The Hannah Mandala
The mandala above illustrates four major swings of mood within youth culture, namely:
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Each youth culture trend recapitulates the sequential description of the four life-scripts in human infancy and early childhood. For those new to the hypothesis please understand that each mood, in infancy, is an incorporation of behaviour and not a single mode of behaviour in itself. Ages shown here are approximations of when each mood kicks into gear. Parents and playgroup leaders can argue over the precise number of months involved. Playgroup leaders will have some edge as they can hone down their own musings to an average.
The effect of the music produced by each youth current can also be analysed by playing it to the under fives at birthday parties with amusing effect.
Favourite tags so far for a possible future youth current: Stormer, Valkie or Panser. The 's' spelling in Panser having been originally used by Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials trilogy. If you don't like these, make up your own : )The beast in the cartoon is in anticipation of the demonisation of hostile strength - as a full-blown youth trend - from the British tabloid press, Christian fundamentalists in America and a few worried DJs in the post-rave world. Such is the nature of projection. I'm so ancient I even remember a report of Cliff Richard demonising punk culture in the late Seventies. The popular DJ, Kid Jenson, did the very same thing. Funny to look back on this now : )
The beastie creature above is a glow-stick eater, in case you were wondering. The sacred chocolate egg is held by Hannah the palindrome: as in teens, so in infancy.
Occasional Past Questions What about Grunge? - maybe it was a hippie, melancholic punk crossover with a smell of spent engine oil. Goofy stoned punks in sunny summer - dark grungey hippies in darkest winter. A conflation of two dynamic trends.
So movements seem to crop up made up of previous moods. Another singular example of this was Prodigy's later work culminating in tracks like, Firestarter; an obvious punk-rave hybrid. I'm not suggesting this is all a precise process, it seems to be more gnarly than that.
What about early Hip-Hop? - according to the writer Jon Savage, early Rap was 'the Black Punk'. Perhaps it was more composed than Punk; less a sullen bull, more like a bull in sunglasses. There may be something in the idea of a parallel taking place. For example Reggae symbolism in the early Seventies is mainly based on friendly weakness, returning with the lion heart of friendly strength in the late Eighties/Nineties - Ragga, Jungle and D&B. I've no experience of this so I can't comment much on it.
What about Teds, Rockers, Mods, etc? - the hypothesis deals only with atavistic tribalism born out of psychedelic and psychasperic youth trends. Anything heavily gang-hierarchal or pre-1966 may have curiosity value, but has no close relation to the hypothesis.
By the way, with regards to 'storm' culture, there's no emphasis on one leader of the pack here: instead think of an army of Jo Frost Supernannies, emerging from the London underground. Hostile strength as a form of celebration and play rather than its humdrum role in any gang hierarchy.You mentioned a Christian guide to the four life-scripts. Is there an Islamic one? - I'd like to know the answer to that myself. Most of the guides presented on this site I discovered in literature, children's TV and so on. Some came from reading Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary. With most people attracted to the hypothesis coming from an atheistic background it looks like we'll never find out. Unless there's the odd stray Sufi out there who knows the answer.
Could the prediction of 'Storm' culture not become self-fullfilling prophecy? - you'd be crazy to believe this one. If I believed it, I'd be a megalomaniac. Towards 2012 didn't accidentally kick-start Storm culture in the underground in 1997. Sleazenation didn't kick-start it in the mainstream in 1999, with their fashion tie-in, on the hypothesis. It's only once 'it' decides to take off that creative types can herald and play with the actual current itself.
Solar activity affecting youth trends? - there's no link whatsoever - if there was, hostile strength youth culture would have emerged as a trend in 1999. A full analysis can be found in the main section. The hypothesis now focuses on the sequential description of the four life-scripts within youth culture and describes how their periodic value may lie within a similar period within personal infancy and early adaptive childhood.
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