On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.  

In Memory of Jamie Reid

 Jamie Reid (16 January 1947 – 9 August 2023) 

 

"Radical ideas will always get appropriated. The establishment will rob everything they can, 

because they lack the ability to be creative. That's why you always have to keep moving."

 

 

Although never entirely on board with his far-left politics - and rather uncomfortable with his mystical-hippie beliefs (and appearance) - the fact remains that Jamie Reid's artwork for the Sex Pistols (almost) means more to me than the records they were intended to promote. 

 

As Malcolm rightly said, his design for the single 'God Save the Queen' in 1977, based on a Cecil Beaton photograph, was National Gallery standard [1].

 

I think it's also probably fair to say that, along with Winston Smith, whose graphic designs in collaboration with Jello Biafra for the Dead Kennedys were equally essential, Reid defined the punk aesthetic. 

 

And so I was sorry to discover earlier today that the only sure method of leaving the 20th century sadly involves making a terminal exit ... RIP Jamie Reid.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This now (ironically) iconic portrait of Her Majesty - as well as several other of Reid's provocative punk designs - can be found on Torpedo the Ark: click here.    

 

 

Rioting: The Unbeatable High (With Reference to Current Events in France)

For a note on these images see [1] below

 

 

Probably there are quite a few songs about rioting and I suppose they might be classified as a sub-genre of what are known as protest songs (i.e., songs that in some way call for social change). 

 

Here, however, I wish to discuss only two: White Riot by the Clash [2] and Riot by the Dead Kennedys [3] ...   

 

 

A Riot of My Own

 

'White Riot' was released as the English punk band's first single in March 1977 (an earlier demo version was also included on their self-titled debut album released the following month). The song was written after singer Joe Strummer and bass player Paul Simonon were caught up in rioting at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. 

 

Ironically, some people misinterpreted the title as advocating race war, whereas, actually, the band were suggesting that white working class kids ignore what they were being taught in school and learn from black youth about the necessity of political violence (i.e., throwing a few bricks).     

 

According to Strummer, the oppressed, the alienated, and the disadvantaged had a right (and a duty) to oppose the System and its heavy-handed policing; to demand a riot of their own and seize some of the power held in the hands of "the people rich enough to buy it". It would be cowardly, suggested the bourgeois punk rebel in his Brigatte Rosse T-shirt, to passively accept one's position and refuse to rise up and fight back.  

 

There is no denying that 'White Riot' is a great single and call to arms; one which, as Strummer rightly says, knocks spots off all the other stuff on the radio at that time. However, it's also, of course, laughably naive in its political posturing and massively irresponsible in its advocacy of mindless violence [4]. To his credit, guitarist Mick Jones would later refuse to perform the song, considering it crude.     

 

 

Playing Right Into Their Hands

 

Whilst he's undoubtedly a bit of a jerk himself, Jello Biafra is a lot smarter and politically astute than Joe Strummer. He's also a superior lyricist. So, no surprise that the Dead Kennedys track 'Riot' is a far more sophisticated take on the subject.

 

Acknowledging the visceral excitement involved in smashing windows, torching cars, looting stores, throwing bricks at the police, etc., Biafra is nevertheless quick to point out that rioters inevitably play into the hands of the authorities and end by burning their own neighbourhoods to the ground. 

 

The song closes with the repeated refrain: "Tomorrow you're homeless / Tonight it's a blast", the latter speaker sounding increasingly distraught as they slowly realise the consequences of their actions.    

 

Perhaps those rioting in France at the moment [5] might like to consider this ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The picture of charging police officers, by Rocco Macauly, was taken during a riot at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. It featured on the back cover of the eponymous debut album by The Clash (CBS 1977). 

      As for the grainy black-and-white image of a row of burning police cars, this was taken in San Francisco in May 1979 during the so-called White Night Riots; a series of violent events sparked by the lenient sentencing of (former policeman) Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. It featured on the front cover of the Dead Kennedys' debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red Records, 1980).

 

[2] The Clash, 'White Riot', single released March 1977 (CBS): click here. Or, alternatively, click here to listen to the album version and watch the official video (with footage filmed by Don Letts).  

 

[3] Dead Kennedys, 'Riot', from the album Plastic Surgery Disasters, (Alternative Tentacles, 1982): click here.  For a live performance of the song from 1983, click here.

 

[4] Strummer's terroristic fascination with political violence is also displayed in the B-side of 'White Riot' on a track called '1977'. In this charming punk ditty in which he announces the death of the rock 'n' roll establishment - "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones, in 1977" - he also fantasises how it won't be so lucky to be rich when there's "Sten guns in Knightsbridge".

 

[5] On 27 June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French youth of Maghrebi Algerian descent, who was driving without licence, was shot and killed by a police officer following a car chase in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Despite the officer who shot Merzouk being arrested and charged on suspicion of 'voluntary homicide by a person in authority', the incident led to widespread protests and riots in which symbols of the state such as town halls, schools, and police stations - as well as retail outlets - were attacked and over a 1000 vehicles set on fire.

 

Snapshots from 1983 (Featuring Johnny Rotten, Billy Bragg and Lorrie Millington)

Johnny Rotten and Billy Bragg (28 October 1983)

 

 

I. 

 

Despite the cynical brilliance of 'This Is Not a Love Song' [1], it's probably fair to say that I listened more to Killing Joke and the Dead Kennedys in 1983 than to Public Image Ltd., and that Jaz Coleman and Jello Biafra suddenly seemed more interesting characters than Johnny Rotten.

 

Nevertheless, when PiL played live on The Tube [2] in October 1983, I felt obliged to watch out of love and loyalty for all that Rotten had meant to me:

 

"PiL opened their short set with 'This Is Not a Love Song' and closed it with 'Flowers of Romance'. In between, they offered a kind of honky-tonk version of 'Anarchy in the UK'. 

      Rotten lived up to his name and probably deserved to be booed or bottled off stage. But very funny as he patted the front row punks on their spiky heads and even spat for the camera. Whilst he made little effort to actually perform, it was hard to tell if his apathy (and professed sickness) was real or just part of the act. Ultimately, this is more punk cabaret than punk rock and Rotten seems only too aware that the gig is up and his day is almost over. Nevertheless, he still looked good and I want that electric blue raincoat he was wearing!" [3] 

 

 

II. 

 

Nine days later, and I went to see my pal Billy Bragg playing at a tiny club in the centre of Leeds: 

 

"Arrived at Tiffany's. My name was supposed to be on the door, but wasn't, so had to talk my way in by insisting I was from a London record company; I think they call this blagging. 

      Once inside and having got a drink from the bar, I went to say hello to Billy pre-set. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me and insisted I give him my new address so that he could send me a copy of photo he had taken up in Newcastle when he and Rotten were guesting on The Tube [4]. He also filled me in on the latest Charisma gossip and news of Lee Ellen [5].

      Unfortunately, Billy's set didn't go smoothly - he managed to twice break strings on his guitar. Fortunately, the small crowd (and it was very small) were clearly fans and so supportive; they requested (and were given) autographs after the show. So much for punk doing away with the idea of stars! But then Billy isn't really a punk, more a Clash-influenced folk singer. Hard not to like him though - he's always been friendly to me (and he's a fellow Essex boy)." [6]    

           

 

III.

 

Twelve days after this, having missed the chance to see them at the Rainbow on Boxing Day in 1978, I thought I would take the opportunity to finally see Public Image Limited play live (at Leeds University) - though it would again require talking my way into the gig, as I didn't have a ticket and Lee Ellen insisted there was no guest list: 

"Decided to go to the Faversham [7] for a drink prior to the gig. To my delight, Lorrie [8] walked in soon after I arrived, looking fabulously sexy in black leather trousers, a big black jumper, and dark glasses. Amazing hair and make-up too. We sat down and she popped some pills given to her, she said, by her doctor. 

      It was decided that, rather than wait for the people she was supposed to be meeting, she'd come with me to the PiL gig. As we were leaving, who should walk in but Miss Hall [9]. She appeared not to see me, however. But then she's so far up herself these days, that's not surprising.

      Managed to get myself and L. into gig without any problem, despite not having tickets; I told the people on the door I was Malcolm McLaren and that Lorrie was Vivienne Westwood. If you're going to lie or bluff then it's always best to lie big and bluff with confidence. People might still know you're bullshitting them, but they'll admire your audacity (that's the theory anyway).

      The support band weren't bad; the singer was young and had style as well as energy. As for PiL, well, it was great to hear songs with which one is so familiar played live - 'Low Life', 'Memories', 'Poptones', 'Chant', and - of course - 'Public Image' (with which they opened). Rotten looked great too; young and still amazingly charismatic. He told those who spat that they were out of date. The band finished with 'Anarchy in the UK'. The crowd went wild, but I just stepped aside and felt a bit sad to be honest.

      'If you want more, you'll have to beg', said Rotten. And they did. So they got a two-song encore consisting of 'This is Not a Love Song' and 'Attack'. And that was that. If Rotten left the stage with gob in his hair, I couldn't help feeling that the audience left with collective (metaphorical) egg on face. As I said after his appearance on The Tube, Rotten is offering us punk cabaret now (or even punk pantomime) - particularly with his jokey cover version of 'Anarchy'. But then perhaps he always was ...

      Shared some chips with Lorrie afterwards and said our goodnights. She agreed to come over on Sunday. She's a strange girl, but I like her a lot. Duck! Duck! Duck!" [10]              

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The single 'This Is Not a Love Song was released by Public Image Limited in 1983: click here to listen and watch the official video on YouTube.

      The song became the band's biggest commercial hit, peaking at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart. A live version can be found on the album Live in Tokyo (Virgin Records, 1983) and a re-recorded version on the band's fourth studio album This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (Virgin Records, 1984).

 

[2] The Tube was a live music show broadcast from a studio in Newcastle, which ran for five years on Channel 4 (from November 1982 to April 1987). In that time it featured many bands and a host of presenters, including, most famously, Jools Holland and Paula Yates.

 

[3] Entry from the Von Hell Diaries (Friday 28 October, 1983). To watch PiL's three-song performance on The Tube, click here.

 

[4] Billy did, in fact, send me the photo and it's reproduced at the top of this post. I hadn't known he was also on The Tube the same night as Rotten - had only seen the latter's performance.     

 

[5] Charisma Records was an independent label based at 90, Wardour Street, above the Marquee Club. Charisma marketed Billy's first release, a seven track mini-album entitled Life's a Riot With Spy Versus Spy (Utility, 1983). Perhaps the best-known track - 'A New England' - can be played (in a newly remastered version) by clicking here. 

      Lee Ellen Newman was the Charisma Press Officer whom I adored then and still adore now.   

 

[6] Entry from the Von Hell Diaries (Sunday 6 November, 1983).

 

[7] The Faversham is a well known venue in Leeds (est. in 1947). In the 1980s it was a popular place for punks, goths and students to meet or hang out.  

 

[8] Lorrie Millington - artist-model-dancer-writer and a well-known face on the Leeds scene at the time. I have written about her in several earlier posts; see here, for example.   

 

[9] Gillian Hall - ex-girlfriend; see the recently published post which included an extract from the Von Hell Diaries dated 3 October 1982: click here.  

 

[10] Entry from the Von Hell Diaries (Friday 18 November, 1983). It might be noted that the last line refers to the fact that Duck was my pet name for Lorrie (because she danced like one). The photo of myself and Miss Millington was taken shortly after events discussed here.

 

 

Reflections on The Transparency Society by Byung-Chul Han (Part 1: From The Society of Positivity to The Society of Evidence)

Stanford University Press (2015)

 

 

I. 

 

I might not share Byung-Chul Han's political views, but I certainly share many of his influences and points of reference; Nietzsche, Barthes, and Baudrillard, for example, all of whom feature in this essay on an ideal that has become central to public discourse in the 21st-century and which functions as one of the most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies. 

 

As Han notes in his preface, today the term transparency "is haunting all spheres of life" [a]. People operating in the social sector, science, business, politics, and the media, all pride themselves on their openness and insist they have nothing to hide; that they are fully accountable.    

But Han sees through this neoliberal (and porno-utopian) fantasy of the Transparenzgesellschaft and indicates the dangers of losing mystery, shadow, and privacy. According to Han - and as we will discuss below - the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other (older) social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust. 

 

Ultimately, more information does not mean more freedom, it means greater control, and as "total communication and total networking run their course, it proves harder than ever to be an outsider, to hold a different opinion" [vii]; consensus and conformity are two key terms within this new order of transparency. When everything and everyone is coordinated on Facebook then, as Jello Biafra predicted long ago, it's California über alles ... [b]

 

 

II.

 

The Society of Positivity

 

Although totalised transparency will ultimately result in terror, the society of transparency ironically manifests itself "first and foremost as a society of positivity" [1]. 

 

We used to think that the smiling face of the politician or salesman was just a mask, behind which lay the ugly reality. But now we know that the smiling face is the truth - just as we have come to understand that the phrase have a nice day is a moral imperative. For fascism not only compels speech, as Barthes pointed out [c], it demands active participatation 24/7. 

 

Whoever optimistically thinks woke liberalism will lead in all its positivity to a better world, has failed to understand the significance of the sign above the gates to Hell which reads: Built in the name of Love [d]. 

 

Similarly, as Han writes:

 

"Whoever connects transparency only with corruption and the freedom of information has failed to recognize its scope. Transparency is a systemic compulsion gripping all social processes and subjecting them to deep-reaching change. [...] This systemic compulsion makes the society of transparency a calibrated society. Herein lies its totalitarian trait: 'New word for Gleichschaltung: Transparency.'" [2]

Han is quoting the German writer Ulrich Schacht here [e]. Later, he quotes Baudrillard in order to provide the following memorable definition: "The society of positivity is dominated by the 'transparency and obscenity of information in a universe emptied of event'." [2] [f]  

 

A universe emptied of event - i.e., one in which there is no possibility of a new world erupting within the known world - is also a universe devoid of Otherness and singularity; what Han - again borrowing from Baudrillard - calls the hell of the Same. 

 

Now, clearly, sometimes the human soul needs sameness (stability, predicability, etc.), "where it can be at home without the gaze of the Other" [3] and not swept up in perpetual chaos. But this is not an argument for the elimination of all difference and becoming. 

 

Similarly, whilst a cerain amount of openness and transparency is healthy, the idea of "completely surrendering the private sphere" [3] is naive and misaken. Ultimately, "human existence is not transparent, even to itself" [3]. To put this in psychoanalytic terms, the id remains largely hidden to the ego:

 

"Therefore, a rift runs through the human psyche and prevents the ego from agreeing even with itself. This fundamental rift renders self-transparency impossible. A rift also gapes between people. For this reason interpersonal transparency proves impossible to achieve. [...] The other's very lack of transparency is what keeps the relationship alive." [3]

 

Compulsive transparency in the name of ideological positivity and a will to knowledge, lacks a sensitivity to the import of secrecy and for what Nietzsche termed the pathos of distance. The attempt to illuminate (and expose) everything and everyone under the same bright searchlight, "only makes the world more shameless and more naked" [4].  

In sum: we require a little negativity, a little shadow, even a little corruption in all spheres; negative thoughts and feelings - somewhat paradoxicaly - make happy and keep sane. An excess of positivity ends in exhaustion and depression. Click the like button if you agree ...

 

The Society of Exhibition

How do you know a sacred object when you see one? It's always hidden from view; the holy is not transparent. It's value depends upon its actual existence rather than its exhibition; the fact that it is what it is, even if it is withdrawn and separated off.

 

Within the society of positivity, however, seeing is believing; "things become commodities, they must be displayed in order to be; cult value disappears in favour of exhibition value" [9]. But this compulsion for display "that hands everything over to visibility" [9] results in objects losing their aura, defined by Walter Benjamin as a thing's unique existence within time and space [g]. 

 

This holds true for people too - and the human countenance ... 

 

If the last trace of aura can be found in a beautiful old photograph, digital technology assures "that the 'human countenance' has become a mere face that equals only its exhibition value" [10] on social media. All imperfections and blemishes and signs of aging are removed [h], even though it's these things that make us unique; the negativity of time, for example, playing a constitutive role. 

 

Transparency desires perfection, but it doesn't allow for transcendence. And digital photography is transparent photography: "without birth or death, without destiny or event" [11], says Han. However, whilst I understand the argument he's making (borrowed from Heidegger, Benjamin, and Barthes), I'm not sure I agree with it. 

 

Or rather, even if it's true, I'm not sure I care, as I like the pictures taken with my i-Phone; even if - or perhaps precisely because - they lack "semantic and temporal density" [11]. Not every image needs to be meaningful or mournful; nostalgic or romantic. 

 

And just because images are digitally reworked and circulated on social media, that doesn't necessarily mean they are obscene [i], or that the objects made visible have had their inherent nature compromised. I tend to agree with Graham Harman, objects cannot be exhausted by their relations with other objects - including a human being with a camera - meaning that they retain an excessive reality that is always unseen, unknown, withdrawn.  

 

And whilst the exhibiting and exploiting of bare life is pornography to one man, it's the laughter of genius to another [j] ...

 

 

The Society of Evidence  

This opening paragraph could have come from my Illicit Lover's Discourse (2010): 

"The society of transparency is hostile to pleasure. Within the economy of human desire, pleasure and transparency do not fit to gether. Transparency is foreign to libidinal economy. Precisely the negativity of the secret, the veil, and concealment incite desire and make pleasure more intense. That is why the seducer plays with masks, illusion, and appearances." [15]

In some ways, I still agree with this and feel sympathetic; I like Baudrillard's suggestion that after the orgy comes the masked ball. And Han is right, I think, to insist that transparency spells the end of erotic fantasy and results in the pornification of society.

 

On the other hand, however, all that talk of desire and libidinal economy, etc. makes me feel a bit weary and as if I've travelled back in time. One of the reasons I decided to read Byun-Chul Han's work was because I wanted to see what a celebrated 21st-century philosopher had to say and I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed - despite its brilliance - to basically find a reworking of all the usual suspects (authors one read twenty or thirty years ago).      

 

Still, just like the famous Icelander Magnus Magnusson, having started this examination of Han's text, I'll finish it and readers may join me in part two of this post by clicking here (or, if they wish, leap ahead straight to part three by clicking here). 

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society, trans. Erik Butler, (Stanford University Press, 2015), p. vii. Future page references will be given directly in the post. Note also that the chapter titles given in bold are taken from the essay itself and are not of my invention. 

      The book was originally published in Germany as Transparenzgesellschaft, (Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 2012).  

 

[b] Jello Biafra was lead vocalist with the American punk band the Dead Kennedy's. 'California Über Alles' was their debut single (released June 1979). It was re-recorded for the album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red / Alternative Tentacles, 1980): click here for this later (faster) version. It describes the triumph of soft fascism which, arguably, the transparency society is in the process of realising.  

 

[c] See Roland Barthes, 'Inaugural Lecture, Collège de France', (January 7, 1977), trans. Richard Howard, in A Roland Barthes Reader, ed. Susan Sontag, (Vintage, 1993), pp. 457-78.   

 

[d] See Dante's Inferno, III, 5-6. 

      Note that Nietzsche famously describes this as a naive error on Dante's part, however, and says that it would have been more telling if he'd placed a sign above the Christian Paradise reading: 'Eternal hate created me as well'. See On the Genealogy of Morality, I. 15.

 

[e] See Ulrich Schacht, Über Schnee und Geschichte, (Matthes & Seitz, 2012), journal entry for June 23, 2011.  

[f] Jean Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, trans. Phil Beitchman and W.G.J. Niesluchowski, (Semiotext[e], 2008), p. 45. 

[g] See Benjamin's crucial essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936). It can be found in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn, (Schocken Books, 2007), pp. 217-251.  

[h] Han writes: "Exhibition value above all depends on beautiful looks." [12] 

      Again, maybe that's true, but is that the worst thing in the world? The ancient Greeks also valued good looks, believing such to not only show that they were blessed by the gods, but possessed of a beautiful soul. They even had a phrase for someone who was both attractive and virtuous: kalos kagathos [καλὸς κἀγαθός]. I'm always a bit suspicious of those who seem to sneer at physical beauty, though I assume that Han is here talking about a fixed ideal of beauty based on stereotypical attributes and lacking any complexity or mystery.  

 

[i] Byung-Chul Han is borrowing the term obscene from Baudrillard, who defines it in Fatal Strategies as the "more visible than visible" [p. 30]. I don't disagree that hypervisibility, in as much as it lacks and challenges the negativity of what is hidden and kept secret, is obscene, but I don't think that obscenity ever truly prevents the object from dwelling in peace. For as I go on to say in the post, objects always find a way to elude us and retain their darkness.   

 

[j] I'm paraphrasing D. H. Lawrence in 'Pornography and Obscenity', see Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 236. My italics. I'll return to Han's thoughts on porn when I discuss chapter 4 of his book. See also the post on The Agony of Eros (2017): click here. 

Blessed are the Greens ...

Members of Extinction Rebellion's Red Brigade who have 

come to save the world with mime and religious rhetoric.

Photo by Sibylla Bam Bam

 

 

I. 

 

In an email responding to a recent post on Heide Hatry's Schneebären, an angry reader writes:    

 

"I was deeply offended (though hardly surprised) by your blasé attitude towards the global Climate Emergency; a phrase you italicise presumably to express your scepticism, if not, indeed, to indicate you are an out-and-out denier of the unfolding environmental crisis.   

      Why must you treat this serious moral and political issue with the same studied irony and indifference that you seem to treat everything you write about? What is wrong with you? I can only hope and pray that you one day wake up and become part of the solution, not the problem."

 

I would like, if I may, to make a statement of reply here ...     

 

 

II. 

 

As someone with a philosophical disposition, I am naturally inclined towards scepticism; particularly when confronted with dogma, doxa, or a mixture of both - and, unfortunately, there are many people involved with the green movement who believe the things they believe to be incontrovertibly true as scientific fact, accepted opinion, or an item of faith.      

 

I don't deny the issues that concern my correspondent and others like her - in fact, if she goes back to the post which prompted her to write, she'll see that I express my own disquiet about environmental matters (including habitat destruction and the threat to wildlife) - but I do challenge the language used when, as so often, it takes on a religious tone and offers a moral interpretation of events. 

 

I can just about stomach those green activists who think of themselves as eco-warriors - and believe me I hate the language of militancy too - but when they start to also imagine themselves as crusaders and eco-evangelists on a mission to save the planet, then I'm afraid I resort to studied irony as a kind of defence mechanism or antiemetic, because, as Jello Biafra once put it, all religions make me sick [1].         

 

III.

 

Whilst it's obviously not the case that all eco-types are either seeking out a new faith or looking to supplement (and green) an old one, it's pretty clear that some are. That's why I think the author and filmmaker Michael Crichton wasn't too far off the mark to suggest that environmentalism has become the religion of choice for many in today's world.

 

In a 2003 speech, Crichton conveniently outlined some of the ways in which environmentalism has reinterpreted the Judeo-Christian belief system:

 

"There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. 

      

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday ... these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. 

      

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them." [2]

 

To paraphrase Nietzsche: Environmentalism is the heir of Christian moral culture. In other words, it's a new form of ascetic idealism. And, for Nietzscheans at least, that's a problem. As it is for Crichton. As it is for me. Like the latter, I wish to demoralise environmentalism and abandon the mythic (and apocalyptic) fantasies that it likes to peddle - particularly when these are tied to utopian political narratives that always seem to end in tears (and bloodshed).    

 

  

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring to the classic Dead Kennedys song 'Religious Vomit', written by 6025 Cadona, on the 8-track EP In God We Trust, Inc., (Alternative Tentacles, 1981): click here. 

 

[2] Michael Crichton, 'Remarks to the Commonweath Club', San Francisco, (15 Sep 2003): click here to read the full transcript online. The paper is often referred to by the title 'Environmentalism is a Religion'. 

      Interestingly, Crichton fictionalised his arguments on this subject in his novel State of Fear (HarperCollins, 2004). Despite being a work of fiction, the book contains graphs, footnotes, an afterword explicitly setting out his views on global warming, an appendix in which he warns against the politicisation of science, and an extensive bibliography. It should also be noted, however, that many climate scientists, journalists, and green activists have gone on record to say that Crichton's work is an error-strewn and wilfully distorted interpretation of the facts.   

 

See also: Joel Garreau's essay 'Environmentalism as Religion', in The New Atlantis, No. 28, (Summer 2010), pp. 61-74. Garreau usefully traces the move from theology to ecotheology, touching on both neo-paganism and the greening of Christianity. Garreau also comes up with the amusing coinage carbon Calvinism. Click here to read online. 

Mila is a Punk Rocker

Je ne regrette rien ...

I.

Does anyone else remember the Dead Kennedys hardcore classic 'Religious Vomit'?

It was the first track on the eight-track EP In God We Trust, Inc. and I believe it opened with the lines:

All religions make me want to throw up 

All religions make me sick

All religions make me want to throw up 
All religions suck

It's a succinct but nonetheless powerful critique of all nausea-inducing systems of belief that claim to possess a divine form of Truth and to act in the name of God.    

II.

I immediately thought of this song when reading about the case of a French teen who has been forced into hiding after remarks she made online sparked rape and death threats.

The pretty 16-year-old, known as Mila, who described Islam as a religion of hate and claimed all organised creeds made her sick, has been warned by the police not to attend her school in Southeast France and to keep a low public profile - even though, according to French law, she has done nothing wrong and so shouldn't have to restrict her freedom of movement due to the disgusting threats made by religious lunatics.  

Nor, of course, should she apologise for her remarks: freedom of speech is the freedom to offend and to blaspheme; the freedom enjoyed by Jello Biafra and the boys back in the day and which we should all cherish, protect, and insist upon as infinitely more important than the false right of hypersensitive believers not to be offended.

Play: Dead Kennedys, 'Religious Vomit', In God We Trust, Inc., (Alternative Tentacles, 1981): click here. 

Note: The DK logo is by Winston Smith

They Don't Shoot White Women Like Me ...

Photo by Alex Klavens: 

Protestor at a Black Lives Matter event

Boston, MA (4 Dec 2014)

Someone I used to know back in the day has recently got in touch after a thirty year hiatus in our friendship, during which time she's been married and divorced, raised a brat and battled cancer, whilst, it seems, all the time holding true to the radical ideals of social justice and equality that shaped her youth. Indeed, she tells me that she has been re-energized politically by Jeremy Corbyn.   

In the distant, punky-reggae past she was involved in all kind of things, including Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. I don't know who she loved more; Joe Strummer, whom she wanted to fuck; or Nelson Mandela, whom she wanted to free. 

And today, it's still black issues that seem to exercise her most - even though she is herself lily-white and from a privileged, privately educated background. She forgets, I suspect, that this was one of the things that originally caused friction between us, as I grew increasingly impatient with her and those like her who - to paraphrase Jello Biafra - play ethnicky jazz to parade their snazz on their five grand stereos / bragging that they know how the ghettos feel cold and the slums have so much soul. 

I don't know why she does this. I think in part she genuinely cares about the issues and the people she champions. But I suspect she's also trying to enhance her own reputation and self-esteem. Whatever the reason, it irritated me then and it irritates me now, so I won't be renewing our friendship ...

As for black lives ... well, yes, of course, Black Lives Matter. But they matter more to her than to me.

And, without getting all Rod Liddle about this - or playing a game of diversionary tactics - I do wonder if the focus of such a campaign shouldn't be on crime, drug use, gang culture, etc. rather than institutionalised white racism and police brutality. 

The latter are doubtless realities that need to be addressed; as do issues of poverty and poor education. But to deliberately whip up anger and resentment whilst turning a blind eye to the involvement of young black men in the former activities, isn't helpful and isn't honest.      


Note: The lyric I'm quoting (from memory and with slight revision) by Jello Biafra is from Holiday in Cambodia (1980), by the great American punk band the Dead Kennedys: click here to play on YouTube.    

Halloween

Cover of the Dead Kennedys single Halloween 

(Alternative Tentacles, 1982)

Another Halloween approaches ... 

And the groaning you can hear is nothing ghostly or ghoulish, but the sound of weariness from people like me who dislike the manner in which the supermarkets and other forces of corporate-media spectacle have co-opted the Day of the Dead and transformed it into a vapid and vacuous celebration of fake blood, phony horror, and false festivity. 

For what is Halloween today other than an opportunity for happy shoppers and law-abiding citizens to dress-up and behave like pretend monsters? Their costumes, no matter how elaborate, fail to cover up their conventionality and conformity; their masks and make-up don't disguise the fact that they have the same white faces smiling sheepishly underneath that they pride themselves on for the rest of the year. 

As Jello Biafra once sang: "I can see your eyes / I can see your brain / baby nothing's changed!"

And on the morrow, when the plastic pumpkins are put away and their all too human mold goes back on, then the real horror begins again; the recurrent nightmare of their daily lives full of fear of otherness, self-loathing, social-regulation, and the judgement of God. 

One almost wishes for a real zombie apocalypse ...