While on an
‘alternative walking tour’ of Berlin I was shown two pieces of street art that
I found thought provoking. The first was a life size stencil in black spray
paint of a model. The artist is apparently critiquing consumerism. The second
was a paste up of a fist, which was apparently in keeping with the subversive nature
of street art and the counter-culture that is prominent in Berlin.
In both cases I was
really struck by how lame they were. In what sense is a stencil of a model a
critique of consumerism, and how does pasting the image of a fist on a wall
make you a subversive, as opposed to just a delinquent? Neither of these pieces
seems to contain much effort on the part of the artist. They’re quick, simple
and superficial; in a word, pretentious.
But they’re also
really damn ‘cool’ (apparently), and that got me thinking. What is more
important to people—having substance, or being cool? I think the latter, at
least on the value of what I see when I look around campus. Tight flouro jeans,
immaculate facial hair, faux op-shop designer t-shirts, political discussions
that resemble a filibuster more than a reasoned debate; all these things are
quite readily apparent, while interesting people, that is, people with unique,
well-articulated personalities, are few and far between.
I’m not opposed to
looking good or to design. Design makes the world look interesting. I think
it’s great that the Berlin council commissions famous artists to decorate the
sides of buildings to give the city more character. I think it’s equally
fabulous that people express themselves through their appearance in diverse
ways so that the urban environment looks like an artist’s palette rather than a
concrete jungle. What concerns me is that too many people are defining their
identities in superficial ways rather than doing the hard work needed to build
a genuine strong, deep understanding of self.
An identity is
defined first by what you think, and only then by what you wear. If you want
real character it is going to take more than some snazzy costumes and a few
superficial gestures. For example, putting together a collection of tweed
blazers, calling your mates ‘old chap’ and organising hunting expeditions might
suffice to see you labelled a social conservative. ‘Secure’ in this identity
you subscribe to the entire social conservative political agenda. Everything is
going well. Then you discover that your son is a homosexual. At this point you
ask yourself, ‘why do I hate the gays again?’ And you can’t come up with an
answer, because you never actually took your identity to any depths.
Such examples
abound across the political and cultural spectrum. Ironically, they are often
found amongst the most fervent supporters of particular positions. For example,
I am always staggered when I meet an atheist who cannot provide any retort to
the proof of God from first cause. This argument runs that because everything
in the universe is caused the universe itself must be caused, and this cause is
God—the prime mover, who contains His cause within Himself. Leaving aside
various metaphysical issues and sticking just to the political and social
expediency of religion, there is a very obvious retort that I would expect all
atheists to make to this argument, namely: this proof of God says nothing about
the nature of God. By proving logically in this manner that God exists the only
thing you have ‘proven’ about God is
that he started the universe into motion. Your argument says nothing about the
veracity of the Bible, nothing about whether Jesus was the son of the Prime
Mover or the son of a lesser God or just a teacher, nothing about whether God
hates homosexuals, nothing about whether Yahweh, Allah or God is the one true
God, etc. The list is extensive. In this way the proof of God from first cause
is instantly relegated to an issue in metaphysics (a branch of pure
philosophy), and taken out of the debate around whether or not religious
attitudes should be taken into account when crafting policy in a democratic
community. Yet many of the atheists I
speak to, many of whom could be described as militant atheists and who care
only about the social and political contributions of atheism and not its
psychological contributions, don’t even know what the proof from first cause
is!
Obviously some
aspects of nearly any identity are going to be quite challenging to engage with
on a deep level. I do not expect all people to be intimately familiar with
their identities to the extent that the most capable and interested people are.
But I do think it is very healthy and useful to be as in touch with your
identity as you can be. At the very least, I would hope that people wearing Che
Guevara shirts have a passing familiarity with the man and Marxist philosophy,
and aren’t wearing it just because they think it’s cool.
The tendency to
engage in only a shallow manner with questions of identity and to opt to be
cool rather than unique is at least partially the result of the profound
urgency with which the question of identity needs to be answered when humans
‘come of age’. At this point in our lives we suddenly wake up in the world and must
rapidly oriented ourselves in terms of values, morals and attitudes—in terms of
identity. We must define ourselves. Coincidently, our neuropsychology has just
reached a point where we are really good at picking up on social conventions
and mores. Combined with the fact that humans are inclined towards the easy
solution, these factors drive many to define themselves as ‘cool’, despite the
fact that ‘cool’ is utterly vapid (or precisely because it is vapid—vapid
things are easier).
Being cool
essentially means comporting yourself towards whatever is currently
fashionable. But fashion is an increasingly apolitical and amorphous force.
Where in the past some fashionable identities, likes punks, hippies and Goths,
were associated with a set of political, cultural and social attitudes, modern
fashion is entirely an aesthetic affair with no connection whatsoever to
values. This trend has reached its apex in the currently fashionable ‘hipster’
subculture, which is defined by being hip.
That is to say, the fashion is to be fashionable. The advent of hipster culture
sees youth give themselves over to an orgy of clothing and accessory
consumption and emerge with nothing more than an outdated wardrobe.
Why is this a
problem? Because people will always struggle with anxiety and doubt if they
don’t define themselves rigorously. You can never really be certain of yourself
and who you are if you don’t do the hard yards to get familiar with the
assumptions, debates, reasons and beliefs that underpin your identity. Group
identities—those identities that involve following trends—are transitory and
only provide a temporary feeling of security. You need to get to grips with who
you are as an individual, rather than as an individual in a collective. Without
a thorough understanding of your identity you will never develop a frame of
reference through which to make sense of your life. This means that when
confronted with anxiety, despair, nausea, or any of the other feelings that
fill psychiatrist’s waiting rooms you won’t have any tools to manage the
situation. Hipsters get by in modern society because life is so easy and
because we are increasingly ready to prescribe anti-depressants for the most
trivial of existential nags instead of forcing people to actually deal with
their problems and grow through that process. Life as a hipster is fine until
it gets real.
Hipsters are an
extreme case, but even among those people who can tear themselves away from the
herd long enough to pick a political persuasion, for example, there are many
who never get past square one. These people are like the social tennis player who
wears all the gear, headband included, carries a massive bag with six top-line
racquets and always plays with new balls, yet can barely hit them over the net.
This person looks like a tennis
player, but actually isn’t. Just like people who claim to be artists but don’t
understand what shading is, or think they’re musicians because they played
Nickelback with their mates in the garage, or claim to be liberals but don’t
know what the harm principle is.
I ask you, would
you rather look like a person with a well-defined
identity, or be one? The latter won’t happen by itself. You need to
work at it. If you want to be a musician you need to practice, a lot. If you
want to be a tennis player then you better be good enough to play division one.
And if you want to be able to honestly say you ascribe to a particular
political persuasion you are going to need to spend some time buried in books
because that stuff is complicated.
Obviously there are
degrees here. The extent to which you know something determines how
constitutive of your identity it is. That is to say, the more deeply you
understand and comport yourself to something the more it comes to define you.
You aren’t a musician if you can only play three chords on your guitar, but you
probably are if you can play three songs. Granted, you aren’t much of a
musician. Similarly, you aren’t much of a Rugby player if you’re in fifth
grade, but you can certainly put it on your personal resume. The more you want
to be defined by something the more effort you need to put into making that
thing a part of you. This involves engaging with that thing on an intimate
level. Dressing like a punk doesn’t make you a punk if you have the personality
of Mary Poppins. Basically, the things on the outside—your appearance, the
words that come out of your mouth, the causes you back—are the symptoms or the
expression of your identity, not your identity itself.
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