Defining
In a small, completely random conversation with a neighbor not long ago, I recommended to her a shop with “cool earrings” in a beach town here in Michigan. She wanted to know what I meant by “cool.” Indeed, depending on when you catch me, this could mean any number of things: an ankh, a petroglyph or rune, a beautifully Spartan metal design with amethyst – I can swing in a lot of directions. But in this case, I was thinking of a certain image, and after describing it, she nodded and said, “Just as I thought. Something kinda hippy.”
That made me laugh. Of all things I do not consider myself, it’s a hippy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I began to think about what were the salient differences in some of these distinctions, and did they matter? As someone who checks almost all the “other” boxes, I live a pretty liminal existence. In my experience, that kind of marginalization often leads to two primary responses: a clawing to get into a stable group identity, which often requires creating essentialist tribes, or becoming a student of group identities and functions, and all the grey involved. I became the latter. I don’t know if this was so much a choice of natural curiosity or a default: in my case, the only group I had unequivocal claim to was sex, but as a fish who’d grown up in the water of what became Third Wave feminism, I simply didn’t know how much that might be a factor until fairly recently in life. Plus, I felt much more at ease being rough and tumble among the boys, and so I didn’t have personal questions until much later, myriad anthropology of gender classes and reading notwithstanding.
But I do identify with two subcultures – maybe three, depending on our metrics, since the latter may veer more so into an ethnic identity. One is era specific, the other is arguably more timeless. The militant anarchist aspect is absolutely and accurately described as punk. Beyond trappings of the aesthetic that I clearly embraced in my teens – although it was no longer de rigueur, being too young to catch its peak – I completely resonate with the philosophy and allure of its nihilism. It is, fundamentally, a class movement, and although it probably originated in the US, its message and “brand” were clarified through a UK lens, where class stratification was – and still is – such a formative, overt component of society which has been denied in the US. It is an anarchist identity, not in the uninformed sense of disorder, but in the read meaning of rejecting authoritarian hierarchy. (As you may imagine, my foray into the Coast Guard was uncomfortable for a 17 year old punk girl, although probably the only branch I could have made any attempt with.) This early identity is likely why I missed some gender issues. As Chrissie Hynde said, gender “discrimination didn’t exist in that scene.” But also, as Kathleen Hanna’s experience showed us, it did: it was just different.
The second is Bohemian. The problem with that term is it’s been co-opted and overly applied to mostly aesthetics which have no real connection. You may think of it now as quite frilly and ethereal, and I think the notion of it being “free spirited” is where one may incorrectly conflate it with being “hippy.” But for me, and historically, it’s about tangible, sometimes hard realities of life as a creative. There’s a cost to everything, and the costs for rejecting conformity are high, on all fronts. Functionally, material elements are stripped down for nomadism, and layering function becomes important. Aesthetically, it has roots in Middle Eastern tribal cultures, so you see that design element, of course, but philosophically, it reflects the poverty of artists who traveled for patronage and like minds, if they could find them, and for experience and exploration, always. It’s “free spirited” in the way that a fever is a dream: there’s an underlying crisis intersecting with an unavoidable transformative drive, with flavors of both grit and despair. The result is often beauty and innovation, but also ruin. It sounds grandiose, I know, but having known a lot of “starving artists” and also having read all of Miller and Nin’s work while they were in Paris 😉, I think it’s true.
So, considering my lived experience and internalized categories, I wondered if all of these words are just code for the openness subculture of the day (in contrast to the conscientious subculture), with differences found only in generational and maybe cultural norms. After all, the Beats were, in many ways, the Bohemians of a certain era. But my primary disconnect with them is class: these were creatives, yes, but from privilege. At any time, they could stop “being alternative” and have material security. It does matter that their interior life rejected the status quo. But it also matters that their range of options moved the choice from necessity to play. The thing you cannot know if you didn’t come from a life of lack is that no amount of earned material security erases the imprint of a childhood without it. In a way, you cannot even imagine a life without it if you do not come from it, no matter how much experimenting you do, because it’s attached to 1,000s of beliefs and behaviors which have become naturalized for you. And so, I can understand by analogy and empathy anyone who feels out of place and marginalized, for any reason, but there is always a place where we cannot understand each other if we come from different classes. Thus, yes, I am always going to come to your salon to read, but I may often think you’re a bourgeois dick.
For me, then, class is likely a fundamental difference in how we apply these terms.
I also think that similar aesthetics or some shared elements can confuse us. Yes, I have some hipster overlaps. Also some hippy overlaps. Woo-woo, too. Those come through mostly in the area of nature and making. I have a permaculture yard with an emerging “food forest.” I may get some chickens. So, I can talk to you about Gaia, if we must, and raw milk. We can share the artisan thing we made, or I can play some vinyl for you, in mostly any genre. I can talk to you about the years I spent studying and teaching at a “clairvoyant college” with a completely straight face. Subcultures have a lot in common, and I am interested in speaking a shared language, where the opportunity exists. In fact, I’m interested in having conversational competency in every language. But my underlying context is the grit and creativity of urban landscape. I am – somehow, given my origin – a rootless cosmopolitan. I am not peaceful. I do not want to live in a commune. Beauty matters, in architecture, in streets. The city is not just a prop or set for the movie I’m projecting about myself: it is an essential character, and a component of my own. The city is the art. “Bohemian” is not Arles and muddied landscapes. It is midnight in a smoky, dark café in a “transitional” neighborhood, with absinthe and espresso in equal distribution. It is often edgy and vaguely dangerous; definitely robust debate, and sometimes even revolution – you cannot have edges without conflict. It is busking in the subway. It may be painting caricatures at Fisherman’s Wharf, because you might have to sell out just a little to buy oils for the things which matter – but it’s subversive, not ironic. And it’s playing at the Palace of Fine Arts at 3 in the morning, or writing poetry at Red’s at 8, while the dock workers grab coffee. Or all the local cosmopolitan variations we could all fill in from here.
No doubt, the comments will be full of posts about how I’ve misdefined what it means to be a hippy. Ok, whatever. My point is that, for me, then, urbanism is likely a fundamental difference in how we apply these terms.
And from there, there’s much to consider about what class and urban mean to the various identities which require them both, as these do, but are not congruent. As I say, the city is the art and you cannot have edges without conflict … or shared territories.