The Need for Pretension
The Need for Pretension. On hipsterism and the avoidance of death
Authentic identity is hard to come by these days. Messages ambush us from every corner of our lives, reassuring us that consumption is the true path to authenticity. Our advertisements urge us to salvage our identities with products and the ideologies which accompany them; our social media platforms validate those who consume and isolate those who do not consume enough. Universities and YouTube ideologues alike propagate the consumption of knowledge as a promise of meaning; of a fulfilled identity. Despite the power of these messages, implicit as they may be, there exists a confused sense of individualism rampant in our late-capitalist society. The rise of mental illnesses rooted in deficient self-esteem, such as depression and eating disorders, speak to the identity crises of contemporary times. In the fast-paced era of seemingly unbridled choice, the individual struggles to fashion a coherent identity (both internally and externally) and thus succumbs to problems of ambivalence and mental illness. However, one cultural phenomenon exhibits particular strength in overcoming these problems of a chiefly misguided Western populace, though its proponents are likely unaware of this strength.
Hipsterism is broadly a response to the difficulty of consolidating identity in today’s world of consumption and hyper-individualization. This socio-cultural phenomenon addresses identity crises that appear as a direct consequence of late-capitalist ideology and institutions; only, these crises are resolved not through dismantling the current system, but by orchestrating new conspicuously capitalist identities.
Before I delve any deeper into the rabbit hole of social and psychological theory, it is imperative that I define the terrifying abstraction (I’ll explain why it’s terrifying shortly) which I will use throughout this essay. Identity, as defined by the psychologist Peter Weinreich, is a continuity of self-construal: self-construal referring to how we perceive ourselves, and continuity referring to a union between our past, current, and future selves. This notion of continuity is vitally important for our construction and maintenance of self-esteem, and once we have an understanding of this, it becomes clear why authenticity is so lacking and sought-after today. The environmental concerns of the contemporary West threaten the self-construed continuity of many individuals. For instance, climate change threatens the future self with inevitable destruction
; third wave feminism and LGBTQ activism threatens the past self with changing moral/social codes; deindustrialization threatens the current self with its disruption of working-class identity, et cetera. The quest for authenticity, then, is a uniquely human one, as only humans can (and must) operate intertemporally.
I have previously
defined the hipster as “an individual of the late-capitalist period, characterized by ironic consumption habits and a quest for authenticity”. This definition of hipsters allows us to view hipsterism as a product of the human/cultural tendency to magnify the salience of identity.
Ironic consumption is a staple of hipster identity.
Needless to say, most people believe that identity is
real. We build our identities on the supposition that identity is what makes us who we are; therefore, it must be real! Of course, self-construal is just that — how can our reality be truly real if we are the ones construing it? Furthermore, if our own realities are real and we are the ones construing them, then surely we must be gods to have that magical ability! Obviously, we are not gods; we are immortal animals who defecate and chase our fantasies until the sand in our hourglass becomes a motionless pile. Identity is a lie so crucial that allows us to live with tranquility: the very nature of having a symbolic self negates our animality altogether, and thus offers us salvation from the constant terror that is the knowledge of our inevitable death. Psychoanalysts Robert Brown and Sándor Ferenczi, as well as cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, have all argued the case for ‘character as a vital lie’ brilliantly, and I would recommend looking at these theorists for more clarity and insight on the matter. The essence of identity is found in the fact that “man lives by lying to himself about himself and about his world” (Becker, 1973, 51). Without the vital lie of character, humans are faced with the reality of our condition. When this lie breaks down, it leads to psychoses such as schizophrenia, where the individual cannot partialize the reality of their condition with identity, thus regressing into a purely internal state. Alternatively, neuroses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder occur, whereby one can control his external environment through a self-created world of compulsion (by
partializing too much). Thus, we desperately need an identity as our protection against the terror of reality; as a means of self-preservation.
In late-capitalism where identity is uncertain and eroded (especially in terms of post-colonial ethnic identity), a cultural phenomenon such as hipsterism which solidifies the integral lie of identity is entirely justifiable under the pretense of terror management.
This discussion of the human condition has led to the confirmation that identity is fundamental to our navigation of life with equanimity. Without it, human life is virtually impossible. In light of this psychoanalytic revelation arrived at by some of the greatest minds of the 20th century, we can now discuss how hipsters fashion identity to distract from “the real” (in the Lacanian sense; beyond the symbolic and outside the imaginary). Hipsters are not original in their simultaneous focus on identity and ignorance of animality; all cultures stem from this duality (I cannot get into this theory here, but I will once again refer the reader to Becker). The reason culture exists is to transcend animality; to organize as symbolic beings and to find comfort in the ready-made meanings and roles of society.
Though hipsters pride themselves on and are well known for ascribing to a higher standard of culture (a polite way of saying “snobbery”), they are quite visible in Kierkegaard’s description of the Philistine who is “a something included along with “the other” in the compass of the temporal and the worldly”. He continues “Thus the self coheres immediately with “the other”, wishing, desiring, enjoying, et cetera, but passively; […]
he manages to imitate the other men, noting how they manage to live, and so he too lives after a sort. [He] does not recognize his self, he recognizes himself only by his dress […] he recognizes that he has a self only by externals” (Kierkegaard, 1849, 184–187). He also notes poignantly that “Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial” (Kierkegaard, 1849, 174–175).