The Pump Don't Work Cause the Vandals Broke the Handle

Individuality and the Christian "Vibe Shift"

A Complete Unknown, the new biopic about Bob Dylan, is a good enough piece of filmmaking, but it lacks a soul. A few days after seeing it, I can’t decide if that’s because of the movie itself, or because of the person it depicts. There’s no way for me to know how accurately the film captures what happened with Dylan in the years leading up to that fateful 1965 Newport festival. But what happens onscreen is soulless because it’s essentially a journey of artistic contrarianism for its own sake. I suspect this felt a lot more courageous and prophetic in the 1960s than it does now.

A Complete Unknown is a splendid title. By the time the movie ends, we know very little: about Dylan, about his motivation, about what exactly he was looking for when he two-timed Suze Rotolo or jaded Joan Baez or left Pete Seeger hanging out to dry. I suppose that’s the point. The film tries to lionize Dylan for being his own person. In 2025, though, this rings pretty hollow.

It’s just hard to find a hero in this film, not least because the spirit it celebrates has so thoroughly conquered American consciousness, to the point of colonizing it.

For all the ways in which mainstream society still rewards conformity and punishes those who diverge, it’s simply true that “nonconformity” (which in many cases is mere conformity to an impolite standard) has never been easier or less risky than now. Think of a category of existence, and you can find dozens of laws, rules of language, political orthodoxies, and social dogmas that enforce consideration of and even deference to those who are different. Some of these, like how to teach autistic kids, have been hard won after decades of devastating ignorance or cruel indifference. Others, like gender pronouns, are more political shibboleth than compassionate breakthrough.

In both cases, though, two things are clear. One: The modern American is obliged to acknowledge and accommodate the nonconforming Other to an unprecedented degree. And two: the power to define what merits this acknowledgement and accommodation has been given to those who merely claim it.

Nonconformity, at least in the America of my generation, is quite performative. The most famous woman in the world can still sing, with a perfect imitation of earnestness, about how excluded and hounded she is. Every single sports team that wins a championship tells the press afterwards that “nobody believed in us” (I’m guessing Vegas tells a different story). A meaningful percentage of Americans say they have a mood or personality disorder, and an even more meaningful percentage of journalists and activists believe these disorders are integral parts of identity, rather than treatable illnesses.

More to the point: Just about every Highly Online Gen-Zer has some reason to believe they are outcasts to society. Take two examples that are news-relevant but coded the opposite way politically. The “incel” community (short for “involuntary celibates”) are single men who resent the women of the world who won’t date them. This group tends to be right-coded; they talk about men’s rights, the failures of feminism, and generally disdain the maternalistic features of progressive life.

On the other end, the “poly” community (short for polyamorous) are men and women (though women seem to represent the movement to the media) who reject monogamy and live in clusters of three, four, or more romantic partners. The poly community is left-coded; they are the heirs of the sexual revolution, the logical next step in the LGBTQ+ project of dismantling hetero norms.

Both incels and polys see themselves as nonconformists standing athwart the mass of humanity. In a numerical sense, they’re correct; most people are neither incels nor poly. But both of these communities are to a large degree creations of the Internet age. The digital age may not have invented the impulses, but it did perfect the impulse-to-identity pipeline. Nobody who finds in themselves incandescent rage at the opposite sex or the overwhelming desire to sleep with more than one person at a time need be alone. A WiFi connection and a Google search will give existential validation to just about anyone. And the broader this validation—the more Reddit groups, the more podcasts, the more New Yorker features it involves—the more the self-convinced “nonconformist” will demand respect and deference.

+++

What does nonconformity even mean in the Internet age? What is the essence of contrarianism in a media and social context where the solitary individual can nonetheless project his voice into the hearing of millions?

These are complicated questions. They involve trying to articulate slippery ideas about attention, about what the Internet actually is, about how the definitions of modern life have changed given our technology. But it’s at least worth stopping to consider how a valorization of individuality could play out in a society that lacks an existential why to the biggest questions.

For example, consider the political and religious “vibe shift” going on right now. Russell Brand and Ayaan Hirsi-Ali are professing Christians. AOC has taken her pronouns off her Twitter bio. Christianity right now feels like an alternative, not to science and high-mindedness, but to despair and lethargy. Joe Rogan seems to think so.

What’s going on? Revival? A third Great Awakening? Perhaps! But it’s also contrarianism. Christianity lives among the outgroup. We’re in “negative world.” And this means that many people will see in Christianity an outlook and lifestyle that expresses discontent at mass culture. This is surely a cause for gratitude. The vibe shift can and will lead to saved people. It can and probably will lead to legal reprieve for those holding to biblical views on sexuality. These are good things.

But the vibe shift will also raise the same timeless questions about what it means to be an outsider. Those who come to Christianity because of its appeal to those outside the acceptable definitions of elite society may be surprised to find, once they get in, that Scripture doesn’t think too highly of independent thinking. The gospel saves its blessing, not for those who blaze their own trail, but for those who lay down their lives and believe. They may be surprised to read about loving their enemies and doing good to those who hate them. They may be disappointed at how ordinary, how quiet, how “normie” the life of faith looks from the inside: prayer nobody can else can hear, giving that nobody else can see. They may not be prepared to enter in the most hallowed places of Christ and instead of statues of heroes, just the face of the one Savior.

There are times we must be warned against following the crowd. Sometimes the moms are right: you *do* need to know what you’d do if the popular kids jumped off a bridge. But other times, we find ourselves in a society of individual-worship. We may find ourselves exiles living in a technological empire where every citizen is given a glass idol of themselves. And in this place, the defiance of the courageous outsider may look less like a shocking electric set or a stunning celebrity conversion. It may just look normal.