Is originality in our heads?

[manequin]

I was talking with a friend about sub-cultures and we got onto the subject of predictability. He said that as soon as a group of people or style of music becomes part of a sub-culture it becomes predictable because boundrys have been set for what fits into that sub-culture. I partially agree with this but then he went to say that because anyone who fits into a particular clique becomes predictable in taste as they conform to that clique. Now surely in order for anything to progress you need originality or we would be dressing the same way as people did hundreds of years ago. Discuss.

[Renatus]

Ah the originality debate, a good one, a long tedious and predictable one, a debate based around a paradox.

[lostintranslation]

I think that yes, sometimes when a sub-culture adopts a style of music or even certain people, boundries are set, but those people who allow themselves to put into that boundry were truly unoriginal in the first place, as were the musicians and genre. A turly original individual continues to grow and change no matter whan sub-culture they belong to.

[HumanePain]

OK, let's use The King as an example: Elvis went into a previously non-white subculture and made the music his own. There were boundaries set previously. Although the subculture had been around, and white singers had been around, it was the combination that was original.

The same thing is happening in physics: biology has been around, and lasers have been around, but now that lasers are being used as tweezers to manipulate cells and even their DNA, laser tweezers has become an original invention.

[Clockwork]

Boundaries are blurred as new tastes spring up. Cybergoth for instance wasn't around as long as traditional goth, which itself came out punk. There's nothing wrong with promoting a set of interests and aesthetics and keeping within those constraints, but the boundaries are pushed as well.