Subcultures and conspiracy theories

Lesson 12SOC 86 – Popular CultureRobert Wonser

Variations within a Culture

The dominant culture refers to the values, norms, and practices of the group within society that is most powerful in terms of wealth, prestige, status, and influence.

A subculture is a group within society that is differentiated by its distinctive values, norms, and lifestyle.

A counterculture is a group within society that openly rejects and/or actively opposes society’s values and norms.

Subcultures Specifically

Prefix ‘sub’ is telling; implies subaltern or subterranean, below

Commonalities:

1) Groups studied as subcultures are often positioned by themselves or others as deviant or debased

2) Labeled as subculture implies lower down the social ladder due to social differences of class, race, ethnicity and age.

Preconditions for the Emergence of Subcultures

Youth is a social construct, adolescence and teenagers are new ideas

Youth – a stage of life defined as entailing a “psychosocial moratorium” from adult responsibilities and thus enables experimentation with identity—a product of the economic development and affluence of Western societies in the twentieth century

Made possible because of extended higher ed, postponement of work, birth control Youth as an “in-between” phase of the life cycle free of most adult responsibilities and free of many (but not all) child restrictions

The Invention of Adolescence

Only in ContextCould only emerge in the specific

context in which they did:First, a dominant, mass culture had to

exist to rebel againstThis dominant culture was a product of

middle class post-war affluence and many subcultures are products of the declining middle class and the identity crisis that ensues afterward

Intrinsically linked with our consumerist society; eventually it is exposed as vapid and unable to satiate individual desires for identity fulfillment how unique are you when you like what everyone else likes?

Where to turn? Subcultures. They offer identity; most importantly, authentic identity partially defined in terms of its opposition to the mainstream culture’s values and products.

In this respect identity formation is linked to consumption.

Subcultures attempt to provide an authentic identity for its adherents in the face of an increasingly vapid society

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PunkThe term ‘punk’ was used because it “seemed to

sum up the thread that connected everything we liked—drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side.” – Legs McNeil

Emerged during recession in NYC and after neoliberal (theory that champions privatization and condemns state intervention in the free market) policies decimated the city

Emergence of punk as a response to the demise of rock and the failure of sixties utopianism

The Irony and Resurgence of Punk

Punk was seen as authentic in its opposition to mainstream music and society this was precisely how it was later co-opted and marketed as a form of rebellion

Be different, buy

this!

Style

Subcultures take on a spectacular form by appropriating commodities and using them in innovative and unintended ways that assign them new, subversive meanings in the process of creating style.

Subculture participants still seek identity through their subcultures based on authenticity and difference from an imagined “mainstream” but a post-fordist view of capitalism blurs the boundary between subculture and popular culture increasingly threatening these identities.

How do punks manage this crisis of identity?

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Different Punk Identities

Heavy MetalEmerged amid deindustrialization during the 70s and

80s

Contributed to the polarization of social classes but also has been experienced as a crisis in masculinity.

Job losses and downward mobility caused by deindustrialization have emasculated working-class men by displacing notions of the “breadwinner ethic” that was romanticized during the 50s and 60s.

Coincided with other societal changes: increased women in the workforce and visibility of the feminist movement.

Many men interpreted this as a threat to their privileged position

Conspiracy Theorists*

* Or so THEY’D like you to believe…

Defining Conspiracy

The essence of conspiracy belief lies in attempts to delineate and explain evil

The result is a worldview characterized by a sharp vision between the realms of good and evil

Conspiracy belief is the belief that an organization made up of individuals or groups was or is acting covertly to achieve some malevolent end.

A conspiracist worldview implies a universe governed by design rather than by randomness.

Conspiracy Theories

Have three principles in common:

•Nothing happens by accident•Nothing is as it seems•Everything is connected

This view is both frightening and reassuring:

• Frightening because it magnifies the power of evil (light and darkness struggle for cosmic supremacy)

• Reassuring because it promises a world that is meaningful rather than arbitrary.

• It also provides a definable enemy against which to struggle, endowing life with a purpose.

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Belief in Conspiracies

Allows believers to make some sense of a complex and ever-changing world

The same trends that disaffected the punks, heavy metalers and youth in general play out in seemingly secretive ways.

It is difficult to see and understand complex forces; political, sociological, and economic. An answer has to be found somewhere

What Unites These disparate cultures?Fear and uncertainty

They are all reactions to the decline of the middle class

Punk sees it ostensibly as a messed up culture from its onset, metal and conspiracy theorists believes it has lost its former glory and, unable to understand the complex sociological factors that resulted in where we are to day, turn to what seems to make sense to explain why the world has changed and they’ve lost their social status.