Sometimes I wish that I could hang out with the cool kids, the cool crowd, the winners. Sometimes I wish that I had a great six-figure job.
My friend with a great job and spouse and kids says: “The problem with great jobs is that there’s an institution-wide ethos of fakeness. But I guess that’s maybe an okay thing. Nobody gets to “be themselves,” and that’s for the good of all.”
A goy blogs: As identity goes, there is some question whether there’s a distinction between “national” and “racial” and/or “tribal,” but all tend to agree that the tell-tale signs of a healthy and thriving society–on any scale, really–is significant cultural production. I have noted in the past that all of the large-looming cultural products I can think of (Japanese Tea Ceremony, Beijing Opera, Classical music, church liturgies, novel-reading, etc.) tend to have their inception in relatively homogeneous societies. Thus when we think of the origin of rap music, we are right to think of a particular set of streets or blocks in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and when we think of blue-grass, Appalachia comes to mind, and when we think of rodeo, we think of the American South, etc. Interestingly–and by contrast–large cosmopolitan places, home to culturally heterogeneous populations, don’t tend to produce much distinct culture. They’re good at curating already-existing culture, as in the case of NYC’s Metropolitan Museum, and so on. But what culture is spontaneously arising from New York City that might represent “New York Culture?”
I don’t think it’s happening. There is no synthesis–so even if there are writers of various tribal affiliations, they’re all writing and painting and dancing in step with their already-established cultural identities. They aren’t forging new ones. So how are new cultural forms created, who generates them, when do they happen, when don’t they?
My hunch is that one needs to have a near-total disregard for what “outsiders” think about whatever project one is working on. This is why, for instance, contemporary “Christian music” usually rubs me the wrong way: it feels too commercial, too radio-ready, too aware of its relation to non-Christian pop music. It needs to get weirder and more isolated, much weirder, and much more alone. It needs to get so alone that it is no longer aware or concerned with what others are listening to as music. It needs to be able to take is own foundations and instincts and cultural cornerstones for granted–as true–or else the muse won’t help. It needs separation, retreat, withdrawal, secession.
There remains the question of whether I’m wrong about the “need” for culture. Maybe New York City is fine–some people would say it is. They love it just the way it is, with all its various ethnic food places not synergizing in any way, but only protecting cultures established in far-away homelands long ago.
But I am out of touch with my ancient homeland, and although I like Chinese and Thai and Mexican food, none of those are distinctly mine–nor is MacDonald’s. We know what Cajun food is, and where it comes from, and of its history. But what is my food tradition? How was it formed?–is it not formed yet?–how could I participate in forming it? Who belongs to my tribe?
