venturing the subcultural terrain

8/14/2019 Venturing the Subcultural Terrain

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Chris Perry

Independent Reading & Research

Venturing the Subcultural Terrain

Goths, hippies, punks, ravers, skaters, nerds, hipsters: known well by anyone in

touch with modern American culture, these groups are part of the widely known

phenomenon of subculture. Simultaneously loved, hated, feared, admired, and endlessly

imitated, these groups comprise some of the most attention-grabbing segments of the

population. They have an undeniable presence in (and influence on) pop culture, a fixed

spot in the public imagination, and a solid place in any urban landscape. Various

permutations of subculture emerge over time hippies one generation, hipsters the next

and like the seasons, none of them last forever. However, while any single subculture

has a limited shelf life, the phenomenon itself is remarkably widespread across every

generation, and evident in every nook and cranny of the social landscape.

Ever since the term was coined in the 1940s (Thornton, 1997), subculture has

referred to a number of things. On the one hand, it points internally, to a specific kind ofgroup characterized by particular behaviors and conditions. On the other hand, it points

externally, to a number of a macro-sociological and structural forces. It can be seen as a

specific, ideologically charged phenomenon, particular to working-class youth, or it can

be seen more neutrally as an outcome of modern urban society as a whole, evident in vast

swaths of the population. And, a subculture embodies values that, depending on

perspective, can either resist aspects of a dominant system, embrace them, or sometimes

do both.

Over the course of this quarter, Ive explored a number of different texts that

either deal specifically with the topic of subculture, or provide frameworks through

which one may better understand them. While far from compiling a complete discourse

on them, if such a task is even possible, Ive discovered a number of illuminating sources

that have repeatedly shaped and guided my thought. On the following pages, Ill share the


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best of these sources, and hopefully come closer to a working conception of the

phenomenon as a whole.

Finding a Place for Subcultures: An Overview

In her introduction to The Subcultures Reader, Sarah Thornton reflects on several

trends that appear in most discussions of subculture. These trends tend to span various

schools of thought, and touch on a number of ideas associated with the term.

First, she notes that the term places emphasis on variance from a larger

collectivity who are invariably, but not unproblematically, positioned as normal, average,

and dominant (p.2). Theres a conscious break, in other words, between a subculture on

the one side, and a larger, less well-defined force on the other, such as the public, the

masses, community, or society. Participation in subculture connotes a strong degree

of self-consciousness, where the members choice to join is almost invariably intentional

and deliberate. The fact alone that membership is, in fact, a choice, makes it distinct from

larger social forces; membership in society, for example, has far fewer connotations of

direct participation, offering at best only an indirect sense of belonging.

Relatedly, subcultural groups tend to emphasize values distinct from those of the

outside population, which subsequently serves to keep these groups separate and distinct.

This separation from the masses tends to invoke connotations of opposition and defiance,

as these groups often resist norms and conventions. As a result, subcultures are often

positioned in a lower context to the undifferentiated whole, which is even implied in

the root of the word, sub.

Subcultures often connote a sense of impermanence, unofficiality, and transience;

typically, they neither have the bureaucracy and institutional qualities of a society, nor

the stability and permanence of a community. They often have no place thats truly

their own, but tend instead to reappropriate parts of the city for their street (rather than

domestic) culture (p. 2), which may lead to geographic and spatially based tensions that

further serve to marginalize the group from its surrounding populations.

Overall, Thornton writes eloquently on the major tenets of subculture, and how it

has stood as an independent area of sociological and cultural inquiry. The only problem

with demarcating the term, as she herself admits, is that all the terms mentioned have a


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frequent tendency to overlap. Its often hard to tell where a society ends and a community

begins, for example, or where a subculture stands alone and where it becomes integrated

with the public. It thus seems problematic, in most cases, to fix a single term to any one

group while excluding the others.

Subculture and the City: The Chicago School

In a tradition that found answers to sociological questions through direct

observation of urban life, the Chicago school laid the groundwork for the field of

subcultural studies.

Early Chicago school writers focused on the city as a holistic phenomenon, seeing

in its midst the conditions from which new forms of culture and organization could

emerge. Robert E. Park was one of the earliest pioneers of this methodology, where he

explored characteristics of urban life in his 1915 essay, The City: Suggestions for the

investigation of human behavior. As he writes, the city is, rather, a state of mind, a

body of customs and traditions, and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere

in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition.... It is a product of nature, and

particularly of human nature (p. 16).

In a place where rational interests largely replace personal sentiments, and

neighborhoods lose much of their intimacy due to mass communication and rapid

transportation, the ideal conditions arise for the mobilization of the individual man (p.

24). Cities have multiplied the opportunities of the individual man for contact and for

association with his fellows, but they have made these contacts and associations more

transitory and less stable (p. 25). This creates a mosaic of little worlds which touch but

do not interpenetrate... and encourages the fascinating but dangerous experiment of living

at the same time in several different contiguous, but otherwise widely separated, worlds

(p. 25). Thus, the combination of increased mobility and decreased personal ties, not to

mention the presence of a large population, makes possible the association and

organization of people with similar dispositions, from artists to activists to criminals. This

easy association among people provides not merely a stimulus, but a moral support for

the traits they have in common (p. 27).

Parks theories are similarly echoed by Georg Simmel, in his well-known essay,


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The Metropolis & Mental Life, written in 1903. The phenomenon of small worlds

has been extensively documented by sociologists, and in effect were precursors to

subculture studies before the term existed. Paul C. Cressey explored the inner workings

of dance halls in The Life-Cycle of the Taxi-Dancer (1932), where he found an

elaborately developed microcosmic world, complete with rules and conventions all its

own. Similarly, Howard Becker outlines the world of jazz musicians in The Culture of a

Deviant Group (1963), a culture based both on the musicians common behaviors and

values, and their accompanying distance from more mainstream social conventions.

Later on, authors began to focus on the concept of subculture itself, and where it

fits in to the urban landscape. Thoughts gradually began to focus around subculture as a

unique concept worthy of its own term. Milton M. Gordon attempts to lay groundwork

for this phenomenon in The Concept of the Sub-Culture and Its Application, in which

he defines the term as a sub-division of a national culture, composed of a combination of

factorable social situation such as class status, ethnic background, regional and rurual or

urban residence, and religious affiliation, butforming in their combination a functioning

unity which has an integrated impact on the participating individual (p. 41, emphasis

authors). Parks methodology tends to examine how the various combinations of the

abovementioned factors create groups that are smaller and more intimate that entire

cultures, societies, or swaths of the public, yet are larger than affiliations among, say, a

group of friends. A subculture here is a confluence of both the macro, where race, class

ethnicity and so on often come into play, and the micro, where a high degree of

interaction and intimacy characterizes any subcultures participants.

By contrast, a later essay, written by John Irwin, focuses on the concept

subculture, where identities are structured around values, rather than attributes. Rather

than treating subculture as a small group bound to a particular place, he definies the term

as a social world, a shared perspective, which is not attached firmly to any definite

group or segment (p. 67). It seems as though both definitions have a place in the

discourse certain subcultures are indeed spread disparately across the country, while

others have grounding in a particular place and time. The common thread between them

seems to be a sharing of a distinctive lifestyle that sets them apart from the public at

large, held together by strong and somewhat exclusionary sentiments of identity and


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status.

Subculture and Class: The Birmingham School

While the Chicago school looked at subcultures neutrally, or at the very least with

a broad sociological lens, others took a different approach. In particular, a movement in

the Birmingham Center for Cultural Studies took the notion of subcultures and added a

rebellious, class-conscious overtone. Thoughts from this school emerged in 1970s

London, where numerous working-class subcultures swarmed the city following the

turmoil of World War II. To the scholars in this field, subcultures became far more than a

generalized urban phenomenon: they became the new language of class struggle.

No single study from this school remains more influential that Dick Hebdiges

Subcultures: The Meaning of Style. In his book, he examines how symbols employed by

subculture members translate into messages of resistance, disorder, and defiance. He

looks in particular at the spectacular subcultures that have captured such an unbalanced

share of media attention since they emerged. These subcultures, he argues, express

forbidden contents in forbidden forms, (P. 92), which manifest themselves in myriad

and continually redefined ways.

Notably, spectacular subcultures typically embrace commodities as an agent of

expression and defiance. Theres something inherently ironic about this, since its being

on the short end of a production and consumption cycle that tends to marginalize these

youth in the first place. Nonetheless, these subcultures repeatedly transform everyday

commodities into a far more complex, richly encoded messages, whose meaning far

transcends the products original intent. A safety pin, for example, becomes a grotesque

piercing; a jar of Vaseline becomes a symbol of sexual deviance among homosexuals.

The result of this process is a flourishing of codes and messages representative of what

Umberto Eco calls semiotic guerilla warfare.

The use of commodities as symbols of resistance poses a number of questions.

Hebdige himself comments on the reclaiming power of the marketplace, for, even after

commodities take on new and resistant forms, those forms themselves become

commodified, starting the cycle afresh. Moreover, if Hebdige and his peers truly see signs

of class resistance in these symbols, they leave open the question of how much these


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symbols truly can mean, and what exactly they can do in any meaningful sense. Even if

style has become a new language among disenfranchised youth, are their new forms of

expression making them any better off? To me, it seems unlikely. By segmenting

themselves off from the rest of the society, they face an even stronger degree of social

stigma than their social class would otherwise construe. Aside from the lucky few who

manage to make a living producing commodities for these new niches, the majority will

have to eventually support themselves by joining the workforce. The only positions

typically open to such youth, because of their status, are the very working class jobs that

caused their conditions for rebellion in the first place (Aronowitz, 1981).

Microsociological Explanations

The most encompassing, and in my opinion, the best and most lucid theory of

subculture, comes from Albert K. Cohen in his essay, A General Theory of Subcultures

(1955). He sees subcultures as a condition made possible by two factors: the actors

frame of reference, and the situation he confronts. Every individual faces situations

with no readily available solution, ranging from resentment to guilt to hopelessness. To

really confront these situations, the most common solution is a shift in frame of

reference: that is, to shift ones values significantly enough so that a previous problem no

longer appears as one. Nietzsches discussion on slave morality comes to mind: instead of

condemning humility and meekness, Christianity turns it into a virtue. Its also important

to note that every actor is born into a different set of situations, and confronted with a

different set of frames of reference. A wealthy Manhattanite, for example, encounters and

addresses an entirely different set of situations than a farmer in North Dakota.

Cohen recognizes a priori the universal desire to be a member in good standing

of some groups and roles. Not only do groups reward participants with feelings of

acceptance and recognition, but they serve as one of the most validating forces of ones

frame of reference and personal conduct. In other words, they provide support for frames

of reference that allow participants to settle old problems and not create new ones (p.

47). As some groups will most likely validate a persons beliefs and values more than

others, these groups turn into ones reference groups, providing the basis and support

for ones morals, ethics, and beliefs. These groups can take any number of forms, from


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churches to political parties to street gangs. The important factor in all of them is that

they resonate and reinforce the beliefs and situations of their participants, and make

possible feelings of membership, belonging, and admiration.

Subcultural solutions rise to problems when society assembles a number of

actors with similar problems of adjustment (p. 48). These problems often deal with

ones status position in the eyes of ones peers. A common solution, especially for those

who suffer from marginalization, is for individuals who share such problems to gravitate

towards one another and jointly to establish new norms, new criteria of status which

define as meritorious the characteristics they do possess, the kinds of conduct of which

they are capable (p. 51). This explains the function of juvenile gangs and religious cults,

but its truly relevant for just about any tightly knit group of any social stratum.

The Durkheimian tradition of microsociology feeds into this theory seamlessly. In

an updated account of Durkheims theories on religious life, Erving Collins outlines a

theory of what he terms Interaction Ritual Chains. According to this theory, society is

held together by continued successions of rituals, conducted in a group environment, that

charge participants with emotional energy derived from collective effervescence. An

interaction ritual goes through three cycles: first, the necessary ingredients are gathered

(including, most importantly, the people taking part); second, the condition of collective

effervescence builds up; and third, a result or product of the ritual is created, which

serves as a symbol that replicates (to varying degree) the feelings and conditions created

by the ritual itself.

Collective action, writes Collins, creates prolonged effects when it becomes

embodied in sentiments of group solidarity, symbols or sacred objects, and moments of

intense emotional energy. It raises the potential, in other words, for the rise of moral

sentiments that carry over into daily life. These sentiments dont last forever, but need to

be recharged by continued collective experiences over time. Church communities, not

surprisingly, do this all quite well: they meet weekly, energizing congregants and

reinforcing moral codes; they have a number of symbols, such as the cross and bible, that

continually invoke the groups moral values; and the experience is necessarily group-

oriented, creating the perfect conditions for collective effervescence.

Collins theory isnt perfect, and it sometimes seems so all-inclusive that it leaves


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me wondering quite how to apply it to a real world scenario. Apart from saying that

emotional energy arises from collective experience, he doesnt differentiate how different

forms of emotions are interplayed, and what kind of various moralities they impose. He

also leaves very little guidelines to explain how symbols from one collective experience

(say, participation in the market) carry over to another (say, donning a punk outfit and

heading to a concert). He offers a great deal of explanation why group experiences tend to

be unifying and produce shared sentiment, but not enough explanation why individuals

choose or choose not to participate in various group rituals in the first place.

Macrosociological Explanations

Subcultures number into the hundreds, if not thousands, and espouse countless

different lifestyles and values. At the same time, what if this great flourishing of

individual subcultures ultimately points to a greater system that essentially renders them

as fundamentally the same? This may be just what Herbert Marcuse does in his treatise,

One Dimensional Man. Written during the Cold War, when gross irrationality and self-

destruction buzzed in the air, it created the conditions for Marcuse to look at advanced

industrial society with a honed and penetrating critique.

As the pace of technology increases, it becomes increasingly possible to free

society from the life of toil which was previously necessary for survival. However,

appropriating technology to this end threatens the very existence of the power structure in

place. Taking away the need to work for ones survival, after all, would end a system of

domination thats extended for centuries. So, even as the possibility of liberation becomes

technologically more feasible, it becomes increasingly unlikely. In its place, the system

indoctrinates its members in a system of false needs, described as, needs which

perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice (p. 5). The imposition of these

needs is so strong, and the assimilation into the society that produces them so

inextricable, that the individual gradually comes to identify himself directly with his

society, maintaining no boundary between the self and the outside world. Individuality

becomes nothing more than a reflection of societys productive capacity, with identity

seeped in the commodities surrounding it. Thus, the conditions are created for individuals

to find expression in their automobiles, in their clothing, and in all other commodities


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they routinely consume.

Roughly a decade after Marcuses book was published, Jock Young applied these

ideas to subcultures, in an essay entitled, The Subterranean World of Play. In this

essay, he identifies two sets of values: dominant values, focused around productivity, and

subterranean values, focused around enjoyment and leisure. Neither set of values exists

separately from the other: most people at various points engage in both, spending the

workday in a strict, controlled setting, then letting loose at a bar or social event

afterwards. Indeed, the two sets of values play much into each other in a cycle of

reinforcement: leisure is concerned with consumption and work with production; a

keynote of our bifurcated society, therefore, is that individuals within it must constantly

consume in order to keep pace with the productive capacity of the economy (p. 74).

A central tenet of many subcultures is a focus on expression, enjoyment, and

resistance to the productive mandates of delaying satisfaction, succumbing to

routinization, and so on. Many subcultures adopt various forms of recreation and

consumption as their modus operandi, which explains the connection between

subcultures and the unholy trinity of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. The message implicit in

these subcultures is that they go against some established system or group, and indeed,

this is true to the extent that they resist the ethos of production common among

working adults. However, from a larger context, it seems as though these means of

resisting power structures still play into the larger forces of domination at hand.

Appropriating commodities and goods as means of rebellion, ultimately, does little more

than reinforce ones consumptive tendencies. Subcultures, then, or at least many of the

kinds known by the public, might simply be another side of the same societal coin, whose

difference from the mainstream is not a lack of participation in the system, but simply a

choice to value another part of it.

Conclusion: Class Warriors, Cohorts, or Consumers?

A subculture comes in many shapes and sizes, takes many forms, and can range in

size from provincial to global. It can refer a specific group in a particular place and time

(1970s London punks), a tendency towards particular values and beliefs (hippies), or a

cross-section of a wide segment of society (youth subculture, gay subculture, etc.). Many


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different people have painted subcultures in many different ways, which admittedly

makes it more difficult to say exactly what I mean when talking about studying a

subculture myself. At the same time, it leaves at my disposal a rich and broad range of

perspectives to employ along my way, many of which I hope to make great use of.

One of the issues that I keep coming back to is the connection between subculture

and rebellion. On the one hand, are these subcultural participants really advocating for

systemwide change, as Hebdige would like to believe, or in spite of all their rebellious

displays, are they more or less as stuck within the system as the rest of us? As common as

it is to see members of subcultures engaged and informed about issues of society, few of

them actually seem to do anything about it, which makes me wonder whether they may

simply be seeking out unusual, but still acceptable, methods of finding identity and

community in the face of modern society. Subcultures may simply be made up of people

whose values might seem at odds with society, but whose actions ultimately feed right

back into it.


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Bibliography

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Becker, Howard, The culture of a deviant group: the dance musician, from Outsiders

(Chicago: The Free Press 1963).

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The Free Press 1955).

Collins, Erving,Interaction Ritual Chains (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2004).

Cressey, Paul G, The life-cycle of the taxi-dancer, from The Taxi-Dance Hall(Hey

York: Greenwood Press 1932).

Gordon, Milton, The concept of the sub-culture and its application, from Social Forces,

26 (October 1947).

Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd 1979).

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(New York: Aldine 1998).

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Industrial Society (New York: Beacon Press 1964).

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urban environment, from The City, ed. R.E. Park (London: University of Chicago Press1925).

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