Counter culture

There was a blog on here that I notice that took a swipe at hipsters. All good, we have quite the infestation of them here and they've made if very hard for males of my stature to find good flared jeans. Apparently this counter culture doesn't care for them and there's no demand.

Flared jeans aside, hipsters don't surprise me in the least and I've long giving up raging on them. The same way I cared for the emo kids. I mean really, hipsters are only the emo kids all grown up and at university. Do the numbers, it makes sense.

Any how, the point of this post is that I no longer believe on shitting on counter or youth culture because I don't understand it. In fact, the whole reason it's there is because I / we don't understand it.

Youth are exemplary at passion, ballsy initiative, and rebellion. But rightly or wrongly in their cause, they will always lack the wisdom, experience, and restraint that is learned with age. That has always been the generational struggle.

It really is up to the current generation to take responsibility for raising and teaching the younger generation, but we must also understand is that we do not, and will not understand the challenges they're going through, just like they will not understand the challenges we went through. On top if it, they will do what they will do and it will be entirely out of our control. The question is, what legacy did we or the generation before leave behind?

If we're to see extreme counter culture it should be seen as a symptom to a greater problem with society that we're not seeing or addressing. Personally I think the west is seeing such high rates of depression because our society inherently removes a sense of control in peoples lives. This lack of control breads rage that is socially unacceptable to express unbridled. So many feel lost and need an identity, as we've always needed, and where we can't find it, we create it.

I honestly feel that hard wired in us is a biological sense that we can face destruction at any moment, and that the only way to face it is together, in a group. We're a social animal by nature. A good friend of mine once commented that if you want to understand modern sociology you need only study primates.

Those who feel on the fringes will create cultures and groups of their own. Because that's what we do, that's what we need, we need to feel apart of something. I feel we're a modern society who've become complacent and forgotten just how easily and pointlessly an individual life can be lost, and just how equally easily and pointlessly a race, society, or even species can be wiped and and lost. Hard wired in us is a need to know that when shit turns bad some like minded folk will have our back or die trying to. We need that, we need to feel that in some way. Maybe it's old hat and we should progress beyond, but I feel forgetting that need leads to some of the weird, wonderful, and out right evil counter cultures that spring up.

Even blood family means less to us than what it used to, if our youth aren't to find a sense of unity and belonging there, than where?

 

Maturity can be a real bitch, can't it? The only thing worse than growing old, is not growing old.

 

Oye. Kids today! And the NOISE they listen to!

What I am really enjoying is seeing that some of the things that were presented as Counter Culture while I was in college or growing up are gaining some currency in mainstream (or at least internet) culture nowadays. Nerdery is the one that springs to mind.

As of Hipsters, the only thing wrong with them is a certain implied arrogance in the sterotypical "I don't know, it's pretty obscure, you've probably never heard of it." To which I tend to answer, "There's probably an excellent reason for that." and walk away.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I didn't understand the weirdos growing up, but they seemed nice enough people when you got to know them. My current philosophy is to let kids be kids, it will work itself out in the end.

( I myself was probably considered a wierdo too. Actually there was no probably to it, I just didn't go for a particular look to go with it )

 

Mick

Your avatar picture leads me to suspect you of being a hippie.

*strokes the barrel of his gun in a non-Poetry manner*