Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Punk, a Subculture of Anarchism

I wrote this after reading The Philosophy of Punk. Not quite Chomsky, but it's an okay start.

I am about halfway through the book and already enraged with excitement and epiphanies and thriving on the enlightenment. The struggles I found with a hopeless democracy are diminished with anarchism. Even liberalism now seems like a sad attempt at change.
While I was reading, I took about 3 pages of notes that include punk musical influences such as the sex pistols, british invasion, citizen fish and subhumans. I already knew of these bands, but it was interesting, them being identified as a universal theme for this subculture. I have learned to be a nonconformist , to use education and exposure to make decisions, not pressure from the media or peers. Also, that obedience to authority encourages it's brutality in some cases and that mainstream society sees "individualism" and deems it "deviant" whereas a conformist becomes a "team player". The punk lifestyle is centered around the basis of substance over style. The media portrays "punk" as a white middle class youth male wearing a leather jacket with spiked hair, when the philosophy of punk is more about thought and education and freedom and independence from society rather than violence and rebelling for the sake of an angst driven rebellion.
I've also come to the somewhat shocking realization that society was not made to sustain a civilization of individuals, but to force others to fit into a mold, resulting in 'institutionalized dehumanization'.
Punk can be defined as all of the following
1) a youth trend
2) a gut rebellion & change
3) the voice of opposition
I hope that what I've chosen is not simply "teen rebellion". I don't want to "go back to normal" once a "phase" is complete. This is a way of life and I'd hate to see it just written off  as hormones or some bullshit.
I've also learned that the media's misrepresentation of punks as: violent, involved in petty crime, drug abuse etc. has attracted a select demographic to the punk scene, legitimizing the media's misrepresentation and destroying the punk lifestyle and philosophy. Skin heads have also been lumped together with punks, if you will, because they attend a lot of the same gigs but breed a whole different concept. One of hate and racism and homophobia and patriotism. They even spread to the more conservative "straight edge" punk scene. A scene that I was voluntarily part of for a while until I got an understanding of how I'd been lied to all those years about marijuana usage.
Censorship, even to censor conservative republicans/libertarians or S.H.A.R.P. members is a crime. The public must be exposed to different views because censoring promotes harm to a free-speech oriented society and the people should be aware of expressed corruption and fault.
Great influential bands such as but not limited to: Crass, Conflict, Discharge, The Ex, BGK, MDC, Dead Kennedys, etc are the representation of the punk culture being rebellious thinkers as opposed to "rock 'n' rollers".
The Government is essentially produced and run by people who sought out an opportunity to maintain a wealthy lifestyle by making others work for them. In doing so, the scapegoats request 'reforms' to manage some stability and control over the government when in reality, a reform is simply an appeasement, when ultimately, what you want is freedom. Communism does level out the class system and eliminates the "takes" v "givers" aspect of society, but at the same time doesn't condone or express freedom from the system or encourage individualism any more than capitalism does.
I watched Obama's inaugural address (state of the union) and what he spoke about held strong in the ever determined, yet painfully passive liberal way. Speaking about plans to "send bills to congress" to evoke change even if the change are ideal concepts, you must realize that the country for the longest time has been hesitant towards change. In order to gain the kind of  independence  and change we require, it's going to take a lot more than Obama's proposed (and rather vague) ideas. But more than anything else, I could not get my mind off during his speech, was that although Obama supports change, does he not own billions of dollars worth of estate and commodities himself? Does he not have an ensured retirement fund waiting to cushion him? Foes he and every other politician in DC not take whatever drastic measure they find necessary to maintain a capitalist society with themselves on top and their wear strain of funding barely, if at all, reaching the lower classes at the bottom? Greed has gotten us nowhere but facing homelessness, classism and workplace exploitation. Why does success have to equal wealth and commodities and power over others? Capitalism equals cannibalism, in that a select few eat at the remains of he dignity and independence of the other people, feeding off of their labor at the sufferer's expense."

Since then, my views have changed a bit. I don't have the time to delve deeper into my current views, so I'll save that for a later time. But I will say that I think that anarchism is a long shot and is best kept to the individual until everyone is well educated and completely convinced that their actions must work towards the greater good for mankind. People would also have to depend on personal responsibility and a strength in community and mutual respect for the individual. But hey, it worked for three years in Spain! There is no perfect system that lasts long enough to sustain all of our population and future generations because each individual has different ideas about how things ought to be run and man is corrupt by nature. Believing in the utopia is considered radical, but not when everyone does.

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