While I am all for reinventing art and totally love this book, I think it's an interesting quirk in the fabric of our society that being a 'rebel' has become the mainstream.
For decades, our society has embraced the nonconformists and reshaped the way we view 'normal'. Despite Middle America's post 9/11 flirtation with flag-waving, the Christian Right and country music we continue to push the boundaries of what is within the societal norm. Things that would have been scandalizing just ten or fifteen years ago are not just accepted, but expected now.
So where does that leave our rebel nonconformists? In a society so diverse and essentially 'unshockable', what is left to rebel against? Seems to me our modern day rebels break into roughly three groups.
The first group is those who make a concerted and willful effort to conform to exactly the standards that society is moving away from. Now, I am not talking about white, middle-class Christians here. I am talking about people who make a conscious choice to live in a way that is well outside the culture they were born into, or if they were born into a more "fringe" culture, to promulgate that culture to others outside of it in a very 'in your face" kind of way. For examples of this, consider the subjects of the film 'Jesus Camp,' the media driven exploits of the Westboro Baptist Church, the continuing success of Opus Dei and the growing number of Western women converting to Islam.
More on this topic later....
