doesn't work like that. So once fair trade or environmental standards attain a broader level of acceptance, what's "cool" has to move on... which of course means buying new niche products, as well as declaring the previously-cool flawed. And this ties in to one of my common complaints, too... a lot of these things that are meant to show how terribly radical you are are really just a way of expressing your supposed difference through niche products, which is hardly a radical act.
Anyway. And about 'false consciousness'... I get what you're saying, and I'm loathe to buy into the idea of "a proletariat stricken with false consciousness", but at the same time I think we all operate at a sub-optimal level that's brought about by a kind of false consciousness. This is still an idea I'm trying to work through, but to give a rough outline of my current thinking... I don't really agree with the Marxist idea of false consciousness, although I don't have enough knowledge about it to talk about it in depth. I think everyone takes on a variety of behaviours that aren't necessarily rational or ideal, for a few different reasons. The two main reasons, though, are that:
1) one of the things that makes complex human societies run is our ability to pass on systems or technologies. Rather than having to create the world anew each generation we take on 'recipes' for how to live, from how to run a democracy to how to make toast. We need these. Everyone uses them, and everyone probably questions some of them, but to question them all would just take too much time and wouldn't do much to make us happy.
2) most of the 'recipes' we get work "well enough," even if they're not "best possible."
And I don't think that there are a set of "best possible" recipes out there, which I guess is what differentiates my current way of thinking from the 'false consciousness' argument (at least to me). I think you can keep aiming for more optimal recipes, but because they'll differ across people and contexts, there's no point thinking anyone's solved it.
And I guess to address the difference between advocating something just to be a 'hipster' (albeit in a geeky or activist garb) and trying to create real change, one way to go about it might be to look at:
a) does it just lead to buying more crap, or in some other way just affirming the values of the culture it claims to be protesting against?
b) can it work for 'the masses'? and
c) will whatever's nifty about it remain nifty if it's adopted on a broad scale?
I don't think that advocating change needs to be about singing a dirge for humanity's stupidity. I think that it can work by saying (repeatedly, and in a very excited voice), "Hey! look at this cool thing! Want to try it? It's pretty awesome."