The symbolic poles of our world have been completely reversed, and it is time we recognized it. (Thomas Frank) Some fuzzy thoughts on normcore from my sickbed: To be middle class, or to remain able to dream of it, the last revolutionary drive? Normcore as the simulacrum (from above) of the vanishing middle, the oligarcho-aristo-creatives objectification of what is objectively vanishing? A dressing-up-as-shepherds style pre-revolutionary elite condescension or post-Occupy spasm (of shame/appropriation)? A fashion derivative, a spread, various forms of insurance at once, a mugging against being mugged, a dressing down in defensive anticipation of a further attack or as proof of the failure of the last assault? (Sort of crowing, a smug assimilation of the last uprising). Mimetic psychosis combined with overweening confidence in the power to assimilate and transmogrify? Rameaus nephew (a dandy who could nominate and gentrify the merest bit of life into art, the first conceptualist or estate agent) at the end of his spiral; the sovereign decision on what is cool and what is not taken to its ultimate conclusion? An inversion of quantity into quality or vice versa - the endgame of culture, couture, the reproduction of the classes? In short, normcore as the harbinger of class appearing nakedly as a polar relation of haves and have nots. The last selfie of the global post-bourgeoisie... What happens after the final dregs of the punk negativity/self-fabrication process have been rinsed out x 1000, when the latest in diffuse negation coincides with a simple and unconscious affirmation, the short circuiting of pragmatism and style; the end of the Bourdieuan cycle of distinction, in that this valuable anti-value takes the form of the simply functional and (for the remaining middle) already valued. The lost value, the utopia of the normal? The dialectic of post-war fashions expiration coincides with the end of the pseudo-conflict between left and right, with the normalisation of the right from Palin to Farage and the general rightward trend of the centre, the establishment of a kind of homogenous naffness or continuum of the historically inert, a pan-reactionary politics. The truth as ever is out there, all over us. Normcore posthipsters, softmodernist styleless apartment blocks, swathes of cack housing planned for the frackable home counties, James Heartfield telling us we have to believe in the transformative power of volume housebuilding or the radical aspects of a massive vote for border control and national self-determination (tho tis true there are good commie arguments for despising the EU). Normcore just is so now, so absolutely the state of things, the state of stunned dumb inertia, of implosion 3.0. Its the UCU of fashion, the british left (and right) of sartorial dialectic, the undead parallel of all the other forms of indifference; the hedging and heterogeneity of peckham harlequins in a state of terminal realism, adapted to future prospects of un/employment, seeking oligarchic sponsors but not wanting to offend residual welfare state funders, keeping all options open, spouting Marx and playing the networking game, hunting for a monastery with wifi, sanctuary with significant opportunities for expansion. Normcore is what the age demanded. One could go on indefinitely, indifferently. Writing this in a state of actually existing nausea, but in fact the writing down of fashion, as of politics, is also emancipatory. (Re writing down, are not stats a form of normcore, a kind of collapse of high and low into a vacuous middle? And have you noticed how, in a condition of global mediocrity, everything is always about 40% - the UCU turn out of which 50% didnt want to not mark papers, the EU vote, the percentage of my own disgust regarding all of the above; 25% of 40% - the stats are normcore botches, the centre is racist and homophobic but on the other hand no one is central any more)... The end of dressing up - which has been announced before with the grunge moment in the pit of the precursor early 90s recession, could also indicate the end of any necessary uniform for negation. A rampant negativity liberated from style; pace Theorie Communiste and contra John Waters, why not the end of needing an outfit in which to revolt, along with the end of any specific party of revolt? What if revolt were to become as normal as normcore, the value form hipsters and the masses to merge in a post-middle of melée, a continuum of noes that melts the erstwhile poles (just as the poles are melting away and the year has become one universal season, a grey or green winter)? The end of the social critique and the aesthetic critique as a simple real movement against everything existing is something everyone would look good in. What if the content went beyond the phrase at last, not just a get up but an outburst - an *activity* -so ecstatic it marked the dissolution of the whole? Surely the revolution wont be about a new set of signs, but rather the complete transformation of all relations? In this sense the bland convergence of normcore could be subject to its own dialectical involution, could be turned inside out and made to manifest its silver if logo-less lining? It could be the premonition of that condition exactly the same but just a little different Benjamin speaks of. This hedging of bets could be advanced notice of a systemic convulsion. The votes in the elections of the world can be read as a sad rightward motion, irreversible, all conquering, but its also the political sign of the bankruptcy of the reigning representational systems, the political registration of the obsolescence of the political, of the unfixability of all economic problems, of all problems tout court, within capitalism. And the next set of crises is just waiting to break, the interest rates are beginning to strain at the leash, the growth rates to totter. Perhaps beyond normcore is another normal altogether, an aberration devoutly to be wished..... The urgent need of our age is not individual self-actualization or even a really innovative artisanal cocktail; it is to hold on to that middle-class society the counterculture thought was so soulless and unfulfilling. All the signifiers have changed. Today corporate managers routinely declare themselves to be disruptive and revolutionary fellows, while average, uncool workers fight desperately to hang on to their pensions and healthcare benefits. The symbolic poles of our world have been completely reversed, and it is time we recognized it: flat-accented Wisconsinites and dowdy suburban moms and mulleted union guys, all of them watching their world fall apart, often show a kind of bravery these days that is far more transgressive than anything you will see at Fashion Week this year. Or ever. salon/2014/04/27/hipsters_they%E2%80%99re_just_like_us_normcore_sarah_palin_and_the_gops_big_red_state_lie/
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 21:05:18 +0000
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