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Archive-name: heavy-metal/virtual-community
Posting-frequency: semimonthly Last-Modified: 16-Mar-2006 See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge
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Part IV :: Metal as virtual community
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{ IV. Metal as virtual community
I. Newsgroups
II. Email Lists
III. WWW
IV. People
V. AE's }
IV. Metal as virtual community
Though some may laugh at the idea of this biting, hissing,
spitting, kicking, shitting and screaming mass of boiling animal
hatred as a community, it really is a place in which people
live, exchange ideas, form bonds and enemities.
I find "shape" a word that only applies to three dimensions...
Again, we need a new vocabulary. And some pot.
- Annatar Gorthaur, maartenj@lx.student.wau.nl
4.1 Newsgroups
USENET provides the easiest access to most metalheads;
however, it is also the most annoying, given the high
prevalence of noise to signal from personality disorders
rendered into text.
4.1.1 extant groups
Metal groups at the time of this writing:
alt.rock-n-roll.metal - commercial metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy - commercial metal/grunge
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death - death metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.black - black metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.metallica - fan group
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden - fan group
alt.music.black-metal - black metal
alt.music.black-metal.nazi - nazi black metal
alt.music.slayer - fan group
alt.fan.metal - metal fan social group
alt.fan.metal.burzum - fan group
alt.fan.metal.suffocation - fan group
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.progressive - prog heavy metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.doom - doom/commercial metal
alt.thrash - thrash music
alt.music.grindcore - grindcore music
alt.music.underground.metal - underground metal/crossover
alt.music.underground.metal.death - underground death
metal
4.1.2 history
One of USENET's earliest hierarchies was the
alt.rock-n-roll hierarchy, started to complement .sex and
.drugs in the middle eighties. By the next decade, a
.metal had been added and by the early nineties a new
group, .metal.heavy was added to accomodate "heavier"
metal, not knowing that "heavy metal" is a keyword for
more commercial, rock-based offerings.
Somewhere in this time alt.thrash was created for
skateboarders and taken over by crossover music fans.
In order to advance this hierarchy to a contemporary
state of metal knowledge, in 1993 I created the newsgroup
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death, which was followed by
.progressive, .doom, and the newer hierarchy of
alt.music.black-metal in the middle 1990s.
"I've been around since the dawn of time when we created
the death metal newsgroup, and all that I can tell is
endless flamewars, Christians falling in fire and battle,
and conquest of various other territories with forward
logic and relentless aggression."
- fecalith@yahoo.com
4.1.3 suggested futures
Metal newsgroups should function to empower the most
possible users both as reference and interactive medium.
Thus the best way to split their identities is to divide
them according to musical genre tree and history, as that
is how they are marketed and how people will know to find
them:
alt.rock-n-roll.metal - general commercial metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy - "heavy metal"
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.doom - doom metal
alt.music.grindcore - grindcore
alt.music.metal.death - death metal
alt.music.metal.black - black metal
alt.music.thrash - thrash music
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.lifestyle - metal lifestyle
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.commercial - product ads
4.1.4 etiquette/ethos
Unlike most of the rest of the net, the metal zones are
not based on morality or material aesthetics; therefore,
nothing is taboo and anything not expressly permitted is
completely legal. People fire flame and fist across text
that is in the end to all of us completely meaningless,
and so Hessians do not worry about rules, only keeping the
content meaningful.
Metalheads are naturally anarchistic, and so there is no
need for rules. A few good ideas:
1 - Look to see if someone has asked/answered your
questions by scanning the Subject: lines of your news
messages, and then by using http://groups.goole.com/ or
http://www.reference.com/ or http://www.talkway.com/ to
find older messages on that topic.
2 - Avoid taking USENET seriously; it is a playground
for minds and personalities, and much of what goes on is
not "serious" in that it is not "real," but is serious in
that someone is attempting to communicate something, even
quite possibly something of which they are not yet fully
aware.
3 - To avoid getting unwanted commercial email from bulk
marketers gathering lists out of USENET databases, enter
your
From: line as shown below:
From: president@whitehouse.gov,real@email.here
(Name)
4.1.5 Objective Communication
This paragraph is written in a persona as interpretation
of the metal subcultural ethos, in order to establish the
strong polarity which is felt by most of those making the
metal that matters, if not by all the imitators and
clueless fans.
Hence, while this inclination might seem ultra-subjective,
one must consider that in an objective data reading from a
physical system, what an individual will tell you
subjectively may constitute in the abstract form a part of
a heuristic tree of knowledge that provides for the
differentiation of belief, .: beliefs originate in
different methods of approaching a situation/object, and
in differentiation open themselves to evolution, or
selection of the superior strains of idea while allowing
the weaker to lapse.
4.1.5.1 Scientific method
Scientific method - the formation of hypotheses in
response to testing as a means of testing accepted
hypotheses as well as new, in an ever changing system of
cross-indexed knowledge - is the basis of any kind of
deconstruction, backward engineering, or analysis of how
something previously unknown works.
This is also the basis of communication, where as in
digital protocols there is a handshaking phase of
equalization of symbolic (quantitative) tokens, and where
interpretation uses logical constraints to narrow a search
to a reasonable set of answer data. When analyzing music,
a similar set of requirements exists: that one use
rigorously objectivist means of finding
publically-referentiable data.
So when objective terms are used to describe music or
musical movements, it is structurally necessary for
coherence that objective experiments and scientific theory
underly such language. As it is, here, we attempt to
document much of this from a thinking Hessian's view.
Many people believe objectivism, or the science of a
shared space which really is consistent despite our varied
perceptions of it, is something a few of us would rather
call subjectivism, or solipsism: the belief that the world
is formed of one's perceptions.
Objectivism however is the study of consistency. Of
constantly verifying one's worldview with experiments in
every possible area, to find consistencies in behavior and
to use abstract principle to deduct structure from a
number of these consistencies.
It's science. The core of it. How we inference our way
to technology as intelligent apes.
It does not assert that all things are the same, or that
we are controlled by an external force. No: only that
there is an external reality which is consistent, and
provable as such with repeated demonstration from any
number of angles.
This is how we have come from clothing ourselves with mud
and boar carcass to having intercontinental ballistic
missiles. Repeated provability = cornerstone of theory.
What we in the outside-the-box school of objective
analysis call, "the back end."
The back end is what gives certainty of placement to any
thought - a known truth at which to begin decoding the
interaction of the unknown with the known. It's like
plugging known data into weird math equations to try to
figure out what's going on in the equation by how the
numbers change.
Inference, or inductive reasoning based on abstract
similarity ("resonance") of patterns, without a back end
to begin with is a form of "deep" or "mystic" inference,
in that it rests upon a collection of basic principles
interpreted in the deep abstract with tokens of the same
in such a way that none of it is _provable_, only
sensible.
An example of such a theory would be Christianity: one is
asked to presuppose a god-being, and take it on faith that
it exists and is omnipotent and wants you to do what you
are told through its book. Buddhism, as it claims to be,
is not: all things are verifiable through its only "true"
method, meditation. All else is "untrue" and therefore
has no necessary logical value.
Engine
Some kind of work producer channeled through an
output.
Machine
An object or idea which converts energy.
Language
A structure of tokens to have adaptive description
as a function of their recombinant structure, so
that they favor encapsulation in levels of
abstraction.
4.1.5.2 Artistic relevance
One asks, what is art?, because art seems different
from other forms of media, or works of communication.
It does not tell you what it is telling you to think;
it tells you what it is thinking, and requires you meet
it half way. It is the high abstract, and functions by
metaphor: jarring as if through drunkenness windows of
physical confinement to reveal similarity in event,
object, and ideal.
Understanding the related nature of structure brings an
understanding of the function of nature, and in doing
so, can address the pain and suffering and more
importantly, the fear thereof that cripples before the
disease hits, and bring a calm and peace to human
existence.
The varied reactions people have to art confirms this.
Despite a storm of protest, the only coherent comments
are usually those who originate from the people who
have identified with the art - who find ideas in the
art or metaphorically similar ideas in the art that are
constructive to their own.
Don't get us wrong - the tools of art are always
abused. Advertising, as an industry of convincing
people to give up their own free will, uses artistry to
convey simple messages. Political propaganda does the
same, wrapping a bundle of thoughts around a single
spindle and firing them off wildly in an emotional
reaction. But art does not stoop this low.
And what is amazing? Metal fans at least can tell the
difference. Consistently the albums that are pure
cheese are popular for a few years, and fade, where the
creations of the distinctive and bold and intelligent
stand forth as classics for years. The ones that fade
have a material significance: at that time they were
new, and fulfilled a need for music with something
plausible.
And so the fan base with the widest variance, who are
always looking for something new and different-looking
to stand out from the rest, seize it as a commodity:
something with consistent effect and function toward
improvement of physical being. Others look back on a
definition of a time through a cultural, metaphorical,
metaphysical interpretation of how it was lived, and
reference an oft-quoted list of "classics" with reasons
why ranging from articulate philosophical appreciation
to intoxicated nostalgia.
Products work toward consistency; art works toward
opening spaces. New ideas build space not by being
"new," or previously unseen, but by developing an
unknown method of executing the current objective
through a development of its concept. A postmodernist
might argue that "all history is but a struggle for a
point of view to share," but quite often, the
postmodernist might "be" right.
Art functions by introducing new ideas for the listener
to appreciate. It anticipates their... how does it do
this? Through using the scientific method: the artist
decodes world, and interpreting the universalism of its
methods, builds a simple virus to speak its own
contents. A language of characters which put together
resemble views of the experience; a series of slices of
crystal ball.
Art is the science of understanding what it is to be
intelligent, and in manipulating its symbology,
expressing its relevance and structure as spiritual
events rather than physical confrontations. The path
of intelligent abstract reasoning has so far led
humanity away from chaos and destruction into
organization and reasonable living; is it possible that
now it is in the hands of chaos again?
Yes - in that with art we have a back-end inference, in
that we are comparing its pieces as those who see them
and have no knowledge of the background of their
production. But based on the common intellectual
properties of artist and viewer, the art is created to
put into sight some very abstract and often emotional
ideas; the viewer will then interpret these, especially
as relevant to his or her own life.
In short, art is different from "normal" communication
in that it doesn't hope for change in the physical
world, e.g. buy this tampon/car. It is about the
transaction of ideas in a scientific sense: passing on
the abstract so that others may test their own theories
against it, and emerge with their own placement of its
value. Call it client-server psychology.
4.1.5.3 What Does Art Address
The amazing thing about art is its universality. The
artist will make it; many will comment. The artist
will speak. Usually many are disappointed, as their
interpretations were insane, but quite a few are
pleased in that their view is ratified by the artist's
words. This is where human psychology comes into
interpretation: "art" is both "subjective" and
"objective":
objective
A rehash from above: art manipulates life to
speak an idea in the abstract so humans can place
it, based on a reality we both can sense and test
with the scientific method.
subjective
Different people have different responses, but
this doesn't mean that they're all "right".
If I play a Darkthrone record to a random audience, and
the Priest says, "it's the work of the devil," the
Buddhist monk says "it seems to express the simplicity
and loneliness of structure", the prescient junior high
math whiz says it reminds him of matrices, the
politician says he hears loose morals in the "dissonant
chords and malevolent pauses", a limbless retarded
midget quadraplegic leper might call it "drool pain
sound car crash foofth gurshs", but the first is insane
but correct, the second sane and correct on levels of
both abstraction and literality (making him the only
sane analyst of art here), the junior high math whiz is
sane and correct in a way that even he can't yet
understand, the politician does not care about his
answer only the votes it generates so why do we listen,
and the midget is only there for late night sexual
abuse, is insane, and incorrect.
Concepts on art:
- Art has no teleological objective, or physical and
conclusive end, but expresses an idea in a non-literal
way. Why would it be non-literal?
- Art is interpretive, and never forces itself upon the
reader. Does this mean it has no effect? No - on the
contrary, the reader comes back for more because it has
an effect upon him or her.
- Language, despite being quantitative, can cover
almost any range of situations with its capability for
fuzzy logic allowing abstract similarities between
concepts to stand for physical scenarios. For example,
we call a certain kind of grenade a "potato masher"
because that is what the grenade resembles in shape.
Art arranges quantitative elements in a way that they
imply and manipulate a greater structure; therefore it
is in the range of the metaphysical: the abstract
interpretation of existence and the metaphysical.
- "Art states what is invisible." In any everyday
situation there are many truths evident in that people
share a belief and therefore act in accordance and
expectation of its fulfillment. Hence, art sometimes
wakes people up about commonsense ideas.
- Aesthetic or material valuation, the process of
assigning value to objects in a subjective sense based
on appearance or physical value, end thought processes
when an action is complete, but art seems to deal with
the moments before an action, or understanding that
action later.
- Art does not confuse value with relevance. Art
manipulates its objects unkindly often, and does not
hesitate to create imaginary worlds where doom may
prevail. But these characters and objects, while
imaginary, do have life: they are similar intelligences
to human, and therefore can be identified with by the
audience.
- Art is beyond politics. Politics uses linear power
structures; x = value and y = value and if x is good
and y is bad then y is to blame for the continuing
failure of human interaction. Art, by being
interpretive, is meta-democractic: those who can
understand can use these ideas and implement them, but
those who can't can only see a confusing appearance.
Art is self-filtering for the kind of symbolism that
becomes dogmatism in Christianity, or National
Socialism.
Music, by those people who enjoy it enough that they wish
to understand it after dissecting it musically and
conceptually, is analyzed as art, and as art an expression
of a level of some universality through its
conceptualization of awareness. There are other stages of
its appreciation, including:
--- tangible I. Aesthetic Fascination
II. Sentimental Self-Identification
III. Technical Appreciation
IV. Heuristic Comparison/Academicism
---- logical V. Abstract Analysis
---- mystical VI. Artistic Conception
VII. Spiritual Immersion
The three stages expressed on the left are also stages of
the development of a human child; it first appreciates
objects it can hold, and then learns to render/model them
in its own head, so that it can compare situations and
learn to interpret and react to its world. Eventually it
becomes self-aware, and from that shock goes on to seek a
meaning in existence, a study which leads one beyond the
directly scientific to the mystical, a deep-end
interpretation of tendencies in the universe as
metaphysical suggestions toward the structure of its
non-visible, abstract structural and original elements.
What Separates Art from Non-Art?
Art is interpretive. Anything that tells you what to do,
or demonstrates something with obvious symbols of
emotional manipulation, is probably propaganda and not
art. Hint: One rarely finds metal bands singing "KILL FOR
SATAN" but many metal bands use Satanic imagery. Is this
the face of metaphor?
Art is not accepted on faith. If it doesn't work for you,
you abandon it. Propaganda only wishes your assent,
however you justify it. Art allows you to develop for
yourself, using art and other forms of perception as
reference materials.
Art has no material objective. It is about abstract
communication and nothing more. Propaganda is always
directing different interests in a linear path to a
physical world accomplishment.
Art is not entertainment or propaganda; both are
neutralizers of the perceptive and inference faculties, as
both aim at consistency and stability over-riding
existential value in the unfolding paradox of being.
Art is a science self-refining enough to tackle the
spiritual realm, where strict discipline is necessary for
the lack of direct back-end inferential centers to not
prevent discovery.
Where most political or religious endeavors require a
"leap of faith" employing what to a highly-ordered thinker
is meta-logical but in the average interpretation is a
"blind" but dogmatically-justified inference, art is
self-interpretive by the user and is only a continuing
process as long as it is interactive. Art requires user
interpretation constantly and, since it often builds
layers of ideas on top of basic concepts, requires
"correct" interpretation of the general idea of what the
artist is addressing and trying to convey. "Correct" is
however made loose by the layers of initial meaning,
repetition, and other factors designed to let the user
misinterpret most of the message but still understand on
some level the ideas of art.
Levels of Communication
I. Aesthetic
- What it "sounds like" or "looks like" tells you
the mood and object of the piece.
II. Structural
- How it puts itself together musically posits
and emotional and academic meaning.
III. Meta-Structural
- What type of theory for music as a whole via
the interpretation of a "next generation" mind is
suggested by the work.
IV. Inferential
- Deep interpretation of the presentation of
ideas reveals a spiritual or philological
interpretation of the ideas addressed, or a
statement of ambiguity revealing the confusion of
art or user.
We are lucky that art generally does not have a
material objective, except when it's sold out, of
course (Yes, argue with me all day - to your loss.
Metallica's first three albums have a quality what came
after did _not_ in common observation: a passion from
an emergent conception of existence and a fluidity of
acceptance of its darkness).
Art, functioning on the highly abstract level, can only
utilize highly abstract concepts of learning and
through that, initiate a heuristic tree of learning
where similar ideas are filed, allowing the user to
"understand" the material first and then to appreciate
an internal decision on how to analyze it for relevance
without the preaching of a dogmatic teleology to the
work shadowing any interpretation with a disbelief in
individual interpretation itself.
As often happens, we resort to metaphor when talking
about art itself. We could call it the science of
metaphorical epistemology, e.g. how to give lyrical
significance to a world by symbolizing interpretation
on top of mundane description, but more likely we could
simply borrow Count Grishnack's phrase, "to stimulate
the fantasy of mortals."
Role of the Postmodern in Art of the late 20th Century
It's a ludicrous thing to attempt to communicate using
a word as charged as "Postmodernism," since most of
what that did mean, or could have meant, or might have
meant, is enmeshed in the entropic chaos emerging from
the polemic of the new freedom to do what looks like
stripping all structure from reality.
To explore postmodernism as an idea, it is best to
return to its origins. After the rise of industry and
the philosophy of Nietzsche, the world was a nihilistic
place caught in the quandary of that philosopher's most
famous statement "God is dead - and we have killed
him." Aware of its lack of values but unable to
divorce itself from a commercial path, the world was
settling into a lifestyle of emptiness and commercial
vapidity yet to come. And awaiting two world wars.
Writers such as James Joyce and William Faulkner
demonstrated a new method of thinking in their
contorted and highly technical novels, showing the
underlying human consciousness unexpressed in the
socialized self-justifying "self" used to survive a
brutal and often bitter world.
With its intense power of analysis and metaphorical
connection, postmodernist writers also tackled history,
reinterpreting it as a study for worldview, as Joyce
did in "Ulysses" with a technical re-articulation of
language through the ages and its evolving meaning.
Similarly Nietzsche, a renowned philologist (one who
studies the interpretation of history through
linguistic analysis), used words carefully to trace and
revive meaning in otherwise placeless events or
traditions, interpretations.
Postmodernism's basically positive outlook carried an
underlying shriek born of understanding the
metaprinciples of several sciences: to murder the
organic cycles of life by imposing an artificial and
simplistic "order" of material consumption is an error
indicating our refusal to accept the weight of making
decisions in an increasingly overwhelmingly complex
world. Joyce likened the everyday man to a great and
mythologically complex hero Odysseus, whose ten year
journey from a distant moronic war (an early Viet Nam
style "police action" no doubt) back home is marked at
every step by a cretinous evil opposing a natural ally
through mutual respect.
In a Joycean interpretation of the mundane, the
external world has significance in its symbology of
where we place our lives and expectations as a global
organism, and if our communication decays from language
into granular symbology (ikons) decisions will no
longer carry any differentiating value to their varied
outcomes, leading to an aimless nihilism and spiritual
darkness. Further writers such as William S Burroughs,
Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLilo confirmed a growing
horizon of massed uncertainty: the age of information
overload resulting in meaninglessness.
It's as if Dada, in its "reaction" to Modernism, had
created the babble that interpreted an unawareness of
the same babble, and this was integrated into a logical
system such as the structuralist nihilism and systemic
analysis of the Postmoderns. Postmodernism is not an
"answer" to modernism; it is a meta-modernism: an
interpretation of modernist principles in a data
structure spanning the highest abstract to the most
granular, earthy detail.
So now we consider the value that Postmodernism would
have to progressive industrial rock, aka heavy metal
and associated movements, in the time after hope? We
can see in metal movements a mirror of the history of
humanity, from the strict romanticism of Black Sabbath,
to the modernist righteousness of a moral authority
Metallica, to the darkness and existential nihilism of
a fiery fury of hatred Slayer, and from this
progression we can interpret the history of humanity
"as we know it" as a global maturation of the human
consciousness for artificial information and the need
for abstract comprehension and most of all, coherent
order, that comes with the communicative complexity of
a modern age.
Now in the spirit of both the Modern and the
Postmodern, let us interpret the history of human
philosophical systems until the present time as the
struggle for worldview that they have been, and then
project a series of futures and how metal music, as an
evolving philosophy, addresses them.
Classic history is all we've got so far that can give
us a start, but the facts being in it's reasonable to
say most of this stuff comes from a more innocent age
and is mostly not forged - something we can rarely say
about data from the twentieth century, when politicized
media portrayals have functioned powerfully to bias our
perception. In this view of social evolution, the
first written legal code addressing societal issues was
written by a king in the decayed remains of Sumeria
after the Akkadians (Semites from the Arabian/Israeli
area) invaded and absorbed what culture they did not
destroy.
Hammurabbi's code was a material interpretation of law.
If you killed another man's wife by accident, you could
"recompense" him by paying him a certain part of your
income. If another injured you, you were "owed" an
amount of money to justify the intrusion. The later
evolution of "an eye for an eye" truisms was based in
this idea, as, eventually, was the Christian protestant
concept of divine grace, where those who did as the
will of God was were rewarded materially.
During the millenium following the age of Hammurabbi,
Judaism became the primary religion of the Middle East
to oppose the more Western thoughts of the Roman and
Greek empires, as well as the evolving Indo-European
civilization stretching from Scandinavia to
Afghanistan. Its insistence upon divine
"righteousness" or correctness to behavior made it a
natural philosophical system for understanding the
material tokens of a technological realm: money.
In this age, money was at a low stage of evolution and
so there were none of the resources for making and
losing imaginary fortunes that there are today. And
for most, it was a mundane concept - money was only
useful to have things to live. But newer thinkers saw
that putting together resources allowed technology to
propagate, and, in doing so, generated its own consumer
base. Various societies enduring varying periods of
adaptation to this idea.
When the peak of Judaism's influence rose, a
counter-movement rose from its orthodoxy, in which a
liberal interpretation might be taken at an abstract
level in order to escape adaptations to the past.
Jesus Christ, as a reasonably intelligent Hebrew
prophet, sought to liberate the soul of his religion
from form and in doing so, hoped to translate
spirituality to an articulation not found in symbols
but personal connection to the absolute.
Interestingly, the extremity and quantitative nature of
the conception behind what becomes a very organic
proposition is based in the logical systems of the
Roman and the conquered Greeks whose knowledge was
absorbed, some through Macedonian and Arabian
connections whose portrayal of Sumerian _gnostics_
brought ideas from the Quabbalah and other pagan
spiritual technology into the mixture.
Christianity, as the fusion of Greco-Roman culture and
Judaism, has an interesting abstraction behind all of
its technology, where the duality of mind and body is
portrayed in a denial of self in favor of symbologic
victory "for the next life." This removes the more
organic reality of the Jews, whose pragmatic belief was
for action in the current life, but whose abstract
basis of comprehension still rested in an absolute God
whose favor determined success or failure,
Darwinistically.
We imagine the past happened in black and white, or
cave paintings. But more likely it was as flavorful as
time is now, with humans with a similar if not
comparable intelligence, trapped in the impotence of a
pretechnological age but also free from the rigors of
human neurosis in an age when symbols dominate. As
scientistis discover ancient cave paintings of great
complexity (32,000 years ago) and American land
dwellers of multiracial complexity (8,000-12,000 years
ago), it becomes apparent that ages before our own
existed in greatness and health.
Indeed, in the western hemisphere we are used to this:
the great Aztec, Maya (Toltec, Olmec), Inca, Cherokee,
Sioux, Comanche and Apache once walked our shores.
Most perished for the material value of their religious
idols; it seems most of these societies banished
personal materialism with a religion glorifying
sacrifice of the absolute but meaningless to abstract
gods. But these changes helped "finance" the discovery
of a new world for resource exploitation as the
religion behind its impetus justified it.
Industry moved toward social domination during a time
when poverty struck many parts of Europe, and so worker
domination was not unheard of. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
reflected on this a generation later, but the peak
occurred as the last of the idle wealthy as a social
class reflected in romantic poetry upon the beauty and
potential of life. In the moralistic public conscience
of Christian politics, the spreading of this wealth to
all was the idea, and to do so in any way possible was
the only path to righteousness.
It was seen as following justice, mercy and compassion
to be democratic, and to enforce equality where not
possessive. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) addressed
this tendency in his _The Genealogy of Morals_, which
suggested that the quest for character and morality to
life was an avoidance of the question as individuals of
how we want to spent our time, and, behind that
question, what it is that we value. Nietzsche's work
suggested the most of social justification and stronger
was, quite frankly, a scam which covered up the real
agenda, or subtext, of profit-making and power-dealing
as ways of denying mortality and doubt.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) stated his case in _On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection_, in
which what was first interpreted as a rebuke to
Christian theology but later assimilated as its
pseudoscientific justification, an articulation of the
process of evolution, made the backbone of a scientific
description of the world's occurrence.
After the hysteria, Christians and Jews alike began to
accept the ideas - could these not be the meachanisms
of an all-powerful deity? Indeed: if one
backward-interprets Darwinian logic from the present
time, any of one's successes or failures are judged to
be "decisions" in an evolutionary tree of a perfected
world. If reward for being one of God's allies comes
in material form, would it not be fair to say that
material favor constitutes success - _evolutionary_
success as part of the plan of God?
With this morality entered its final stage of
development where, with its basis in an actual process
of "God" rendered incoherent, faith became an
interpretation based in the evolutionary process as a
perfection. Interpreted in a social pattern, as it was
as soon as 95% of the working population were
accustomed to hourly wages and an hour-value for their
time, social Darwinism became an explanation for
success or failure as external to human control: divine
choice through earthly method.
This assaulted the older ideal of Platonic separation
between abstract and real, claiming that the abstract
existed only in the significance of the real, where not
totally inapplicable. Morality was inherent in what
the result was, and not the intent or significance of
the action. Hence even reprehensible criminality
became accepted in a commercial society. This theory
was in its nascent formation at the time of Nietzsche,
and growing toward a dogma during the nihilistic shock
of the age of Joyce and Faulkner.
Since the time of these thinkers, society has become
more technologically-empowered than ever before, and
Judeo-Christianity remains the dominant philosophical
justification behind the great empires of North
America, Europe, and the Middle East. However, in
America, the rate of dissenters has risen dramatically
since the focused public intent reacting to the
monolithic violence of imminent WWII.
Our counterculture, or "sub-culture", reacted
powerfully against the rising of an empire whose goals
betrayed their justification. The degradation of the
beatnik 1950s and the instability of a peacenik late
1960s are testimonies to the demographic influence of
rebellion, but the question has always been, where to?
A successful rebellion is not possible without either
solving or finding an adaptation to the conditions
suggesting impulse to rebel, and so far social
rebellions have most commonly remained part of the same
thought process of the mainstream society: a
morality-based, modernist politicism based in the
materialism of Judeo-Christianity as interpreted
through socially accepted science. Many movements have
decayed in their age into a parody of their former
selves; having lost passion, their only option is the
same materialism they once rebuked.
Generation X, a maturing crop of technologically- savvy
children, found the inversion of values in their
parents to be a sickening symbol of the death of hope.
Their parents, who were around in the late 1960s,
survived the same instability that prompted a
hyper-activism on the part of music: Black Sabbath
invented a spiritual approach toward complex modern
issues, and cloaked it in the machine-like sounds of
logical structures shaped from basic chords and
classically-influenced melody. Heavy metal was born
from that fusion of future and past, expressing a new
interpretation of an older order through the coming
darkness of the current order's technology.
Several generations later, metal remains strong, mostly
through a rigorous ideology which dictates what is
"true" and what is not; that which is "true" has a
consistent belief structurally evident that the
principles of nihilism, existentialism, and
anarchism/Satanism are reconciliable with ancient
concepts of honor and value, a tradition leading
through both Judeo-Christianity and pagan
(Asatru/Greco-Roman) interpretations of the Sumerian
gnostic ideal. (Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra"
addresses the dualistic ideology of Zoroastrianism, a
religion based on the material abstractions from
Sumerian mythology, an the origin of the good/evil
polarity as found in Judeo-Christian mythos.)
We can "sort of" understand the current cultural abyss
as "modern culture": it too has been subverted to feed
the dominant paradigm of dogma, and as such holds only
utilitarian and moral tokens, all of which can be seen
in its products: mercy and compassion over all, with a
strong underpinning of guilt and fear of natural
environment, and a happiness that results from material
value and "pleased" responses from others. The
symbology of modern times is a holdover from the last
renaissance mixed with a Darwinistic morality: there is
a way out of the darkness through learning, science and
technology, as long as it is used with _virtue_. Our
virtue has, after the vast corruptions of the cold war
unfurled, that no ideology had virtue and that inert
and harmless behavior was therefore the only virtue.
This kind of conditioning has been with us through the
ages, and so far has assimilated every system of
philosophy or ideology into some form of "product": a
symbolic existence whose entire purpose has been
subverted to reduction of individual will so that it
may serve a "collective goal" of continuing power for
an elite (there have been some exceptions, and many
argue that Hitler was one). One removes the coat of
choice and replaces it with morality, which could be
interpreted to read "I'm with the good guys." Because
God rewards the powerful, the good guys are _always_
the guys in control.
Examining metal as a postmodern culture, we find great
evidence of that ideological presence where logically
coherent with the other beliefs of the genre. A
gritty, distorted voice and constantly distorted
instruments break the clarity of symbology; lyrics with
metaphor of fantasy, journey, violence and might
reinforce both an awareness of mortality and a desire
to explore beyond it (what Nietzsche would call
crossing the "abyss," or the spiritual darkness created
by the doubt arising from the implications of external
control in awareness of death). It is death-shaman
music, like Jim Morrison's Doors were: bringing back
hope from the world beyond death.
Around us we see the usual decay of human ideals into a
pragmatic obedience to doubt, the "might be" which
conveys terror and coincidence of deadly action. It
is, as many "ideals" have been through history, a call
to throw down the difficult process of making decisions
in exchange for obedience to a cult of power which
rewards its disciples with tangible "idealizations" to
substitute for the ambiguous, metaphysical reality
behind the power of symbology and metaphor.
Generation X-Y-Z-0 find themselves facing the difficult
choice of producing an ideology to handle their world,
if possible to improve it, and on the fly because
although technology evolves toward a post-scarcity
social system, there is a deficit in the damage done to
the environment, and the corruption of our society to
the point where they shoot each other in high schools.
Postmodern thinking and its seeming nemesis, F.W.
Nietzsche, together speak a language of avoidance of
the "void" or "abyss" through creativity, an ethics
rather than a moral standard, and intoxication.
In this there is a place for metal: by embracing the
taboo, that being the triad of hedonism, nihilism, and
structuralist mysticism, metal becomes the foremost
vanguard of a new form of existence which hopes to
transcend the crisis of modern consciousness at an
abstract level and thus, to free us from war with and
sadistic torment of ourselves.
4.1.5.4 Language of Art
Art speaks a consciousness of the world beyond the
visible through a complex set of structures deployed as
metaphor: the visual and intellectual familiarity of
ideas overlaid to create a structural vision of overall
similarity, cloaked in an aesthetic vision which unites
its significance to the living being and its intricate
emotional intelligence.
Metaphor
The use of extended simile - comparison of two
objects, ideas, or entities - to create a
comparison of worlds as a mirror of the
encircling aspect of reality to a single
consciousness, kept in contrast with a spiritual
component of metaphor that constantly hints at an
larger interconnection of consciousness itself.
Subconscious
Postmodern thought targets the subconscious mind
with its often grandiloquent collages of
juxtaposition of imagery and abstract; the
belief, arising from the work of Sigmund Freud
(based on the work of Nietzsche) and C.G. Jung,
that the subconscious is the seat of the real
interplay which decides our conscious decisions
was assimilated early into artistic thought,
which knew it easily as the language of dreams.
Metachange
Artistic intent does not involve direct change in
a specific material situation but aims for an
overall evolution of intellectual and emotional
capacities of the human population as a whole,
through those who appreciate art and those who
create it. Art defines the cycle as the current
method of survival, our "world view"; art defines
the meta-cycle as the concept or change that will
increase the complexity of the cycle by a level
in order to allow its own transcendence: a
recognition of its meaninglessness in the face of
broader opportunity offered by change.
Chaos
In pre-Modern times, Chaos was the sign of a
midieval daemon of mythological power: a
regression to atavism and savagery. Modernism
made it a raw force of no potential which could
be trapped and destroyed by technology, which
asserted a much more rigid and simplified order.
Writers such as Thomas Pynchon and William S
Burroughs suggest, along with Nietzsche, that a
reduction in _natural_ complexity will lead to a
failure of our will to live in, as Pynchon would
call it, "entropy" of decisional capability.
4.1.5.5 Methods of Worldview
To understand the modern time, it is useful to
traverse these brief points about varying belief
systems.
Zoroastrianism (0.9B)
Dualistic system in which adaptations of
Sumerian gods fight out good and evil in drama
for the future of what would become the
beginning.
Judaism (1.0)
Pseudo-dualistic system which preached genetic
identity as a method of identifying with
righteousness, as an extension of the might of
God.
Christianity (2.0)
A material morality based on mercy in the name
of the ancient god of Judaism, who had become
humbled and all-caring as a way of
neutralizing strong and natural emotion
through passive aggression.
Islam (2.4)
Extends Christian ideal toward an absolute
abstract and hints at transcendence of self.
Hinduism (2.6)
A similar extension of projection to a logical
objectivist reduction of systemics to an
exploration of being.
Scientology (2.8)
The bicameral mind exhalted to the stage of a
self-reductionism and discipline, a
self-identity-denial religion that provides a
useful model for high functionality.
Buddhism (3.0)
A religion based on denial of the physical
self as a means to spiritual release and
acceptance of the world as whole.
"Strife is evolution, peace is degeneration."
- Varg Vikernes, http://www.burzum.com/
4.2 Other net resources
Having a framework of reference resources allows the consumer
to make more informed decisions, thus strengthening the genre
with his/her choices instead of working to tear it down as is
the current marketing model. Information spreading is vital
to the survival of metal culture.
4.2.1 WWW
This author cannot speak comprehensively for the Net,
and so issues general pointers to starting points for Net
metal exploration:
- http://www.anus.com/metal/: The Dark Legions
archive has reviews by this author as well as
information and analysis of death metal, black metal,
speed metal, heavy metal and grindcore bands; it is
unique for its philosophical and sociological analysis
of metal.
- http://web.telia.com/~u85305577/music/:
Thomas Wolmer's massive site of meta lists and genre
trees, worth visiting for its high content of
underground information.
- http://www.blackmetal.com/~mega/: Mega has
assembled one of the larger sites of discographic
information and metal news.
- http://www.puredeath.org/kcuf/: All of the
new, the old, the excellent and the scary in metal
during this radio show for hardcore Hessians.
- http://www.hessian.org/: The Hessian Studies
Center is a political action group for metalheads
worldwide.
There is a "link forest" maintained on ANUS.COM for the
Dark Legions Archive which will be more current than
the above:
http://www.anus.com/metal/about/links
4.2.2 IRC
Internet Relay Chat, while being a bastion of the petty
and authoritarian, has some useful contributions in the
form of active worldwide metalhead chat. Check out these
channels for metal discussion:
#metal
#death_metal
#black_metal
#blackmetal
#blackplague
#deathmetal
#blackdeathmetal
#666
#hessian
#slayer
#burzum
#metal_rulez
#sodomy
4.2.3 ICQ
Deja.com (a USENET retrieval reference) tracks ICQ numbers
posted in a common format. A search in the groups
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death and alt.music.black-metal will
utilize our informal method for locating ICQ addresses.
4.2.4 Email lists
There are both too many to list, and none of clear quality,
at this time.
4.3 People
One way humans understand other cultures is to explore the
personalities inside.
4.3.1 Who listens to metal?
Many people ask, do "normal people" listen to metal, or do
we all come from beyond the pits of hell? The answer is
gratifyingly and surprisingly mundane: one of the greatest
benefits of metal's lack of grounding in any automatic
tradition is that those who become Hessians choose this
culture and determine their own principles within it, so
they are essentially normal people who have by choice
elevated their consciousness to a metal method. So
although we are "normal" on the outside, it takes
something pretty rare to want to become a Hessian.
"Generally, metal fans are human beings who have grown up
in similar environments to most people in their areas of
origin, with worldwide presence in a Poisson
distribution."
- goat@anus.com
Metallians, Headbangers, Metal People, etc.
In Albania they're called Metalist or Metalari
In Argentina Metalero
In Belgium hard-rockeurs or Metal Heads
In Brasil Metaleiros
In Canada freaks or dirties
In Chile Metaleros, Metalicos, rockeros
In Colombia los metaleros
In Finland Metallisti
In Greece Metallades or, in early '80s Heavymetallades
In Hungary Metalosok pronounced "metaaloshock"
In Italy Metallari or Metalloni
In Nova Scotia, Canada freaks
In Poland Metallista
In Portugal Metalicos
In Puerto Rico Metallicos
In Romania Metalisti
In Russia Metalist
In Slovenia Metalci
In Spain Heavies
In Sweden Hårdrockare (those who listen "Hårdrock", the
Swedish word for both heavy rock and Heavy Metal)
In Ukraine Metalist
In USA Metal Heads
In Venezuela Rockeros
In Yugoslavia (and also Croatia) Metalaci pronounced
"metaalatzi"
- excerpt from "A Heavy Metal FAQ,"
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/3376/metalfaq.ht
ml
4.3.2 How to find metal fans?
Unsurprisingly, our best suggestion is to go to metal
events, metal (virtual) communities or your local
metalhead with a fat joint in your hand. Metalheads
congregate around what they know as metal when they're
thinking metal, and otherwise are normal people, except
for long hair, tshirts and some fundamental belief
differences.
4.4 Bands
It seems exaggerated the amount of confusing regarding bands
and the treatment thereof that permeates certain sectors of
the community, so this section addresses the subject with
some quick pointers for the otherwise unalerted.
4.4.1 Listings
Bands are listed in local newspapers, usually
entertainment specific papers like the "L.A. Weekly" or
"Alternative Press" or "Metropolitan Times."
4.4.2 Approaching
When approaching bands, walk with respect. Remember that
no matter how "normal" these guys seem, they've taken big
chunks of their life and time and put it into the project
of their music, so on some level they are serious creators
and deserve respect and compassion in understanding.
Also, many of them smoke marijuana or drink beer, so
bringing those is always a touching way to make a
karmic-deductible donation to the cause of human futures.
4.5 AE's
4.5.1 Metal AE
+1 201 879 6668 (8N1)
PW: KILL
================================================================
(c) Copyright 1994-2006 Hessian Studies Center @ www.hessian.or
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