'Post' Subculture Theory

SUBCULTURE THEORY

I have recently been reading Dick Hebridge’s book ..‘SUBCULTURE the meaning of style,’   Sarah Thorton’s , ..‘Seven Days In The Art World’   &  ‘club culture  Music,Media and Subcultural Capital’,   and Nick Knight’s.. ‘SKINHEAD’.

A common theme of describing the notion of  gender, class and race issues , translated through history from an economist and political viewpoint , are the problems in a society that subcultures are perceived to alleviate. Albeit through their own literary influences of Marx  and Levi-Strauss to reach this conclusion seems evident.

Semiotics , bricolage , homology and hegemony as depicted by Gramsci are all  means for their explanation of cultural practices in a post-modern society.

This continuing argument puts forward mixed ideas of subcultural theory based on delinquency and deviant behaviour constituted as a sociologically reason to lead to style being a collective solution caused by a structural problem. Whether it is metaphorically rebellion by working class communities of  parental   beliefs or  increased consumerism with post-second world war young people to be drawn into an alternative lifestyle. There seems to be a marked difference in generational consciousness that is only breeds a need for the developing subculture ,even if it’s a conscious or unconscious reaction. This indicates that there is a widening gap of understanding the significant differences in poetic interpretations of a subculture changing a language and to rethink the theory of subculture purely along these lines. Along with the understanding that a middle-class attempt at subculture becomes a counter-culture and society is not so one-dimensional to package the recent past in such a symbolically hybrid way. The attempt to associate marginalised and disconnected youth jumping from a desire to find an answer  and adopting a particular style needs a more subtler appraisal.The acceptance of a theory of post-war capitalism breeding malcontents either sociologically ,politically or economically poses the contradiction in deciphering the current need with sanctuary by contemporary subcultures.

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