Rambling cowboy talk, courtesy of Pierre Bourdieu

As I sit in the best coffee shop in Corvallis (the Interzone), eating my organic, vegetarian, yuppie-approved pesto omelette, I can safely reflect on the phenomenon mentioned by Lauren in her post: that of the strange convergence of cowboy and Walmart cultures, in evidence at this week's Cowboy Church. Whereas at the Unitarian Universalist church, reusable mugs are filled with shade-grown fair-trade coffee, the Cowboy Church, true to its nature, had styrofoam cups and (I assume) Folgers and little powdered cream packets. I didn't get close enough to confirm this, but I'm standing by my assumption. Why, you ask, does this matter? Well, it goes to the heart of Lauren's question. Taste is more than just what someone prefers; it reflects cultural capital, the set of tools that your parents give you. So while I seek out fancy coffee and ugly sweaters, others drink pop from a koozie and bring lawn chairs to church. It's more than preference, it's culture, and that culture has people who are "in" and people who are "out," secret rituals, shared belief systems, and so on. To the point, then: why the links between Walmart and cowboys?

Here's a theory: cowboys have happily stayed in 1950. Not all of them, but many of them, and their southern counterparts (rednecks), and especially that idiot pastor with the Texan accent at the cowboy church, like to think of themselves as "conservative" in the sense that the world is easily explained and morally unproblematic. Just remain stuck in an idealized circa-1950 Americana, and dismiss the overeducated organophiles as the ones who are out of touch. Why does it make sense, then, that they'd love Walmart? There was no Walmart in 1950, at least as far as I know. But 1950 was the pinnacle of belief in authority, technology, and progress. We were out of the war to end all wars, we'd defeated the greatest threat known to mankind (bad moustaches), and we were all set to mass-produce and optimize our way to a better humanity. The mythos surrounding this all was that we were building it ourselves, through some entrepreneurial spirit, or perhaps just pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Of course, the effort was fueled through massive subsidies, from the Federal Highway Act to crop entitlements. We performed perhaps the largest socialist experiment of all time, all in the name of suburbanization; in other words, comfort, predictability, and mall culture.

The material and social effects of this experiment have been numerous and dynamic. The 1960s and reaction against homogenization were one effect, and a line can be drawn directly from naked dancers at Woodstock to my happy eggs drenched in pesto. Another line can be drawn directly from the idea that government-subsidized vehicular development is somehow "all-American" and reflects a work ethic, and the cowboys with trucks displaying Calvins pissing on Ford (or Chevy!) logos. Those cowboys re-create the myth, they pass it to their children. They swim in the thought that 1950 was the penultimate expression of Americanism, not because of the fashion sense, which I might agree with, but because of the idea of self-development through progress.

One of the mechanisms of progress has been, ironically, to outsource production, fundamentally changing the economic and social structure of the U.S., but keeping in line with the underlying moral logic of 1950: the market determines what is good, externalities be damned. Walmart is a perfect expression of suburbanization and mass production, updated for the current day.

Cowboys and rednecks, of course, only represent one type of person who has maintained and perpetuated this mythos. The cowboy-rednecks identify with certain demographics (white, average or below-average education) more than livelihood; their cowboy hats signal membership in a club. Their rituals include listening to talk radio, shopping at Walmart, drinking beer from wide-mouth cans, and bitching about the government. Don't get me wrong - Walmart attracts all kinds of people. But as for why cowboys shop there, it makes sense. As for why I'm sitting here at Interzone, basing arguments on Bourdieu and debating whether to get a blackberry scone, that makes sense too. I'm a living, breathing stereotype.

Cowboy church? Like Lauren, I loved the music. It was wonderful. I could've gotten up and danced. But the Jesus talk was exclusive to the point of absurdity. At one point, after a little preaching, the pastor told us to close our eyes and raise our hands if we had "just been saved." Apparently, no one had been saved in the previous five minutes, so he said "well, I'll assume you were all already saved, then." As though he was so persuasive that if he hadn't just saved us, then we must already have been walking with the Lord. Of course, there's no room for those of us uninterested in his brand of salvation. Not in his church. I mentioned his Texan accent. Lauren thought that he might've been overdoing it for the sake of church. I agree. He was a fake-ass Texan cowboy, parading around and overenunciating every folksism. Jus' talkin a little truth, jus' lettin ya know what the LORD said and well, we jus' love gettin together and talkin about Jeyzus; can I get an AMEN?

I guess a question, then, is why I assume that he was fake and that the Unitarians are authentic. I think the answer is that I'm in the Unitarians' club, and so we've agreed to the truth of our message, we participate in the handshake, we sit in coffee shops, play board games, worry about the rain forest, and fall in love with ironic shoes (bless you, velcro).