Canceling the Future
I read this article explaining why it’s a problem that elites are showing up at festivals and “alternative” lifestyle events like Burning Man.
And it very much explains why cultural appropriation is a problem.
“It may be hard to remember now, but for much of the second half of the 20th century working-class (and lower-middle-class) kids directly influenced the future direction of society by pioneering both culture and styles of living. Energetic, creative and restless (those qualities that attracted John Paul Getty III), these youthful innovators weren’t content with inhabiting the world – they wanted to remake it. And, at times, their influence was so great that the UK experienced several overlapping cultural revolutions from below, all leaving the elite’s traditional style-setters floundering and representing only the past.
Today, by contrast, culture is dominated by pop moguls and the rich, “celebrity culture” is held up as one model of the “good life”, while the cultural elite display open bigotry and hatred of the contemporary working class (“chavs”). Popular-music culture, which once felt so dangerous and full of potential, is now just a mirror held up to society.
In this climate of stultifying top-down sameness and a lack of confidence from below, festivals still hold out the promise of something more edgy, more left-field.
”
“If we want a different tomorrow, we need to look elsewhere. Over the past five decades pop culture [black culture] has been central to production of the future. When people resent the rich [non colored] attending festivals or the elite colonising our culture, they’re not mourning the past – they’re raging about the cancellation of the future.”
From the article - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/14/kevin-mckenna-why-i-am-voting-yes-for-scottish-independence?CMP=fb_gu
