{"id":11991,"date":"2017-03-02T21:19:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T05:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11991"},"modified":"2017-03-02T21:19:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T05:19:30","slug":"i-want-to-be-cool-not-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/i-want-to-be-cool-not-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"I want to be cool not normal!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Coolness is a positional good, it\u2019s not something that can be bought off a shelf. Some people are cool because others are not.<\/em>” [1]<\/p>\n

There are those that assert that within our current culture there is a dissatisfaction with consumerism because everyone wants to be cool which means someone has to be uncool. Distinction and competitive consumption is propelled by being a rebel against consumerism. Therefore, rebellion is a powerful force behind what drives capitalism. It is thereby members of our society who attempt to establish social norms that enforce uniformity and conformity that, someone who identifies as a \u00a0rebel, would seek their own individual identity through distinction from consumer culture. The unfortunate reality is that the rebel attempting to be other only creates a new pathway for others to assemble and unite in how they choose to live out their association with culture. Sure there are those who use their purchases to make a statement of their class, privilege and importance. Then there are others who appeal to the ideals of counterculture, they seek to do everything in opposition of the consumer culture in hopes to shift the way society engages and participates in our consumer culture. In Rebel Sell<\/em> or Nation of Rebels<\/em> depending on which country\/version you may have purchased this book, authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter seek to prove that mainstream idea that desire drives us to conform to status symbols and is a core reason to perpetuate the ails of consumer culture is in fact a myth. In actuality, according to Heath and Potter we choose the alternative. Most find a dissatisfaction with the social norms of our culture. In order to be cool, one must become other and go against the grain.<\/p>\n

“As the rebel searches for more and more less co-optable means of expressing themselves, they seem to be in a search for the purely anti-social behavior. Your friend\u2019s mother gets a tattoo? Why don\u2019t you get Balinese ear plugs, you won\u2019t notice those in the suburbs!<\/em>“[2] This quote embodies so much of my youth. I remember growing up in the suburbs and witnessing many youth attempting to make a statement by using \u00a0their hair, earrings, body art or clothing as a means to show their dissatisfaction with the social norm. In the same vain, one of their parents wanting to conform to what they believed was also making a statement but yet also desiring to relive their youth attempts the same gesture only to have their act negate the very purpose their child and other youth were attempting to achieve. \u00a0What bothered me the most is that they never took the time to understand the rhyme or reason for the initial act. They just used their privilege to insert themselves in a counter cultural movement just to say they were associated.<\/p>\n

In reflecting on our readings on capitalism, consumer culture and consumerism, one thing I have recognized that there are so many variant discussions about what makes our culture consume. Whether we do it for status and privilege. Whether we do it out of pure humanistic desire and want only to find ourselves dissatisfied or we do it as an attempt to become counter culture and rebel against the social norms of our culture. For me, either way you slice it we have to own the fact that we are driven to consume. Our culture is inundated with marketing and advertisement that compels us \u00a0to act either in seeing the value presented or purchasing as a means to protest the value it presents. I can’t say that the Eucharist is the solution nor can I say that being counter culture helps in any regard. Personally, I think what is missing from these discussions is the inner workings of the the Holy Spirit in our lives. What is missing is the element of community that doesn’t require a forced spiritual practice but a daily engagement cooperatively with the Holy Spirit as we live out our faith each and every day. Sure the temptation and enticement of our culture and our world may prove in some cases to demonstrate patterns of humanistic activity within a\u00a0capitalistic society;however, we have to ask ourselves can \u00a0Cavanaugh’s proposal of the Eucharist resolve this? I would say in and of itself NO! Can our attempt to be counter culture in our engagement bring awareness and resolution? I would say awareness possibly depending on the audience\/individuals that you have influence over\u00a0but it can only go so far. I personally think we need to gravel and wrestle more with the questions in community and contextually (yes I brought in Bevans and Garner) in order to fully give a proper assessment to begin to identify actionable steps on how we engage further in relating and understanding how we as believers truly reflect Christ and shift the narrative within our consumerism social plight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Coralie McCormick, Quicklet on Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter’s Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture <\/i>(Hyperink, 2012), Kindle Location, 272.<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid, 240<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Coolness is a positional good, it\u2019s not something that can be bought off a shelf. Some people are cool because others are not.” [1] There are those that assert that within our current culture there is a dissatisfaction with consumerism because everyone wants to be cool which means someone has to be uncool. Distinction and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[114,847,363],"class_list":["post-11991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heath","tag-heath-and-potter","tag-potter","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}