Is it hip to be...

cliche?

I don't know if you are like me, but the first time I saw the website Stuff White People Like, I felt found out and a little uncomfortable with my self-image. Especially entries: #1 (coffee), #6 (organic food), #13 (tea), #23 (microbreweries), #24 (wine), #38 (arrested development), #40 (apple products), #41 (indie music), #50 (irony), #67 (standing still at concerts), #80 (the idea of soccer), #81 (graduate school), #87 (outdoor performance clothes), and #105 (unpaid internships).

It does not feel good to realize that you are a cliche.

But, upon further reflection ("making further reflection" will be next on the list I am certain), I am thankful for the website: it uncovers the most hidden cultural idolatry (of which I am guilty), what I will call progressive hipsterism. B. Schwartz of Atlantic Monthy makes this observation:

a good deal of the progressives’ attitudes, preferences, and sense of identity are ingrained in an unlovely disdain for those outside their charmed circle. In Lander’s [the author of Stuff White People Like] analysis, much of their self-satisfaction derives from consumption (the slack-sounding “stuff” in the title is deceptively apt)—and much of that consumption is motivated by a desire to differentiate themselves from the benighted.

Progressive hipsterism here is double-damned: 1) in its desire to be progressive and open, it is tribalistic. And 2) it is ultimately founded on consumerism.

This is a challenge to me. What is my ultimate identity? Is it founded upon the things I buy? Are my graspings at identity ultimately motivated by a desire to differentiate myself from the benighted--those who are not "in the know"?

Such a social critique is rare and welcome; it is a moment of shocking clarity when we realize that both the Left ("those progressive hipsters") and the Right ("those still-water xenophobes") "have cause to be uneasy" (to quote CS Lewis). One of those moments when the continuum from Left to Right is seen to bend until both ends touch each other: the are at bottom the same. They are at bottom equal in their ferocious graspings at self-validation.

The gospel of Christ deconstructs the Left - Right continuum. For the gospel says that I constantly grab for self-validation apart from God. Then it says that I will attach to some group on the continuum that best feeds my desire for validation: in my case progressive hipsterism. Then it tells me that even progressive hipsterism is destructively and deceptively narcissistic. Then it tells me that Christ was the only person to live as one who did not grab at self-validation because of his beautiful trust in God. Christ lived outside the Left-Right continuum. Then it tells me that Christ took upon himself every self-validating gesture that I have ever had. But it is pretty damning to find your validation in anything other than God--which is why he was executed on a tree, he took it on. Then it tells me--wonder of wonders--that I receive Christ's record of beautiful trust. God does not see Joe desperately grabbing for self-validation by drinking fresh roasted coffee, drinking only micro-brewed beer, and only listening to indie music--He sees me clothed in Christ's beautiful trust and validation in God alone.

This, my friends, frees me from taking myself so seriously. This enables me to enjoy good things (fresh roasted coffee, micro-brewed beer, indie music) without making them ultimate things. Because to make them ultimate, is to excommunicate whomever disagrees with you, and to get angry when a website calls you a cliche.

May you find the freedom to enjoy good things because Christ is your ultimate thing.
May you find the resources for true embrace because Christ is your ultimate thing.