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Punk is dead and so are we

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Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#151

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

atlas_hugged wrote: post #128
DeathArrow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterculture of today is the culture of yesterday,when no one called you a nazi bigot for doing things that were normal in the day.

There’s nothing counterculture to conservatism my good man. Hell, it’s in the name. The left moves society forward, the right holds society back. I don’t like everything the young kids are doing but I know I will eventually be wrong, so I try to understand them and learn to embrace the change they bring. The young left will always, eventually, move society forward. Whether we like it or not. What you’re witnessing is…

> The left moves society forward, the right holds society back.

There's good conservatism and bad conservatism, just like there's good progressivism and bad progressivism. The latter consists mostly of change for change's sake, while bad conservatism consists of resisting change for no reason. But the good kind of conservatism is an important force in a society that has any sort of progressive energy (read: almost all of them) - it serves as a reminder of Chesterton's fence (that there is a reason (or reasons) why things are as they are, and you should understand those reasons before you change things).

I would not consider myself a conservative (though my kids perhaps would), but I consider that kind of conservatism important even if ultimately the change I want to see overrides it.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#152

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

0ckpuppet wrote: post #74

Punk is dead. Once I witnessed old punk rockers backing government lockdowns, backing the authorities, and shilling for politicians and political parties, I realized rebellion is now a commodity.

Yeah, because what punk was really about was always contrarianism in the face of authority.

No, wait. That has absolutely nothing to do with what punk was about, other than some mainstream media story about punk, designed to terrify everybody else.

Punk rockers in 1978 were shilling for politicians in London. They were cynical and honest and clear-eyed about it, but they were still shilling.

ps. on HN I try never to vote comments down, I just try to reply instead. But I had to make an exception here.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#153

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

rglover wrote: post #84

Punk (in the conception of anyone born before the internet) is dead because bohemian degeneracy is mainstream. If we go by the standard of "being against the mainstream," today's punks would be people following the advice of the topless antagonist in John Prine's Spanish Pipedream [1]: > Blow up your TV > Throw away your paper > Go to the country > Build you a home > Plant a little garden > Eat a lot of peaches > Try…

Why do you think "being against the mainstream" is the standard of what punk is?

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#154

Post by TotalCrackpot »

parineum wrote: post #51
TotalCrackpot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative would be libertarian socialism, with economy of some mixture of cooperative economics, decentralized planning, gift economy and library economy.

I don't understand how what you've just said isn't the same as what we would currently call a social democracy with a capitalist economy. Specifically, "decentralized planning" is a synonym of capitalism and the other concepts your using exist already, enabled by the capitalist ethos of allowing the individual to use their capital as they see fit.

Libertarian socialism rejects representative democracy, they favour horizontal institutions with instantly recallable delegates instead of representives.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#155

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

One of the problems with TFA's allusions to hippies for me is that it feels as if it is arguing that the hippies were the first of their kind.

In reality, groups with the general back-to-the-land drop-out mentality are a persistent feature of western culture, occuring every 40-80 years for several hundred years. They rarely change the entire face of the culture they emerge in, but they typically shift it a bit, at least for a while.

And as Peter Coyote once observed, while the hippies lost just about every political battle they purported to care about (war, racism, sexism, industrial agriculture, cars, pollution etc.), they won most of the cultural battles.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#156

Post by OkayPhysicist »

ethbr1 wrote: post #56
mchinen wrote: post #24

There is a sort of nihilism that emerges when you look deeper at counterculture and it's conformity. Neo recognizing with horror the other neos is a great example. (In that case it only worked out for him because of hollywood's love of love - because he loved trinity so much he was really different from the rest.) I've often wondered how the leaders of the hippie, punk, and more modern movements would compare to clas…

The central tension is between popularity and counterculture. By definition, you cannot have popular counterculture, as it just becomes "the culture." However, most of the capital assets of culture promotion are also tied to popularity (e.g. mass-market media publishing, advertising). Denied access, counterculture exists in the woods, but most people don't know. Which is why you see truer counterculture move closer t…

That's an interesting theory, but what means of cultural promotion were newly democratized in the 60s?

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#157

Post by rglover »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #153
rglover wrote: post #84

Punk (in the conception of anyone born before the internet) is dead because bohemian degeneracy is mainstream. If we go by the standard of "being against the mainstream," today's punks would be people following the advice of the topless antagonist in John Prine's Spanish Pipedream [1]: > Blow up your TV > Throw away your paper > Go to the country > Build you a home > Plant a little garden > Eat a lot of peaches > Try…

Why do you think "being against the mainstream" is the standard of what punk is?

Because that's what it is: a commodified version of "f*ck you mom and dad" rebellion with DIY window dressings. I grew up in punk culture (my house in college was a DIY punk club [1]) and at the core, that's all it is [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJ60dAHyc4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YefQjTeaUDI

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#158

Post by jozzy-james »

watwut wrote: post #147
friend_and_foe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible your affinity to the blue hair and pronouns subculture prevents you from seriously considering the author's analysis of it? To a gay man or transvestite (as they often called themselves, nothing derogatory meant by it) of yore, surely that movement represented freedom from repression. Today, when bigotry towards homosexuals is socially taboo, what does it mean to the allies, warriors and fluid genders?…

Bigotry against homosexuals is not taboo where I live.

but it is in many, many places where you don't live.

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#159

Post by mantas »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #52
wizerdrobe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know to what degree it’s “a thing” but I know a lot of 30-something punks from my old scene that are now into a kind of homesteading vibe. Moved out to the surrounding countryside as much for economic as ideological reasons. Some are all the way into off-the-grid, home schooling, etc. Nothing says “Fuck the System!” like solar panels and a wood burning stove I guess?

> Nothing says “Fuck the System!” like solar panels and a wood burning stove I guess? Pithily put. I can definitely attest that this is my plan and the plans of a few others I know. Home baked bread and sour dough starter feel pretty anti-corporate to me. That said, I do recognise that going off grid requires heavy machinery and tools that are produced by the biggest of corporations... but somehow Milwaukee tools see…

Battery-powered power tools ecosystem is pretty close to religion though :|

MAKITA!!1!

Re: Punk is dead and so are we

#160

Post by ozzcer »

British counter culture is still alive and well. The free party scene never went away. While dance music entered an unprecedented era of commercialisation under the likes of Carl Cox and Fatboy Slim, the underground kept rolling along. Still today one can ( and many still do), find themselves off the beaten track in the South Downs, Welsh country side, or Cornish hills. Even in London, in unused warehouses & train yards,stacks are brought in and people flock. The only real change in the free party scene is how lines are distributed. Burner social media accounts are much more common than your classic call this number operation. We're still fighting '94 public order act, there's just a lot more obstacles nowadays.
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