Pretense: Ivory

I am tired of hipsters. I am tired of people who talk under the pretense of knowledge about art, literature and music with elitist attitudes of arrogance. Yesterday I was hanging out with some of these people. One of them was in a band, the others were students at UCD. I met them through a friend of a friend. They were very snobby. The dude who was in a band wouldn't even look at me when I asked him a question. I guess he was too busy adjusting his black, square framed glasses, and brushing the hair out of his eyes. I watched as they talked of things that I am interested in, but in a way that made me never want to talk about them again. Perhaps if I was in a band, or if I was a great writer or artist, they would talk to me. But I am not any of these, so I guess am not really worth speaking to as a person. Perhaps if I raised my nose up a little more, and closed my eyes when I talked, I would be more accepted. Perhaps if I spent more money on "original" clothing and elegantly disheveled my hair while reading the latest from some current, New York, trendy fashion magazine, then I would have something to say.

I think it is funny how a particular subculture will rebel against a mainstream one, but then create the same sort of hierarchy that exists in the mainstream. There are still "cool" people and "uncool" people. There are still those who exert power, control, and influence over the followers of their "unique" beliefs. Whose intellectual paradigms ultimataely lead to the inevitable conclusion of bullshit no matter how "postmodern" and "right" they are. I am tired of people thinking that because they have a particular knowledge or philosophy of life that somehow this makes them better than the rest of the common people who are too stupid and ignorant to know anything or have taste in anything remotely of value.

These groups of people are all the same and though they may shop at different stores in the mall (one group goes to Pacsun, the other to Hot Topic and the other to Hollister) they all ascribe to the same conformist, high school, system of popularity and fashion. But the real irony lies when someone claims that they are "open minded." Usually these people look down on those who are "close minded" and critique them for having a certain set of beliefs. It is the most amusing thing to me to listen to someone talk about the "close mindedness" of others and how these people just don't see things the "right" way and are very uneducated about religion or culture or whatever it is they know that you don't.

Being a Christian, it is also amusing to me to talk to these people about my beliefs. "Oh, your a Christian" they will say. As if my being so deems me ignorant and uneducated and a southern, right-wing conspirator bigot. I am not these things, as I try to tell people, but they always seem to have the attitude that "Whatever is right for you is fine. Unless your a Christian, then your just wrong." There is very little room for different people or different beliefs in this relativistic type of thinking. I don't think it's wrong, it's just funny.

"When someone says to me "Hey man you shouldn't enforce your beliefs on others," I agree. I say, "Yeah I completely agree." What makes sense to me, may not necessarily make sense to others. I think its just plain idiotic to go around malls preaching at people, trying to convert them to your religion. But at the same time I want to ask the same people who tell me not to preach to others, "Why are you preaching at me?" Why are you enforcing your tolerance on me? Why are you stereotyping me based on the televangelist? Why are you judging me for being a Christian when you are very adamant against not judging people?

I believe in tolerance. I believe in being open minded. I love to talk about art, music, literature, and poetry. I just think its ironic when the so called "open" people are really just as judgmental and close minded as the rest. I think it is ironic when subcultures and originality is really just another facade of mainstream hierarchies and commercialism. So if your going to be an open person, which I try to be, if your going to learn about cultural facets, which I try to, just do it all the way, and try not to be a hypocritical asshole.

I have to laugh just because if someone really believed in extreme tolerance they could not even write a blog about it because they would be telling others what to believe. I am a hypocrite just by telling people not to be pretentious assholes. But we are all hypocrites to some degree so what can you do. I talk about not wanting to put chemicals in my body from Macdonald's, but then I go and smoke a cigarette. So ultimately, it is just a personal preference thing- I am tired of snobby, pretentious people who live in clouds of ivory towers and refuse to walk the earth with the rest of struggling humanity.