In which the author writes briefly about the love of groups and the obsession with individuality. In which separation is on equal par with the crowd. In which a related question brings up a lot of problems that probably can't be answered on this website. Also, Nabokov's Mary, because I really love that book.
The question “What makes this art good and this art bad?” will naturally lead to more questions—when you have a plate of spaghetti, you’re gonna get a lot of limp noodles. That’s what makes it spaghetti. Making that quick list of factors that result in our judgement one way or another led me to the supposed dichotomy of Liking Something vs Critically Thinking About Something. Which led me to thinking about how this relates to us humans. If it doesn’t relate to humanity, it has little business being brought up. [Related question: can anything be put into words that doesn’t relate to humanity? Doesn’t the fact that something can be expressed in words make it relative to some aspect of humanity? Perhaps this is a nonce problem. Anyway, moving on.]
Humans like their groups. They also like uniqueness. It’s our uniqueness that makes us identifiable in the miasma of perceived sameness all around us. One billion people like Star Wars but how many like Star Wars in a unique fashion? How about Gary Larson’s one panel strip The Far Side? Or Season 4 of Arrested Development? Is that even something we can strive for?
Regardless, I think that's what we crave naturally—separation within a group—a group within which we can stand out.
We want to be unique and we want the things we like to be unique. But we also want to be part of something. We like to join groups of people in liking something. It’s the Individual and the Society (both macro-society and micro-society) in a paradoxical and sometimes contradictory dance whose music relaxes you and makes you sweat. It’s tweeting and retweeting the latest Game of Thrones news. It’s repinning what 150 other people already repinned and taking equal joy in pinning something first. It’s the pride of reading a book publicly on Goodreads that only three other people have read while simultaneously reveling in the fact that you’re not alone in loving Nabokov’s Mary.
Problem 001 of HTLA seems to have raised many of its own problems. This is going to take longer than I thought.
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Being different isn't all that hot. I find myself amused though with commercials for jeans or what have you that push the whole notion that if you buy their product you're a true individual even though you have a massive unisexual army in the uniform of jeans and a t- shirt. You can believe you're a individual all you want as long as you don!t ostracize yourself from your peer group. If you do that you're just a evolutionary dead end. You can artfully tear your jeans and wear some painfully hip shirt and you'll fit in with all of the other individuals but unless you're lady gaga I wouldn't add meat pants to you're wardrobe unless you want to alienated by the rest of society.
While I agree in general with your remarks, it's really the co-existence of the two desires that I find fascinating (rather than the use of the commercial exploitation of the need). The fact that one can desire both individuality and inclusion in a group creates an interesting tension between personal expression and alignment. I think this is what undoes the "evolutionary dead end" you mention. The individual expresses themselves as uniquely as possible within the group, and adds to it, rather than forces self-exclusion.
By the way, thanks for commenting!
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