In the process of getting a vast majority of my-self complexes shattered today amidst a discussion on counterculture, current culture and the absolute lack of any relationship in-between them, I had a rare moment of clarity in which a resounding answer came to me. Perhaps it was inspired by Mad Men being brought up, or perhaps I drew it from somewhere deeper—but I found the answer to counterculture and current culture. Better yet, it’s expressed with one of my favorite Mad Men quotes of all time from episode eight, season one: The Hobo Code. Not only is it a cool expression of the concepts of counterculture and mainstream going head to head; Don Draper delivers a line that, in my opinion, is as close to perfect as you can get. Here goes:
The situation: In Draper’s mistress Midge’s apartment. Don, ad man extraordinaire, is surrounded by a group of counterculture loving hippies.
Midge’s Friend: Dig. Ad man’s got a heart.
Midge: The grown-ups are talking.
Midge’s Friend: Don’t defend him. [to Don] Toothpaste doesn’t solve anything. Dacron sure as hell won’t bring back those ten dead kids in Biloxi.
Don: Neither will buying some Tokaj wine and leaning up against a wall in Grand Central pretending you’re a vagrant.
Midge’s Friend: You know what it’s like to watch all you ants go into your hive? I wipe my ass with the Wall Street Journal. Look at you. Satisfied, dreaming up jingles for soap flakes and spot remover, telling yourself you’re free.
Don: Oh, my god. Stop talking and make something of yourself.
Midge’s Friend: Like you? You make the lie. You invent want. You’re for them. .. Not us.
Don: Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.
That’s emphasis. The home run. The big idea. There is no system. The universe is indifferent. Gladwell’s article, The Conquest of Cool, establishes that there isn’t a definable relationship between counterculture and cool. That mix is reinforced by Draper’s quote, but let’s take it a step further. I’ll say it’s near impossible to define a sustainable counterculture on a large scale or even an individual one—because there’s always another layer. There’s always a smaller group or a smaller thought that does something different, that is then developed and then becomes dominate. We can’t draw a line and say what is counterculture and what’s just current/mainstream culture.
On a large scale, take the entire college population over the last few years. Who was the brave individual, that courageous PBR consuming person, who dug out their father’s Coke-bottle sunglasses and became the first hipster? We don’t know. But somehow it caught on. The point though is that individual existed within a pre-existing culture. He/she didn’t create a culture—they changed an already existing one. Let’s be conservative and say that out of 20,000 college aged people there are 500 hipsters. 1 in 40. Pretty scary stuff. But I digress. Those 500 people didn’t spontaneously become hipsters overnight. They assimilated bits and pieces from their brave comrade and put their own spin on it, eventually creating what we call hipster. But this isn’t a self-sustained model in an isolated environment. New ideas come in, old ideas leave. Mainstream culture even plays into it. Imagine what a disappointment to hipster nation it would be if the Vespa scooter had never been invented by mainstream culture. And imagine how horrible it must have been when four years ago frat boys started wearing argyle prints too.
The illustration between the first hipster and the hipster group is the same as between the hipster group and mainstream culture. We simply can’t distinguish which is which and how the mix is shared. Not to draw too extreme of a comparison, but think of a bowl of soup. Yes there are noodles in it. And peas. And carrots. And you can tell where one ends and another begins. But when you take a random ladle full of soup out the bowl you’ll still have those noodles, peas and carrots in it. And ifyou strain all the chunks out of the soup and just drink the broth, you can still taste the peas and the carrots. They’ve been assimilated into the flavor.
This goes with culture too. We can pick out individuals, or even groups. But we can’t tell where the cultural influences begin and end. It’s impossible. They all pick up bits of “flavor” from each other. So to say that the counterculture goes in opposition of mainstream culture is impossible because it contributes to what is mainstream culture. And we can’t distinguish which is which, because there isn’t a logical way to do it. There are too many variables.
This is even expressed within myself:
I don’t want to stick it to the man. I want to be the man. But by wanting to be the man, aren’t I sticking it to the group that wants to stick it to the man? And if so, I’m still sticking it to the man. I’m in a counterculture to counterculture by trying to be the symbol of mainstream. So by being mainstream we’re countering the counterculture which is countering mainstream life. What a mess, but there’s a point in this. We can’t really counter something that we’re continuously influencing and is influencing us. We can’t distinguish what makes us think that way or this way, or identify the bits and pieces that play into that perspective. It’s circular and anyway you think about it it’s a myriad of muck and thoughts that leaves us unable to draw the dividing line.
The best part? That cultural machine keeps going.
There is no system. The universe is indifferent.
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