I've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis.<p>I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite stance of that reference point. I think this model fits in with that pretty well - there are groups who want to be "not-the-elite" which, if successful, the elite adopt. Classic "hipsterism."<p>It also fits in with a lot of local, national, and global politics, market differentiation, etc.
Worth a read:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite</a>
This is Hegel’s Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Not a new idea! <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-8265-8_200183" rel="nofollow">https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1...</a>
This was a surprisingly good read, even if a bit long.<p>Their observations align with my own - it's all about standing out. Me different because me better. Or vice versa. Same thing
as an artist I just always think: okay I like this style, and I want something like it, but I absolutely don't want to copy, so I change it so it can't be recognized as "theft" later.
Slate star codex has a very fun and nerdy explanation of fashion cycles.<p><pre><code> Let’s explain fashion using cellular automata. This isn’t going to be cringe-inducingly nerdy at all!
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<a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/" rel="nofollow">https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/</a>
This tracks with how I'm changing the art I embody/make. A driving intention I carry is to bring about a future where all people have the 0-payment option of living in a community where everyone's committed to meeting all needs while denying none, practicing a culture that's learned from and let go of cultural components of debt, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, preferentialism (a culture of catering to preferences), democracy, domination, violence, punishment/reward, racism, sexism, rape, adultism, ageism, and maybe all the other isms.<p>Any government, including human beings who identify as nations, can signal they've shifted to practicing such a culture by adopting the following symbol and integrating it into their symbology:<p>∀<p>This is the mathematic notation for the phrase "for all." A government that's operating on a model to meet all needs while denying none can signal this by including this symbol in their art, like flags, seals, etc.