2008 Woodie Awards
Mac political hipsters: neocon cool
By: Matt Won, Opinion Editor
Issue date: 9/7/07 Section: Opinion
Hipster's a term with a lot of baggage.
Most of the real estate of hipster's popular definition is tied up in coffee shops, skinny jeans, and trend-hopping politics (the Hipster Olympics video on Youtube, right?). But I want to liberate the word because these superficial semiotics obscure the more universal mechanisms of hipsterness, the ones at work right here in our college.
A curious dialectic is at work at Macalester. There are undeniably many of us who lead lives of commitment, working tirelessly to make the world a better place. But the imminent shadow of this proud tradition is a noxious cultural disease.
This shadow is ex-leftist malaise. Its most telling symptom is the eye roll.
Much of this malaise stems from our ambiguous relationship to the language of our performances of academia in our papers, and the dissonance between these relatively arcane discourses and our everyday interactions.
The inability to reconcile this jargon with its instant self-evident pretentiousness in conversational settings leads us to disparage it, to preempt accusations of douchebaggery.
But this reflexive disparagement too often short circuits our ability to create dialogue, and stunts the development of necessary skills: the ability to practically utilize our theoretical work, and to bridge the enormous gap between our privilege and our academic knowledge with the different knowledge and the disparate needs of the extramural world.
An essential element of hipsterness is turning feigning disinterest into an art form. Feigning disinterest is an important skill. To wit: being dismissive.
This dismissiveness, oft en coming as the eye roll, greets a variety of critiques or other efforts to improve our own attitudes and conduct or the world.
The eye roll isn't a calculated theoretical or philosophical disagreement: it's the normative arm of the status quo reaching out to contain any threats to itself.
Dismissal is the essence of conservatism: the claims of groups that argue against the status quo are shrugged off as out of the norm. And those attempting to change the norm are just trying too hard: the epitome of unhipness.
Most of the real estate of hipster's popular definition is tied up in coffee shops, skinny jeans, and trend-hopping politics (the Hipster Olympics video on Youtube, right?). But I want to liberate the word because these superficial semiotics obscure the more universal mechanisms of hipsterness, the ones at work right here in our college.
A curious dialectic is at work at Macalester. There are undeniably many of us who lead lives of commitment, working tirelessly to make the world a better place. But the imminent shadow of this proud tradition is a noxious cultural disease.
This shadow is ex-leftist malaise. Its most telling symptom is the eye roll.
Much of this malaise stems from our ambiguous relationship to the language of our performances of academia in our papers, and the dissonance between these relatively arcane discourses and our everyday interactions.
The inability to reconcile this jargon with its instant self-evident pretentiousness in conversational settings leads us to disparage it, to preempt accusations of douchebaggery.
But this reflexive disparagement too often short circuits our ability to create dialogue, and stunts the development of necessary skills: the ability to practically utilize our theoretical work, and to bridge the enormous gap between our privilege and our academic knowledge with the different knowledge and the disparate needs of the extramural world.
An essential element of hipsterness is turning feigning disinterest into an art form. Feigning disinterest is an important skill. To wit: being dismissive.
This dismissiveness, oft en coming as the eye roll, greets a variety of critiques or other efforts to improve our own attitudes and conduct or the world.
The eye roll isn't a calculated theoretical or philosophical disagreement: it's the normative arm of the status quo reaching out to contain any threats to itself.
Dismissal is the essence of conservatism: the claims of groups that argue against the status quo are shrugged off as out of the norm. And those attempting to change the norm are just trying too hard: the epitome of unhipness.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
dan, in dhaka, in dissent
posted 10/29/08 @ 10:08 AM CST
Perhaps a pertinent excerpt-response to this unabashed sophistry:
I'm afraid I regard Academic English not as a dialectical variation but as a grotesque debasement of Standard Written English, and loathe it even more than Presidential English ('This is the best and only way to uncover, destroy, and prevent Iraq from reengineering weapons of mass destruction') or the mangled pieties of BusinessSpeak ('Our Mission: to proactively search and provide the optimum networking skills and resources to service the needs of your growing business'); and in support of this total contempt and intolerance I cite no less an authority than Mr. (Continued…)
rdpark
A Stark
posted 10/31/08 @ 10:08 AM CST
For a writer that lambastes pretentiousness and expresses a sincere guilt over his own privilege, I find it ridiculous that you make us engage in this verbal circus every time you put your finger to the keyboard. (Continued…)
bobby
posted 11/01/08 @ 12:33 AM CST
Yeah, right, Matt. Thanks.
(rolls eyes)
- - - -
(With some small degree of seriousness, two points:
- the assumption underlying your entire (entertaining) essay - that you have defined "a better place" for us, and so there's really no need to re-do all of that messy analysis and calculation - sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, right around the sides of the tongue where one finds the sour receptors. (Continued…)
Drop Pit
posted 11/03/08 @ 12:46 AM CST
I love this piece (and the responses). Perfectly executed...and ironically, a year later! Well done.
Post a Comment