Okay, so I'm doing some research for a paper on Roman attitudes towards homosexuality (don't ask why). One of the links provided on a LGBT history sourcebook brought me to a work by stoic philosopher Seneca called Epistle CXXII: On Darkness as a Veil for Wickedness. In it, he describes what constitutes "natural" and "unnatural" behavior (it's relevant, because he considered homosexuals unnatural for their perceived lechery). While describing people who commit themselves to "the darkness"--behavior that pushes against the natural order--he stated the following:

"When men have begun to desire all things in opposition to the ways of Nature, they end by entirely abandoning the ways of Nature. They cry: 'It is daytime: let us go to sleep! It is the time when men rest: now for exercise, now for our drive, now for our lunch! Lo, the dawn approaches: it is dinner-time! We should not do as mankind do. It is low and mean to live in the usual and conventional way. Let us abandon the ordinary sort of day. Let us have a morning that is a special feature of ours, peculiar to ourselves!' Such men are, in my opinion, as good as dead."

Now, when I read this, I instantly thought of hipsters--that quirky bunch of people who obsess over what the "mainstream" is up to for the sole purpose of acting contrary to what everyone else is doing, that they may obtain a false sense of moral superiority over rejecting "the norm." At least, that's what hipsters look to be doing to me. Can anyone else here kinda see how Seneca inadvertently described hipsters? I laughed out loud when I read that passage.