On Subcultural Barbarism

Photo of Soo Catwoman by Ray Stevenson (1976)

The slogan is a paraphrase of a sentence written by Walter Benjamin [1] 

 

"Why do we fear and hate a possible reversion to barbarism? 

Because it would make people unhappier than they are? 

Oh no! The barbarians of every age were happier: let us not deceive ourselves!" - Nietzsche [2]

 

 

I. 

 

What constitutes a subculture?

 

I suppose, sociologically speaking, a subculture might be defined as a group of people who identify in terms of their shared tastes, values, interests, and practices whilst, at the same time, differentiating themselves to a greater or lesser degree from the dominant culture and its norms [3].

 

In other words, individuals form or join subcultures because they wish to develop an alternative lifestyle, but not necessarily one that calls for revolution or involves dropping out of society altogether. Such individuals may like to deviate from the straight and narrow, but they acknowledge the existence of a path and in as much as they offer resistance to cultural hegemony it's mostly of a symbolic nature.

 

 

II. 

 

In 1985, the French sociologist Michel Maffesoli transformed much of the thinking on subcultures by introducing the idea of neotribalism; a term that gained widespread currency after the publication of his book Le Temps des tribus three years later [4].

 

According to Maffesoli, the conventional approaches to understanding solidarity and society are no longer tenable. He contends that as modern mass culture and its institutions disintegrates, social existence is increasingly conducted through fragmented tribal groupings, informally organised around ideas, sounds, looks, and patterns of consumption.

 

He refers to punk rockers as an example of such a postmodern tribe and, interestingly, suggests that through generating chaos within wider culture they help revitalise the latter in a Dionysian manner [5]. 

 

Maffesoli, of course, is not without his critics and his work is often branded as controversial. However, I think we might relate his thinking on culture, modernity, and tribalism to Nietzsche's philosophy; in particular Nietzsche's longing for new barbarians who might prevent the ossification of culture ...    

 

III. 

 

Anyone who knows anything about Nietzsche knows that he loves Kultur - understood by him as the supreme way of stylising chaos in such a manner that man's highest form of agency (individual sovereignty) is made possible. 

 

In other words, culture is not that which simply allows us to be and does more than merely preserve old identities. Rather, it allows us to become singular, like stars, via a dynamic process of self-overcoming. 

 

Unfortunately, the powers which drive civilisation outweigh the forces of culture to such an extent that history appears to Nietzsche as the process via which the former take possession of the latter or divert them in its favour. 

 

Thus, there's not merely an abysmal antagonism between culture and civilisation [6]; the latter, in Nietzsche's view, co-opts and exploits the more spiritual qualities possessed by a people which have developed organically from within the conditions of their existence. 

 

This becoming-reactive of culture is, as Deleuze reminds us, the source of Nietzsche's greatest disappointment; things begin Greek and end up German as human vitality and creativity becomes overcoded by the coordinating power of the modern state. 

 

So ... what can be done to prevent this or to release the forces of culture once more? How do we free life wherever it is encased within a fixed form? In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche famously calls for a cultural revolution, only to quickly realise that this ain't gonna happen. 

 

And so Nietzsche changes tack and instead of pinning his hopes on an alliance between artists and philosophers to save the day, he invokes a breed of new barbarians who, via subcultural activity, cast off the horny covering of civilisation so that new growth becomes possible and who, when confronted with the ways in which the dominant social order breaks down, "make no attempt at recodification" [7]. 

 

Of course, the question that arises is where will these new barbarians come from. This was a question that troubled D. H. Lawrence as well as Nietzsche, for both recogised that despite the modern world being very full of people there were no longer "any great reservoirs of energetic barbaric life" [8] existing outside the gate.

 

And so, we will need our barbarians to come from within - although not from the depths, so much as from the heights. For Nietzsche's new barbarians are not merely iconoclasts driven by a will to destruction, rather, they're cynics and experimenters; "a species of conquering and ruling natures in search of material to mold" [9] who embody a "union of spiritual superiority with well-being and excess of strength" [10]. 

 

The question of culture and subcultural barbarism is badly conceived if considered only in terms of 'Anarchy in the UK' (and I say that as a sex pistol): what's required is what Adam Ant would term a wild nobility.

 

 

IV.

 

To believe in the ruins, doesn't mean that one wishes to stay forever among the ruins; a permanently established barbarism would simply be another oppressive system of philistine stupidity. Eventually, we have to start to build up new little habitats; cultivating new forms and new ideas upon discord and difference (i.e., stylising chaos).

One of the key roles of the Subcultures Interest Group [11] is to both document and inspire such activity by rediscovering something of the creative energy or potential that lies dormant in the past and projecting such into the future so that we might live yesterday tomorrow (as Malcolm would say) [12].

 

That's not easy: and it's not simply a question of revivalism; it's neither possible nor desirable to go back to an earlier time and mode of existence (despite what the writers of Life on Mars might encourage us to believe) [13]. 

 

It involves, rather, a few brave souls working with knowing mystery for "the resurrection of a new body, a new spirit, a new culture" [14] and accepting back into their lives "all that has hitherto been forbidden, despised, accursed" [15] ... (i.e., becoming-barbarian).    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This famous sentence from Benjamin's 'Thesis on the Philosophy of History' (1940) actually reads: "There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." 

      This essay, composed of twenty numbered paragraphs, was first translated into English by Harry Zohn and included in the collection of essays by Benjamin entitled Illuminations, ed. Hanah Arendt (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968). 

      Alternatively, it can be found under the title 'On the Concept of History' in Vol. 4 of Benjamin's Selected Writings, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 389-400. See paragraph VII on p. 392. 

 

[2] Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge University Press, 1982), V. 429, p. 184.

 

[3] Those whose opposition to or rejection of the mainstream is actually their defining characteristic are probably best described as countercultural militants rather than simply members of a subculture.

 

[4] Le Temps des tribus: le déclin de l'individualisme dans les sociétés de masse was translated into English by Don Smith as The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, (SAGE Publications Ltd., 1995). 

[5] In other words, as a polemologist, Maffesoli is attracted to the idea of foundational violence and the vital need for conflict within society. See his 1982 work L’ombre de Dionysos: contribution à une sociologie de l'orgie, trans. into English by Cindy Linse and Mary Kristina Palmquist as The Shadow of Dionysus: A Contribution to the Sociology of the Orgy (State University of New York Press, 1993). 

      Readers might find a post published in February of this year on Sid Vicious of interest, as it explores the Dionysian aspects of the young Sex Pistols' tragic death: click here.  

 

[6] Nietzsche maintained a common opposition within German letters between Kultur and Zivilization, defining the latter in terms of scientific and material progress, whilst insisting the former was invested with a more spiritual quality (Geist). See, for example, note 121 in The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (Vintage Books, 1968), p. 75.

 

[7] Gilles Deleuze, 'Nomad Thought', in The New Nietzsche, ed. David B. Allison (The MIT Press, 1992), p. 143. 

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 189.

 

[9] Nietzsche, The Will to Power ... IV 900, p. 479. 

 

[10] Ibid., IV 899, p. 478. 

      Nietzsche makes several remarks on barbarians and barbarism in his published work, not just in his Nachlass. See, for example, Beyond Good and Evil where he identifies barbarians as culture-founders; "their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, but primarily in their psychical - they were more complete human beings" (9. 257). Translation by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1990), p. 192. 

[11] The Subcultures Interest Group (SIG) is a diverse and informal collective of academics and artists operating out of the University of the Arts London. Established in 2019, they regularly publish a paper - SIG News - which aims to open a window on to the work being undertaken by members of the Group. Click here for further information. For a review of  SIG News 3 on Torpedo the Ark (28 July 2024), click here for part one of the post and/or here for part two  

 

[12] See the post published on Torpedo the Ark dated 10 June 2024: click here.

 

[13] Life on Mars is a British TV series, first broadcast on BBC One (2006-07), devised and written by Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah, and starring John Simm as Detective Inspector Sam Tyler, who, following a car accident, wakes up to find himself in 1973. See the post published on 2 October 2024 in which I discuss this seductive (but ultimately fatal) fantasy: click here.   

 

[14] Henry Miller, The World of Lawrence: A Passionate Appreciation, ed. Evelyn J. Hinz and John J. Teunissen (John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., 1985), p. 217.  

 

[15] Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1988), p. 96.

 

 

With continued gratitude to Keith Ansell-Pearson whose work on Nietzsche helped shaped my own thinking 30 years ago.