Well, both ideals of imperfection and living in the present tense absolutely influenced one another. The subtle fact that living in the present is imperfection almost screams perfect in a sense, because when you live in the present you forget about tomorrow and solely focus on the here and now. The imperfection mostly translates into art in my opinion. Art used to be a skill of perfection, in the Beat generation, the imperfections in one's art were given a higher pedestal than the perfections, something that had never really been done until the Beats.
I think that showing your mistakes in art, exemplifies that you are human and are in fact not perfect. I don't think the Beats had any heavy religious beliefs, but I do think the message they are trying to convey is that we are all human, and humans are not perfect, thus mistakes happen. The mentioning of "aesthetic" is a symbol that says "The Beats are numb to the idea of perfection." To be honest, I don't think the Beats cared much about being perfect, and this is proven by the fact that they lived in the present.
As for a current artist that has the attribute of being "numb", I think this artist would be, honestly, any "real" rapper. (lil wayne does not fit this category). These guys made themselves into somebody. They started as nothing and became something, like Dr Dre or even Notorious BIG before he died. The Game also did the same, rose from rags to riches. For them to survive in the type of environment that they say they come from, and to "make it", that would require a heavy dose of "anesthetic". None of these guys practically even graduated from jr high school, and they are basking in their success day in and day out. That requires a great deal of determination.
I think I have pin pointed my definition of hip fairly well now. I think hip definitely has something to do with identity, time and perspective (perspective being the new one). I use perspective because I think that hip is defined by the beholder. Obviously You and I have a much different idea of what hip is and that is exactly the point I am trying to make, is that hip shares a great deal with the word perspective because it all truly is, one's own perspective. How I can convey this to my paper should be fairly easy and I see that I can make some pretty nice ties with identity and time as well. All three terms boil down to one definition and that definition is what we have been discussing all semester long, hip.
ReplyDeleteWow, really good post. I like the idea that the Beats were trying to convey something about humanity. It seems that way to me too.
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