Zen and the Art of Having Been There

Posted on by
Reply

First-hand experience is great for many things. You’ll get great stories, you’ll meet great people, for starters. Unfortunately, it won’t get you everything.

The problem that arises from people who’ve “been there” is the notion that their experience is absolutely everything. Unfortunately, if you get kidnapped by Doctor Who (and really, who wouldn’t want to be?) and take a journey back in Earth’s time-line, and encounter many people who’d “been there” for several history-making events, you’ll probably get a very different story than what was told in your history books. Sometimes, this is because your history book is little more than a propaganda tool –but other times it’s because the people “who were there” were either intentionally dishonest about the whole story or, simply, they didn’t even know it. Even in 2012 in the Amerikan $outh, the notion permeates that the Amerikan Civil War was “all about $tates’ rights, not slavery” —but as any-one with even a BA in U$ History can tell you, that’s the primary “$tates’ right” that the $outh cared enough to attempt to succeed over and then go to war over at the time.

“Oh, but my great=gret grand-pappy WAS THERE! It had nuttin’ to dew wit’ slaves!”

This is what anecdotal evidence gets us: People confuse feelings and partial information for hard facts. Hard facts, thus, are more eagerly absorbed by people who have little emotional attachment to “being their” either because they simply weren’t and have no loved ones who were, or because they simply have a personality that doesn’t become a slave to nostalgia.

This is where I run into personality conflicts with the odd person on Mod fora: The plural of anecdote is not fact.

Oddly, I run into this more when the conversation drifts outside the realm of the Mod subculture in specific and into the realm of other scenes. Weird, eh? I thought so. When I point out the origins of, say, the punk scene or even the etymology of the word, I’m not telling people that their experiences as youth are wrong; I’m simply saying that they don’t have the whole story. I’m able to see the whole story because, frankly, I lack cognitive biases that experiences can sometimes lead to. Unfortunately, people tend not to acknowledge their own cognitive biases, leading to the notion that experiences are everything (except, of course, when they aren’t) and the fallacy of “anecdata” — id est, “I was there, and so were my friends, and thus it is true”.

It’s great to have experiences, and especially memories of them, but when the ideas brought on by experiences and nostalgia are at odds with actual verifiable facts, then you’re having a problem. Step back and examine things! Think! Learn! Grow! Old dogs can learn new tricks and nostalgia need not be shackles holding you out of range of facts.

The Modern World was Born in the 1920s

Posted on by
Reply

Mod was born in the Twenties.

The 1920s was the decade that everything about youth previously imagined turned upside-down. This was the decade of the flapper, the first major wave of androgynous fashion, the decade Amerikan women finally had the universal civil right to vote in national elections, and the same right was afforded to women of UK nationality before the decade was over. This was the age of Jazz, and in several flavours, and also the decade that Blues began to gain its audience. This was the decade of Art Deco, and its sleek, “mineral”, modern lines and angles. The decade that Frank Lloyd Wright’s simply gorgeous architecture shocked a public cautious of anything other than Neo-Gothic or Neo-Classical. The decade of the bobbed haircut and slim suits a good four decades prior to their re-discovery by Mods.

The Odd Mod Out

Posted on by
1

Dearest Internets,

I began blogging about the Mod subculture a few years ago, and in hopes of making saying something especially noteworthy about it, I thought at first that since I was in early stages of the physical/medical aspects of gender transition (female-to-male), I’d blog about that.

“What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself — and thus make yourself indispensable.” —André Gide

Well, it turned out that there wasn’t much to say about that. Trans men in the blogosphere are nothing new, nor are Mods, and frankly, the appeal for a young man in-transition makes some sense. There’s only just so much, though, that one can say without sounding like a stereotype from either camp — and, in the end, I decided that I’d rather not come off as a self-important clothes horse who reads too much into most very basic daily interactions. The death of FTMod was quick and painless, and I made less than a month’s worth of posts on that endeavour, none of which particularly embarrass me, so it was a good run, if very short.

DJ RJ’s Modcast, on the other hand, started about two years prior to FTMod, as a proposed feature to an old public diary project. I don’t update it nearly as often as I’d like to, but I should really change that, as I’d really like to DJ regularly again and I’m under the impression that this could help in that regard.

It’s also become rather obvious to me that, as far as the Mod scene is concerned, I’m rather strange. I’m not new to this feeling: As a now-former Goth kid, I remember being regarded as strange by doubly pale and doubly pretentious people — which certainly wasn’t at all helped by a humorous essay describing The Who as “the first Goth band” (nor was the fact that the homour went over several people’s heads at all helpful). It’s certainly no surprise to me that after trading in Peter Murphy tickets for the hot young tickets at a Paul Weller, I’m still regarded as kind of odd by yet another group of people who get more joy out of picking apart a stranger’s appearance than anybody their age really ought to.

…and thinking back, I was a rather shite Goth, what with my most cherished albums including The Who, The Rolling Stones, and the entirety of Bolan and Bowie’s careers. The first DVD I ever bought was a restored edition of Quadrophenia, and if that doesn’t say that I’ve always been some sort of Mod, I really can’t think of anything else that could.

So here’s to The Odd Mod Out: A chronicle and celebration of the little oddities that add flavour to the scene — though mostly the stuff I like. I’m not really about “vintage” in clothes and furniture, and more about Modernist décor and classic clothes with retro flair. I love Frank Lloyd Wright and Googie style, atompunk and Swedish Modern. My clothes are classic pieces by design, though mostly in purples, and I will wear them until they’re unmendable. Most importantly, I believe in art and beauty and beautiful sights and sounds; if I were around in the 1960s, I would have quickly gravitated to following Warhol’s Factory and Ken Russell and Lindsay Kemp. I believe in the wisdom of Beau Brummell and Oscar Wilde.

“And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” —Oscar Wilde

I believe in David Bowie and Brian Eno and Kevin Rowland and Ian Page. I believe in making a statement with colour, and the pleasures of the greater good. I believe in James Dean and art deco and Toulouse-Lautrec, the wisdom of Diogenes and Sartre.

I believe that Modernism is the greatest of the Dandy subcultures and is more than just obscure Stax 45s and thinly-veiled anti-Amerikanism, and if that makes me the Odd Mod Out, then so be it.