Hebdige

Hebdige's reading 'From culture to Hegemony; Subculture: The Unnatural Break' outlines pretty much everything we've been discussing in class to this point illustrating various theorists concepts and refining them to compile his article. First Hebdige explains culture, giving the Oxofrd dictionary definition then elaborating. Important here are Raymond Williams notions of 'quality of life' which he says is 'the effects in human terms of mechinization, the division of labour and the creation of a mass society' (144). This statement sums up Marx and a number of other theorists works to create this all encompassing notion. Interesting in this is how the term is set up as a byproduct of industry and its resultant influence on society. This considers the bourgeosie proletariat split, and moves to Williams next concept of an 'organic society - of society as an integrated meaningful whole' (144). This idea of society, as organic society includes all previous theorists works and serves as a to universalize their theories. The social splits being divided by classical and aesthetic excellence. The 'culture as a standard of aesthetic excellence: ' the best that hsa been thought and said in the world and it derived from an appreciation of 'classic' aesthetic form (opera, ballet, drama, literature, art etc.)' (145) is a very interesting notion to consider in markign the shift from modernism to post-modernism. It undertakes that we must learn from the past in conjuncture with the present and future to shape our cultural identities. Hebdige then moves to Barthes to cover another concept we have discussed in class - semiotics. Here Bathers' says "semiotics promised nothing less than the reconciliation of the two conflicting definitions of culture upon which Cultural Studies was so ambiguously posited - a marriage of moral conviction and popular themes: the study fo a society's total way of life" (147). Our understanding of semiotics thus far has been just the study of signs but this definition expands on that notion quite a bit and makes it more encompassing. With this Hebdige ties in Stuart Halls' idea of connotative codes which 'cover the face of social life and render it classifiable, intelligible nad meaningful' (149). And then naturalization saying "all human societies reproduce themselves in this way thourgh a process of naturalization. IT is through this process - a kind of inevitable reflex of all social life - that particular sets of social relations, particular ways of organizing the world appear to us as if they were universal and timeless' (149). Again we have covered naturalization and connotative codes but not together and Hebdige's covered is a usual aid in the understanding of both notions. Hebdige then covers my favorite quote of Marx about mental and material production but I'm going to skip that because i can literally recite it by heart. Next of importance is Gramsci's notion that hegemony is " not universal and given to the continuing rule of a particular class but won, reproduced and sustained ... a moving equilibrium containing relations of forces favourable and unfavourable to this or that tendency' (151). The notion of hegemony in constant generatoinal flux is useful when thinking about the concept. Our hegemonic ideologies are always shifting, changing, adapting and reproducing. This is due to what Lefebvre says is the 'objections and contradictions which hinder the closing ofthe circuit between sign and object, production and reproduciton.' (151). With this there is an evident struggle for signification of signs - "a struggle within signification: a struggle for possession of the sign which extends to even the most mundane areas of everyday life" (151). This struggle takes the form of subcultures which "represent noise: interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media. We should therefore not underestimate the signifying power of teh spectacular subculture not only a a metaphor for potential anarchy "out there" but as an actual mechanism of semantic disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representation" (153). This ties to the notion of participatory culture which stands to diffuse semiotics. "The diffusion of youth styles from the subcultures to the fashion market is not simply a cultural process but a real network or infrastructure of new kinds of commercial and economic institutions" (156). Hebdige then returns to Lefebvre stating "trade is... both a social and an intellectual phenomenon and commodities arrive at the market-place already laden with significance. They are, in Marx's words 'social hieroglyphs' and their meanings are inflected by conventional usage" (156). This shows the impact of subculture in contemporary society in shifting socio-cultural commodities and the social power in shaping what is infact a commodity by the consumer. LAstly, an important definition in Hebdige that relates to previous coverage in our class is that of the 'Other' and the evolution of dealing with the threat the Other poses to society: "the Other can be trivialized, naturalized, domesticated. Here, the difference is simply denied ("otherness is reduced to sameness"). Alternatively, the Other can be transformed into meaningless exotica, a pure object, a spectacle, a clown. In this case the difference s consigned to a place beyond analysis." (157).
These concepts expand on ones we have previously studied and are what we will be discussing in class tomorrow.