By Vexen Crabtree 2000 Aug 30
This Page: ...is a brief on the appearance of alternative subcultures and people. It is not a description of such looks, but an attempt at a justification and explanation of some of the motives behind the use of alternative fashion.
All social groups and people move within a larger cultural context, within which they deviate from the average. A circle of friends can together slowly become an alternative group through mutual support and encouragement. A group of people who know each other give off a group confidence that can create an aura around them - which is often misread by people to mean that they are an exclusive group.
This is particularly true when the group develop a particular appearance, or a group aesthetic is formed. A real barrier can erect itself between the group and "normal" society, as members of the "normal" society believe themselves to be "outside" the group and unable to enter it or understand it.
The aesthetic that the group develops towards is most often a function of their personality - i.e., there is a correlation between habits and the aesthetics people are most comfortable with. Subconsciously if not consciously, people learn which aesthetics are connected with which interests and therefore a person can sometimes be drawn to a particular look or style for reasons they do not understand, but is in some way connected to their need to socialize.
People stratify into groups they feel most comfortable with. All people feel themselves to be 'outside' or not accepted into 'society', that there is a large group of people who get on with each other and that they are not part of this group. In reality, all people think this, every person is only part of a reserved group, but from within that group it may appear the other way round; that everyone else is part of a large sociable group. If you take any given group of people, there are only a group of individuals all wandering why you don't like them
People frequently feel that society is an exclusive, large, group of people which do not like them. In reality there is no such large group, just a milliard of smaller groups looking outwards at all the people not in their own group.
As a person matures they deal with this in many ways. Some become over-the-top sociable (the sanguine ones amongst us) in order to try and enter this illusion of "larger society". On one hand, there are those who look across at the loud, sociable ones with respect, awe and envy. On the other hand the loud sociable ones are trying to be sociable to try and make up for what they perceive to be a gap between themselves and you, and others not in their group.
Some people deal with the Human Condition by rejecting all those who they do not perceive to like, or be like, themselves. This left hand path is initially a solitary one, where a person perceives the illusionary large society and decides that he is purposely going to distance himself from it, so that no time or emotion need be expended worrying about who likes him or not.
But people need people, and as the prototype goth/punk/extreme matures they will seek out other aliens, whilst at the same time continuing to reject society. The result is the same; a person who is part of a social group within a larger context of other social groups and cliques.
Standing out and looking different is a hard thing to do. A goth can barely walk down a single street without someone insulting them ... but for what purpose? Receiving the blunt end of Human nature strengthens one's resolve to be kind and fair. The increased level of friction with the mostly mindless masses toughens a person and makes them much more able to express themselves freely, without having to worry about whether or not people 'like' it or not.
The bottling up of emotions and self expression is known to be destabilizing, self oppressive bad psychology and will over time, reduce a person's mental well being. Learning to express your self through your appearance, instantly discarding much of society because they also discard you, is the left hand path. This continual self expression and self conscious movement through larger society whilst being visibly a member of a sub culture is an affirming, healthy and confidence building trip of karma; a person can avoid pent up emotion about whether others like them, because he accepts that he is an individual in only one single, small, social circle, with no illusion that he wants to go follow the illusionary larger society.
Judging a person by their appearance is, in theory, something everyone knows is wrong when it comes to cultural fashion, skin color, etc. A person's worth cannot be measured from what clothes they wear or how they present themselves. In short, it does not matter what the appearance of a person is; those that judge by appearance are recognized to be shallow and superficial, lacking depth of character, compassion, intelligence and morality.
A mature person can choose to stand up and rebel against the slight xenophobia that resides within all of us. A person can decide to be a nuisance to those who judge others by appearance. The more extreme you can dress, the more people will react to the way you look more than your actual actions. The more extreme you can dress therefore, the better the social stratification.
As a person's dress becomes more and more unusual, there are people who they previously thought of as friends who now reject them based on their fashion. For the sake of 'embarrassment' they avoid the unusually dressed person, buckling under pressure to remain sheep within the low security social circles they inhabit.
Those who accept punk, goth, cross dressing, androgyny are good people. Better than those who judge by appearance. The more unusual you dress, the better your filter for weeding out the intolerable, superficial and weak Humans around you.
Given that all people reside within their social circles, looking outwards on what they perceive to be a larger, sociable society, which they are not part of. In reality there is no larger society, but just an intermingling of a milliard of smaller groups, each looking out thinking themselves inhibited.
A person can feel that they need to bind their friends closer to themselves, so that they and there friends are a more 'solid' and stable group. The way to do this, normally, is to impress others in your own group. Other people try to allude to 'larger society' by forcing themselves into whatever shape they believe larger society likes most.
One method of trying to join the illusionary larger society matches the same method of trying to more closely bind with others in a person's existing social circle; the ridicule or noted rejection of people not in the group the individual wishes to join. Although society is made up of many small groups rather than a large one, most groups look and act in a similar way as they all try to expand their own circles to be included in other people's.
The more insecure, unstable and self repressed person will extend this attempt to be accepted to physical attack on those they perceive to be outside the perceived larger social group they wish to join, but never can.
The right hand path of trying to get others to like you, of trying to mould and force yourself into whatever shape current society appears to condone, causes such psychological damage that every extreme of psychosis can develop; from paranoia about why a person feels they are being oppressed from joining the perceived larger society, self destructive depression and confusion as to why 'no one likes' them, to anger and violence towards those who are different (to the group they wish to be part of).
"I was easy to spot. And the Chaplain of the school started referring university students to me to talk because the students with alternative kinds of questions, doubts, or issues felt I was the "only one" they could talk to who would "understand." It was such a surprise for me...but it's something I never forgot. Dress can be very useful and make an important statement against social norms and draw people in a particular way."Empiress by email
By Vexen Crabtree 2000 Aug 30