from Hacker News

Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

by hncurious on 12/17/21, 5:34 PM with 63 comments

  • by eightysixfour on 12/17/21, 7:13 PM

    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.

    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."

    It also fits in with a lot of local, national, and global politics, market differentiation, etc.

  • by optimalsolver on 12/17/21, 7:22 PM

  • by waingake on 12/17/21, 10:18 PM

    This is Hegel’s Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Not a new idea! https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1...

  • by beebeepka on 12/17/21, 7:26 PM

    This was a surprisingly good read, even if a bit long.

    Their observations align with my own - it's all about standing out. Me different because me better. Or vice versa. Same thing

  • by aszantu on 12/17/21, 8:54 PM

    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.

  • by j-bos on 12/17/21, 9:46 PM

    At the risk of touching a nerve, this concept reminds me of the crypto/nft hostility.

  • by adamgordonbell on 12/17/21, 7:04 PM

    Slate star codex has a very fun and nerdy explanation of fashion cycles.

        Let’s explain fashion using cellular automata. This isn’t going to be cringe-inducingly nerdy at all!
    https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/

  • by crawfordcomeaux on 12/17/21, 8:00 PM

    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.

    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:

    ∀

    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.

  • by d883kd8 on 12/17/21, 7:28 PM

    Ugh they got j and k mixed up on page 3

  • by shadowgovt on 12/17/21, 8:34 PM

    As the old line goes, "Revolution is never justified... Unless you win."