zen and the modern hipster

For some reason (my own ego) the hipster movement in Portland struck me like a bad hangover from my very first impression. Before moving to Portland I had a vague idea of what hipster meant –my version stemmed from extensive reading of 1950’s American literature. Perhaps what irked me the most was the arrogance with which the hipster cliques in Portland moved, pretending as if the rest of world, the people around them, didn’t even exist, or worse, were less than human.

I was born a toe headed kid in a Latin American country and have been no stranger to sticking out or not feeling like I fit in. And yet I have always been attracted to America’s sub-culture movements but mostly as a watcher, not fitting in has been my shield. But I digress –in a recent post by Foulweather we see some street level social commentary, presumably by a “hipster.” And it seems that the particular slogan has its merit. However, I cannot help but notice the rapid commodification of the hipster lifestyle and it makes me wonder how this longstanding bohemian tradition will survive this attack of blatant capitalism.

Or maybe it’s already been dead for a long time?

I guess that what I’d like to know is whether or not any real subculture still exists that has not been packaged and sold to the masses?

Here is a relevant passage by Alan Watts commenting on Zen in the Western World and it’s adoption by the beatnik hipsters.

“The "beat" mentality as I am thinking of it is something much more extensive and vague that the hipster life of New York and San Francisco. It is a younger generation's nonparticipation in "the American Way of Life," a revolt which does not seek to change the existing order but simply turns away from it to find the significance of life in subjective experience rather then objective achievement. It contrasts with the "square" and other-directed mentality of beguilement by social convention, unaware of the correlativity of right and wrong, the mutual necessity of capitalism and communism to each other's existence, of the inner identity of puritanism and lechery, or of, say, the alliance of church lobbies and organized crime to maintain the laws against gambling.”

So are the hipsters of New York, San Francisco and Portland just another marketing demographic? Does the unified fashion, music, aesthetic and even prevailing ideology mean anything more than a clean cut marketing plan? Even though I have a distaste for the hipster sub-culture, I’d like to think, or maybe even wish, that there’s “something much more extensive and vague” for the sake of preserving some shred of human decency –some little bit that cannot be bought or sold.

mahalo and goodnight