Social Upheaval and Cultural Mixing

When I first thought of hip, I did not really see those two characteristics defined by Leland as two characteristics that seemed to be at war with one another. In some ways, the two work together. You can't have cultural mixing without social upheaval. The excepted over for the longest time in Western Culture was for the different groups we have created to remain divided, to give little attention to each other. There has always been an understanding that all should submit to those in a social class above one's own. This is the opposite of cultural mixing. Those who are part of the higher classes, or have a more privileged racial identity in society, are always pouring their ideas into the lower status peoples while the same is not true of those who are of less advantaged circles. That leads to rebellion. If the working class is lucky, social upheaval is fully achieved, all groups are pulled closer to the ideal of equality. For awhile, both can last within this cocoon of their idea swapping. It is not perfect, but there is safety in during this development. The privileged often break out early, with the dread that something has been stolen from them. Possibly that someone else take that place if they do not reclaim it. Society reemerges as a half-formed moth. It changes from what it was before, but not what it could have been. The privileged create their own sort of social upheaval, or at least attempt to, by rekindling forgotten flames of the past. Less privileged carry the torches of the future, for the most part. Both exist in the world's largest game of tug o' war. The ropes of upper, lower, upheaval, and mixing create the boiling pot of hip. We aren't very good at perfection. Perhaps that is why the patterns of hip continue to stir up society.