Someone I know told me that I looked and dressed like 'a psychotic geography teacher.' It may be so. The truth is, I've never cared very much about clothes, and it bothers me to see fashion becoming more and more important, especially on the counter-cultural/ alternative side. There are people I know who are well out on the alternative limb, at least in one sense, and they spend hundreds of pounds a year on alternative fashions to signal their outsider status to the world.
That's just capitalism with cooler outfits, isn't it? Don't they still 'have' you, if you have to consume in order to pursue your lifestyle?
So what kind of rebellion are we actually running, if we're running one? Is it one of style? There is something to be said for the pursuit of style, since all forms of excellence are difficult to attain and contradict the conformist impulse, in a way. But my rebellion (again, if that's what I'm doing), is an internal one; it's about reinventing the mind and the spirit so that you can be liberated from the outmoded forms, the useless old bullshit, that society sets you up to live and die in the service of. What was it Dylan said? 'I refuse to be fitted for such a shallow grave.'
1 comment:
As is often the case, Bruce, you write my thoughts. It kills me to see little kids -- 7, 8 years old -- fashion conscious, in designer sunglasses and all the latest "brands". You see them shopping for CDs. My God. When I was 7 years old I couldn't have thought of anything more boring than listening to music. There was so much else to do. But, quoting Dylan again, "the insane world of entertainment has blown up in our faces".
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