Heavy Metal Music, Culture and Philosophy FAQ (Metal as Concept 3/3 )
The Hessian Studies Center
Posting-frequency: semimonthly
Last-Modified: 16-Mar-2006
2.3.2 Influences
In addition to having core tenets of belief, metal also has a
long heritage of influences whose ideas or responses to the
same have provided foundational, contextual material
regarding the time and space of the genre's evolution
(background).
2.3.2.1 Ideologies
Ideologies are united by a belief in the human ability to
better its existence, and an understated logicality in
which some form of rationalism is needed for coherence
with the collective.
2.3.2.1 Rationalism
Can be summed up easily with the idea that a systematic
process of logical thought will provide the germinal
material for a practical solution or creative
contribution even in a lawless and chaotic natural
context. Looming out of the advancements in theory of
Europe after the Renaissance, Rationalism was a
restatement of a historically consistent theme in human
thought which underscored the Scientific Method, which
had recently be used by the same European empires to
provide the basis for an industrial revolution.
2.3.2.2 Autonomism
Anarchy, or the political state in which there is no
leadership and the ideological state in which no
leadership is wanted, decayed from its own politicism
and the inherent materialist, power-control structure
to politics. Fading at the same time as punk rock,
anarchist culture produced believers in autonomism, a
philosophy in which the independence of all beings is
the highest goal, and each being is seeking a way out
of a natural state of confusion into a
self-definitional state after which comes greater
freedom of intellect.
2.3.2.3 Existentialism
A very alcoholic writer once summed up Existentialism
with the simple switch, "Existence before Essence";
however, this provides a great place to start a context
comparison between Existentialism and the prevailing
flavor of Utilitarian logic prevailing at the time.
Christianity and its forefather Judaism believed in an
inherent and inexorable logic to a world controlled
from another system of logic by an omnipotent "god", a
situation in which one's moral "essence" would be
connected to one's creation off-camera by an
omnipresence. Existentialism freed the human to admit
a developing consciousness, and thus to self-refine
according to where one found joy. Existentialism was
heavily influenced by transcendentalists who in turn
had been inspired by the Romanticists before them, and
carried with it the revolution of philosophy in the age
of the twilit gods: a further science of spiritual
insight so that a wide range of individuals could
perceive and think dissimilarly but remain unified by
abstract logical agreements.
2.3.2.4 Buddhism
The evolution of eastern religion from a caste system
into a peaceful, self-empowering religion, Buddhism is
an example of intense "spiritual technology" from which
participants find an increasing clarity in perception
and valuation. Among its many core concepts are the
ideas of meditative calm, enhanced perception,
ego-reduction, self-abstraction and parallel views of
reality.
2.3.2.5 Classicism
Classicism is a study and belief in the older
civilizations in the western world such as the Romans,
Greeks, Scandinavians, Sumerians and Egyptians, all of
whom had legal systems, some technology, learning, and
a lack of morality in their belief structures. Their
gods were personalities who represented recombinant
elements in nature, combining in stories which
displayed a patterning of the troubled souls of ancient
peoples. These societies perished, some might say,
from their own success: they got large without the
ability to control that largeness, and so relapsed into
anarchy and death.
2.3.2.6 Structuralism
Structuralist philosophies have existed for some time
but a recent resurgence came after the logical
rejection in Dada and other collagist philosophies
which sought to eliminate a meaning not inherent in
life through a randomness calibrated to defeat
intellectual analysis. Structuralism is an evolution
of Rationalism to the next level, in a technological
age where any problem is a design issue, to be solved
by changing the structure of the object(s) or
process(es) based on logical deductions and
corresponding creative outpouring.
2.3.2.7 Transcendentalist
Transcendentalist thought has been part of many
philosophies and will hopefully never go away, because
it's a positive and universal view of life. Such
scientific mystics as Emerson who found a deeply
personal connection to nature and a complex beauty in
the larger system of life established Transcendentalism
as an idea in art and philosophy, but transcendentalist
ideals are also common to Buddhism, Romanticism and
Existential thought.
2.3.2.2 Thinkers
As influential as ideologies were and are, they often
consist of choices made in thoughtful response to the
ideas presented by any number of writers or thinkers or
performers. Hence this listing.
2.3.3.2.2.1 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Born into a religious family, young Nietzsche showed a
gift for scholarship and became successful enough that,
by his early twenties, he held a professorship at a
prestigious university teaching philology, or the study
of the evolution of meaning through language, and
ancient Greek tragedic theatre. Over the course of the
next thirty years he bashed out multiple treatises on
philosophy which were innovative, forceful, articulate,
artistic and honest, granting them eventual approval
with a worldwide audience.
Nietzsche's philosophies centered around existential
valuation, objectivism, and freedom from the mental
weakness of morality as expressed in Judaism and
Christianity. His works as a result promoted the
predator over the prey, rejected pity and guilt, and
affirmed a physical existential experience as a
fundamental anchor of the self to world. To this day
he is not widely understood, and his works are known
for having inaugurated in the postmodern era, a
humanity after facing the stark naked empty reality of
its existence.
2.3.3.2.2.2 Immanuel Kant
A strict and diligent philosopher, Kant was nonetheless
marked by the inconsistency and often evasion of his
thought; led by the developing ideas he had toward
certain conclusions, he would equivocate where they
conflicted with fundamental ideals of his Christianity,
leading to some "hypothetical" conclusions used to wrap
up the whole of his philosophy. That aside, Kant laid
down the first epistemological view of modern
philosophy and build a core structure of philosophical
concepts and the boundaries of knowledge which remains
useful today. His work in technical philosophy,
especially moral philosophy, enabled him to clearly
define the lines which would become battlefields in the
future of 20th century philosophy. His importance to
metal musicians comes mostly through his identification
of the "perceptual filter," or a mask of association
through memory which we as thinking beings use to
reduce the complexity of external reality through
tokenization. As metal journeys further into the
postmodern, the model of strict consciousness which
Kant developed becomes more and more useful in
deconstructing reaction to limitless chaos.
2.3.3.2.2.3 J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a professor of the
English language at Oxford during the first half of the
twentieth century, infusing his fascination with
Germanic themes of honor and ancient mythology into a
fantasy series involving a "middle earth" where magic
and science were one. His works, which emphasized the
journey over the end result, and a sense of personal
integrity over external morality, are the third most
popular cause of Hessianism, after Dungeons & Dragons
and marijuana.
2.3.3.2.2.4 Jim Morrison
James Douglas Morrison was born to a father who was an
Admiral in the U.S. Navy, served under a classicist
society of the 1950s, and came into his own at film
school in the early to middle 1960s in Los Angeles,
California. His subsequent project, the Doors, became
the first truly dark rock n roll/pop band and laid down
many thematic and musical paradigms metal bands would
later reference in their innovation.
2.3.3.2.2.5 Adolf Hitler
Like this man needs a biographical sketch - everyone
knows the name "Hitler" and most are heavily
indoctrinated to fear it, although few - even his
celebrators - understand much of his philosophy. As an
articulate and intelligent youth in Austria of the late
1800s, Hitler declared his will to become an artist and
set forth to become such, surviving rejection from
various schools and eventually, from the monetary
machine that was society. Lingering in the city where
he had found himself first on that path, Hitler as an
offshoot of his learning process became involved in
politics, in which he cofounded the most extreme party
ever to be popular in a European nation: the National
Socialist Democractic Worker's Party, or NSDAP. His
philosophies rested on a concept of fulfillment of
will, finding meaning beyond nothingness, and an
absolute sense of love for environment, history, and
self. Even after the long-fought and bloody defeat of
the German nation and Hitler's subsequent suicide and
cremation, his legend lives on in several thousand
National Socialist movements active worldwide, as well
as in recent metal bands.
Metal bands paying tribute (but not necessarily
allegiance) to Hitler through use of symbols, lyrics
and/or public statements:
Motorhead
Slayer
Bathory
Burzum
Darkthrone
Metal bands identifying themselves as National
Socialist:
Graveland
Legion of Doom
Veles
This covers the "classic" era of black metal. For more
information on Nazi metal bands, try:
http://www.nsbm.org/
Site devoted to Nazi metal.
http://www.splcenter.org/
Site devoted to hating Nazi metal.
2.3.3.2.2.6 William S. Burroughs
The infamous writer of "Naked Lunch," William S.
Burroughs, is known as much for his heroin addiction as
for his contributions to literature, including what
might be called the first truly postmodern novel in
"Naked Lunch." However, his contributions were vast,
starting with his "cut up" style of literature which
would weave a complexity of connections between
granular sections of text randomly recontextualized in
a chronological narrative. The philosophies of
individual freedom, control, darkness and politics
contained within "Naked Lunch" and subsequent works
("The Nova Express","The Ticket that Exploded","Cities
of the Red Night") provided an unfathomably
universalist basis to metallion rejection of authority,
conformity, and materialist aesthetics.
2.3.3.2.2.7 William Blake
One of the first transcendental poets to articulate his
ideas in a structured metaphorology designed to
transcend the calcification of Christianity, Blake
spoke of sensual and intellectual excess as salvation
for the soul and invented a form of morality based in
joy which used its romanticism as a basis for its
respect and fascination with life. Blake's detailed
exposures of human reason and fear at its most primal
and yet most symbolologic delivered a scientific
mysticism to those who came after him (including Jim
Morrison and William S Burroughs!) a shadow in which
motion was possible, a darkness which mostly concealed
a limitless beauty of freedom.
2.3.3.2.2.8 Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft
Writer of horror and other imaginative tales, the lurid
and detail-oriented Poe captured complete control of
the attention of his readers through shaped,
articulated and very controlled words. Similarly,
Lovecraft developed mythologies from simple brutality
and built a spiritual structure of a phenomenology of
evil from the myths of Ancient Sumeria combined with
his perceptions of pre-religious darkness and fear.
Together these writers contributed much of the basis of
gore and horror and adventure in fantasy that pervades
metal in the current time.
2.3.3.2.2.9 Ralph Waldo Emerson
An American thinker and writer, R.W. Emerson remains
most famous for his philosophies surrounding
transcendentalism, or the belief that one can overcome
limitations and error in life through enlightened,
spiritual, meta-conscious thinking. He asserted that
redemption could be found only in one's own soul and
intuition, and encouraged those who were inspired by
his words to turn back toward nature and introspection
instead of relying on an increasingly externalized
society.
2.3.3.2.2.A John Milton
An English minister and poet, John Milton conceived and
wrote the epic poem, "Paradise Lost," in which Satan is
portrayed as a beautiful angel who rejects servitude in
heaven and is exiled in flame, only to learn how to
love the barren but self-decisional realm of Hell.
2.3.3.2.2.B Metal
Historical list of bands important to ideological
development of the genre as a whole, and why they were
important.
- Black Sabbath
- Iron Maiden
- Judas Priest
- Motorhead
- Metallica
- Hellhammer
- Bathory
- Slayer
- Morbid Angel
- Suffocation
- Entombed
- Darkthrone
- Burzum
2.3.2.3 Counterculture
Starting in the late 40s American society slowly began to
fragment after the pragmatism of focus on supremacy that
had been the war effort which made the country a
superpower had worn itself down in the contradiction of
positivity and planning for nuclear warfare. Partially
because of the intense political polarization along lines
of materialistic duality (capitalist/communist) the social
structure had become fascist and so dissenters were
alienated, dropout characters who had to write their own
book of survival.
2.3.2.3.1 Hippie
As Black Sabbath grew into what it would be the hippie
movement was carrying through the aftermotions of
flowering in order to fully sell out, having peaked at
perhaps a 1967-68 frame in which it expressed its
ideology and desires. Hippies were hedonistic,
semi-naturalist, anti-material-value, open to dynamic
or chaotic action and peaceful/stoned as a collective
character trait.
2.3.3.1.5 Beat
In the late 50s and early 60s as American culture
ground itself further into commercial uniformity and
categorical boundariededness another subculture grew up
which addressed the existential loss of American
culture with am embrace of the impermanent, the
powerless, the divinely mundane, in an effort to spread
the word of value in life. Their fascination with the
distorted, macabre and placeless, drifting existence
which metaphorizes the modern lack of groundedness
expressed a subconscious fear of the times which would
precipitate coming social unrest.
2.3.3.3.3 Biker
As far as everyone can tell a universal culture, bikers
are the Gypsys of the industrial age with a nomadic
existence outside of economic planning and therefore
responsibility and reactivity. The party keeps rolling
and the nihilism of the road is welcomed as it keeps
all things from having meaning and a debt associated
with their maintenance.
2.3.3.1.6 Punk
Punk culture rebelled against the status quo with a
total rejection of value and a nihilistic embrace of
all that is worthless or destructive. It rejected
materialism with a pragmatism of homelessness. A sense
of romanticism founded a wandering nihilism, a violent
pointlessness and a refusal to accept anything at face
value. Since it had been taken to such extremes, it
had become a characterizable appearance and sound which
was soon cloned, promoted, budgeted, destroyed.
2.3.3.1.7 Horror Films
The genre of horror films, despite on its commercial
end having some of the stupidest material ever produced
on celluloid calling it home, also communicates deeply
with the unconscious mind through imagery of possession
and entrapment by an unidentifiable but pervasive evil.
Its description of evil, and its portrayal of human
panic in reaction to it, won the horror film genre a
place in the hearts of many Hessians.
2.3.3.1.8 Drugs
No study of counterculture is complete without drug
culture, which by its absence of any fundamental
ideology guarantees its perpetuation through
generations of thought and flesh, to illustrate how
power and authority move through a simple model of
supply and demand. We can blame W.S. Burroughs and
Aldous Huxley for this. Once again, however, a
metaphorology of connections between the physical and
the mental.
2.3.3.1.9 Fascism
Extreme thought of all kinds has left an impression on
metal intellectuals, but none have had quite the
enduring effect or effective symbology of fascism,
especially the subset emerging in the emerging
German-Austrian blood nation of the early 1940s. Its
dedication to ideology, its naturalism, but most of all
- its design sensibilities, structural fluency, and
extreme goals - appeal to the sentiment which arises
from seeing freedom possible in a world of people who
would rather be trapped; from this anger arises. The
predominant icon of self-entrapment would be
Judeo-Christianity, the materialist philosophy behind
western morality and law that many blame for recurring
problems with social honesty and self-articulation.
The average person is degenerated by the same
Judeo-Christianity leaving him incapable of reasoning
on a higher level at all. If anybody talks bad about
the Jews, our world's prejudiced sub-humanity
automatically stamp him as the "Nazi-scum" or a
"prejudiced-fuck" and a "racist." The average person
does not even realize what the Jews are up to. Simply
read the bible (2 Mos 19:5, 5 Mos 6:10-19; 1-3,
16-24;20:10-17) and see for yourselves. What is more
racial than to claim to be "God's chosen people"? So
who is the real racists?
- Varg Vikernes, http://www.burzum.com/
2.3.4 Methods
What differentiates art from most normal forms of
communication is that art is not a referential causality
structure but a disconnected, purely abstract form of
expression in which reality is left as interpretation and
knowledge of the reader. It is a form of immortality not for
the author but for the experiential language with which it
expresses its time, place, and transcendence thereof. Some
argue that art can possibly be dogmatic, but for that to
occur, art loses its elegance as a metaphor and becomes a
command, which inevitably boils it down to someone telling
someone else "to be" something. Control. Art is
anti-control. Throughout the ages it has led the evolution
of society with visions of new ideas that appeal more to the
subconscious mind than the constant flow of ideas from the
articulative/conscious mind, allowing it to transcend time
and place and circumstance to communicate an ideal. Pure
aesthetics leads to almost instant boredom in that it has no
placement beyond the immediacy and thus creates a void in
time in which amusement was achieved, rather than a transfer
of data; this is solipsistic to both parties and results in
an expectation of null communication, a broken connection
rather than some new idea/creation.
"How do you account for the vision of the man possessed on
stage, and the man sitting before me?
We are quite the opposite to what is personified on stage.
Every band has it's own way of dealing with shit and if
they play this kind of music, or even just any extreme
music, maybe they are like that full time, maybe not. Like
we always say, people like Rick Astley are probably the
biggest wankers in the world.
They probably come off stage, and wanna kill kids. With
us, its the contrary, on stage we are executing the whole
other persona, in regular social conditions we are pretty
straight forward."
- Lemmy Kilmister, Motorhead
As much as any other form of expression has a purpose, art
does: to communicate that which is out of range for other
forms of known interaction. In art the surreal can be real
and the unstated the visually unavoidable, so there is a
tendency to explore our minds with a rendering engine of
mnetal projection. Metal uses this projection to communicate
a bond to existence outside of social conditioning and
materialism, creating an ideology of freedom and chaotic
possibility which by accepting death instills more hope than
those who deny darkness.
After the industrial age, we in the information age look to
the next age, when we've as a species had some time to play
with our new toys. In the information age, the
highly-trained are valued; in the post-information age, the
highly intuitive and powerfully analytic at an organic level
are intensely valued. When machines have handled the
mundane, pure thought will reign, if humanity does not
suicide first.
2.3.4.1 Metaphor
Metaphor is the primary expression of abstract
communication, by demanding that the user inference a
commonality between two events and by that, to understand
the "device" of the metaphor: how it functions as a truth
for a wide variety of input or context, and can take on an
ironic meaning the closer one comes to a full expression
of understanding its "truths": where its implication of
correspondence between two objects events methods is an
abstract match and there is information created by
knowledge of the similar workings of both entities.
2.3.4.1.1 metapatterning: comparing event to whole
Metaphor expands a mundane thing into a much larger
one, in many usages. Such a thing happens in metal,
where some of the most mundane activities on earth -
partying, mass slaughter - stand as metaphor for
existential doubt and resurrection overside the void.
These metaphors work both ways and so often in metal an
ancient legend is a form of diagnosis for the current
context of a work's reception. (Artists live two
lives; before they are discovered, they are able to
create and project, and, when they are known: when they
address a waiting audience with an evolving concept of
worldview and intellectual language.)
2.3.4.1.2 subconscious communication
Metaphor often "feels" right to individuals because
what it expresses is beneath the level visible by their
articulative mind, thus can be more complex than what
ordinary language, visual information or sound can
possess. The metaphorology of journeys, death, decay,
apocalypse, winter, death, war, and genocide in metal
are subconscious manipulations of our sense of reality
and the future it holds.
2.3.4.1.3 Post-quantitative Symbology
The Judeo-Christian revolution in western thought
brought with it great power because its theology and
worldview/theodicy supported the idea of quantitative
symbology, which worked around ages-old prohibitions on
division of existence. However, the tradition of
morality and character from which Judeo-Christianity
descended is fundamentally material, and so it is no
surprise that this foundational religious theory of
western thought after its invasion in 1100 AD has
supported the largest expansion in material wealth and
mechanical structure in history. As anything ages
however it approaches the time in which its
foundational principles need expansion and as such this
age is approaching for material aesthetics (morality)
as a philosophical doctrine, with whatever replaces it
facing a need for coherence in chaos and post-dystopic
society. Metaphor provides an insight to this kind of
thinking by associating a matrix of ideas with a
central narrative as a method of explaining options and
situational function to anyone willing to accept an
idea and manipulate it.
2.3.4.2 Metacognitive thinking
The ideology and metaphorology of metal stresses a
larger view of existence than the immediate and as such
produces thinking about the nature of thinking as a
means of interpreting the highly abstract.
2.3.4.2.1 Fantasies
Romanticism in metal stresses fantasies not of the
sexual but mythological or mystical nature, an emphasis
on creativity through a journey whose structure is
known. A greater metaphor is seen for existence in
which creativity and adventurousness are the traits
which survive the filtering of reality's demands.
2.3.4.2.2 Structure
Fundamentally based in melody rather than harmony as
most rock music is and interpreting that idea through
multiple metacognitive
worldviews/metaphysics/generations allows metal to
express structure
2.3.4.2.3 Autonomism
Since a metaphor is abstract, it must be interpreted
personally and in context, a case in which it will
apply objectively as it always has through a
translation of one's application of the idea to
circumstance. GIGO.
2.3.4.2.4 Will
To explore a metaphor, one must will to do so. It is
not an accidental process. There are more metalbands
with complex mythologies than one might expect; some
highlights: Morbid Angel, Immortal, Darkthrone.
2.3.4.2.5 Inertia
A martial art is the study of converting energy from an
intended percussive move to a continuous kinetic move,
deflecting violence while tiring the opponent while
ready to strike.
2.3.4.3 Postmodernism
A movement of reflection for society as it entered its
twentieth century development phase of technological
industrialism, a method of analysis known as postmodernism
arose as a new style of modernism which reaffirmed
traditional goals of rationalism, structuralism, and
transcendental metaphysics but to this added the
realizations of new interpretations in philosophy and
physics (Nietzsche and Einstein) as a means of explaining
the seeming isolation of being human when one is caught in
a matrix of powerful information which is dead to the
artificial arbitrary network of values society imposes for
the sake of control. Postmodernism emphasizes an
intergration of many different ideas into one,
articulation of the subjective persona behind authorship,
an aesthetic which in order to keep itself pure inverts
itself into the unmanageable, and an emphasis on structure
behind events rather than events themselves. Metal
manifests this to an absurd degree with its paranoid
obsession with the occult and the fundamental alignment of
different personalities of power.
2.3.4.3.1 Aesthetic
The constant distortion, grittiness, and organic
structures of death metal and black metal would appeal
to many postmodernists, as would the comedic antics of
exaggeratedly "evil" black metallers who are reflected
back to their audience a mockery of evil to illustrate
how the dichotomy is false, that there is only thought
and chaos. Taming chaos is a mystical science, so
mysticism is portrayed through minimalistic structures
which shift dynamically to demonstrate a nihilistic yet
existential worldview of exploration and growth (as
patterns in the music modulate into structures of great
spaciousness).
Bands that are evidently postmodern: Morbid Angel,
Darkthrone, Suffocation, Slayer, Demilich, Entombed,
Hellhammer, Burzum.
Bands that are evidently modern: Metallica, Testament,
Exodus, DRI, COC.
Bands that are romantics: Therion, Celtic Frost,
Cemetary, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden.
2.3.4.3.2 Structure
Structural emphasis in metal reflects a design that is
aware of chaos and how to channel it, indicating a
larger awareness than categorical or fixed data
structures which deliberately finds ways to articulate
musical ideas at more abstract, nihilistic, and
minimalistic levels. It removes metal from the
recombinant world of rock, based around the scale of
fixed intervals, and allows chromatic experimentation
for true pantonality.
2.3.4.3.3 Artistry
Usage of the techniques of art to new dimensions of
nihilistic exploration, even addressing the
relationship of art to viewer/hearer, postmodern works
often experiment with gritty production values, strange
or surreal tones, absurdist and extremist
structuralism. All of these apply to metal from Slayer
onwards; black metal and death metal owe their origin
to this idea break, which moved metal from its
classicist hearbroken nihilist motivations to a more
scientific and abstract, dissonant response to the
decay of human society into suicide.
2.3.4.3.4 Philosophy
A pervasive doubt and feeling of human helplessness
against the limits of perception permeated the
atmosphere that birthed postmodernism, in which a
morbid fascination with the conventionalized
implications of Nietzsche had the bean-counting sheep
of society in terror.
He removed a structure they found reasonable, and as a
result, the trauma resulted in much dramatics before
postmodernists explained the more positive side of
Nietzsche: if one understands him as a whole, not much
has changed in his view of existence from the status
quo, but a method of perceiving truth - a clearer one.
His innovations, like those of the Buddhists, were
primarily used to invent a spiritual technology for
perceiving the nihilistic roots of a chaotic nature,
avoiding superstition and seeking a mysticism rooted in
the logic of existential value.
Second-level interpretations of Nietzschean morality
analysis, power ethics and the resulting desire for
existential meaning can be found in such works as
"Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs, Ulysses by James
Joyce (who is arguably a modern), The Sound and the
Fury from William Faulkner and "Hell Awaits" by Slayer
- and all metal afterwards.
2.3.4.3.5 Presence
In much the same way as its invocation of the author
removes a barrier imposed by a media society,
postmodernism's presence as dogma (post-dogma?
meta-dogma?) in the active lives of its adherents
contributes to a trickle-down effect not only through
the politics and personal choices of that individual,
but through the lives of others who look up to that
individual if that individual "succeeds" in some
appreciable way.
2.3.4.4 Cultural individualism
One theory of self-identity suggests that one's self
identity should be relegated to those things literally
which are pleasures of the earth and her diversity itself,
but this leads to an unsettling suggestion of wholesome
values unless you couple it with intense drug use.
Especially in the last decade, intense culturalism has
permeated metal, some of it celebrating the cultures now
scorned for previous decades of nationalist activity.
2.3.4.4.1 Identity
In a Hessian ideological state, identity is relegated
to a simple statement of function that is unconnected
to being. Most normals will say, "I am a fry cook," or
whatever the occurrence of employment might be, but a
Hessian would probably say, "I'm here... I was
somewhere else, but now I'm here, and I'm thinking
about..." in an encounter that might likely end up
involving drug use.
2.3.4.4.2 Ideology
The concept of ideology as a product of individual
differentiation, e.g. according to most psychological
models as a level of development of personality and
intellect, is taken for granted in the Hessian
community. Where in mainstream society to have
political values other than "don't rock the boat" is as
it has been through all of history taboo, Hessians
carry a variety of extremisms, but any Hessian who has
been thinking about the music for a while and letting
it get into his/her blood will see the presence of
ideological values in the discipline, compassion and
personal relevance of such music. It's interpretive
artistic spirituality as culture.
2.3.4.4.3 Politics
Politics are the physical incarnation of one's
metaphysical and/or ideological structure. So one acts
out what one feels. Extremist politics in the
postmodern society reject society, conventional values,
morality, and ideas of punitivism, control, authority
and hierarchy. Most Hessian are anti-capital, but most
are also anti-communistic. They are pro-"A really new
way of doing things" in a world that promises new
innovation and delivers it under the same old terms.
2.3.4.4.4 Spiritualism
Through its metaphorical and systemic qualities, metal
is mystically inclined as much as it is by its romantic
qualities, if not more. The connection is a pragmatic
attitude to life as something that is beautiful not
through mystery but experience, the evolving construct
of information that is one's life. Such a metaphysical
view often requires an address of spiritualism to
explain its back-end significance, e.g. why such a
discipline was conceived. In the age of the end of
history, however, any source of hope is viewed
suspiciously as spiritual, since spiritualism remains
one of the few unquantified and hence vastly oversold
commodities on the planet.
2.3.4.4.5 History
With Black Sabbath, a postmodernist inversion was
reified as the subtle contextual morbidity and paranoid
fear of an increasingly technological society. The
bomb - and then, computers - 1984? Terror in the minds
of the people at this, as transmuted through music,
became a powerful method of channeling alienation. The
morbidity within was expressed without, allowing the
within to leave what was external there and to move on
its own, creating a space of inner peace in which
ambition could foment. Henceforth there have been
plenty of morbid metal bands, from Hellhammer to Morbid
Angel to Darkthrone to Ildjarn.
2.3.5 Events
2.3.5.1 Atomic bomb
2.3.5.1 In 1945, two atomic weapons were detonated over
large Japanese cities, ending WWII in the pacific, setting
the stage for the evolution of human power structures
after the war ended. The next forty-five years were a
precarious balance between two warriors nations who fought
only through proxy, never quite willing to invoke their
main means of defense, the nuclear weapon. True paranoia
sunk into a populace too patriotic to admit it, giving the
1950s a quaint appearance to us now.
2.3.5.2 Viet Nam
When Black Sabbath laid down the foundations for metal in
1969, not only was the world still at nuclear standoff but
also, the war in Viet Nam was going badly for the
Amerikans. Instability was present but not discussed as
to do so was to undermine the war effort which had never
ended. For some, the corporate thematics to the execution
and bureaucratic nature of the war in Viet Nam raised the
disturbing notion that underneath the "reasons why" for
the war which people acknowledged at a surface level of
social interaction, there was an insidious, materialistic
truth. In 1972, Thomas Pynchon wrote a book called
"Gravity's Rainbow" centered around this idea.
2.3.5.3 Reaganification
A return to the righteousness of the 1950s, in which a
justification of threat had been replaced by
ultrasimplification of politics in which material ethics
prevailed over ideology which was by its nature perverse,
since it did not accept the bounty of material as its
ideological goal. This was probably the most destructive
period in American history: when she highjacked her own
standards to push brutally forward in a political struggle
with no clear outcome. However, the social changes
brought about in this era were, like everything else in
the 1980s, a trend and so they flitted through the
viewfinder of history for several seconds before being
replaced by the newest morph.
2.3.5.3 End of Cold War
After the cold war ended, a great relief permeated the
period of instability following the interruption of the
balance of hegemony while inside itself, the politicized
portion of western thought forgot about most foreign
policy decisions. The warfront excess flooded society and
soon social control turned inward during an inreasing war
on drugs and a paranoid age of technological integration
of citizenship information. However, the main delineation
for this period is the vast apathy. There is nothing left
to prove, or do. We're out of the hot water but we're
still insane. So the greatest tension here is the entropy
of humanity slowing down for death.
2.3.5.4 Internet
When the Internet connected the world, what we saw was
that technology was making our lives remarkably similar in
different parts of the world. The unification of
information also gave one a greater view of the human
behavioral spectrum as a whole, revealing some of the
greatest insanity. Also, the Internet is living proof of
the postmodern theory of subtext, since the faceplate
always talks about customer service but the reality is
that everyone wants to download porn discretely.
2.3.5.5 Millenium
The coming of hte millenial change has forced neurosis
into apathy, creating a tension of unreality as the date
hovers near. Mass destruction fear is our public terror,
but our private fear is that it will not occur - thus
dooming us to the same apathetic existence we have known
in the presence of technology, where all basic problems
are solved and the consequent need for further space has
us feeding on ourselves. This illusionary cycle weighs
heavily on our minds as the guilt of our lack of
achievement weighs heavily at the second millenium marker.
2.4 Applicability
"And so what the hell does any of this have to do with
anything?" Well I'll tell ya. Subculture is important, because
originally it was the resistance to a dominant attitude that
determined reality through the expectancy in the human factors
at all levels, and because as Amerikan advertising agencies have
increasing pitched the hipness of the subculture, subculture
itself has moved away because of its ideological separation from
the main culture. In the age of ideas, we're seeing a
philosophical split and in the case of metal, a consistent one,
which makes it worth observing.
2.4.1 Musically
The influence of metal mainly spread to rock music, where its
techniques and tones are being practiced in other packaging.
2.4.1.1 Heavy music
The principles of detuning and using low E power chords
have made it into maistream music, a Black Sabbath
innovation worn into mainstream culture by countless doom
and speed metal bands.
2.4.1.2 Psychedelic/ambient
The sense of melody, and the breakdown of melody into
technologically specialized pieces, is something shared
between metal music and ambient/electronica, and
psychedelic music shares with metal its epic structures
and demanding melodic regimen.
2.4.1.3 Experimental violent
The rhythms and power chord geometries of metal have
fascinated many experimental musicians who have used them
to create extreme influences in varying genres.
2.4.1.4 Grunge
The basic model patterns of grunge are based on the work
of Black Sabbath in re-arranging the pentatonic scale for
their own usage.
2.4.2 Aesthetically
In the abstract, aesthetics have as a whole been
influenced by the ideas in metal: distortion, dirt,
ambiguity, nihilism. Other systems of people were at work
on similar ideas as well, but this area is where metal,
through its network of fans from whom the intelligent are
often successful, distributed valuable information and
ideas.
2.4.2.1 Degraded
The abraded or washed-out textures of jeans in the 80s
were a precursor to the higher-grade graphics of the next
generation, where worn-out or grainy, gritty surfaces were
part of the aesthetic that inverted the conditions of its
own slick, context-less appearance.
2.4.2.2 Stark
The dynamicism inherent in the presence of metal, and its
structural coherence, demonstrate a stark or shocking
aesthetic which also is at work with current designers of
visual media.
2.4.2.3 Structural
When an aesthetic seeks to outdo itself, it goes to the
next level: intense structuralism, which such as the kind
used in metal can be used to create a vaster depth of
emotional connection through its literality and
universality. Metal's structuralism has influenced radio
rock in the 90s more than any other attribute of any other
genre.
2.4.3 Philosophically
Philosophically metal has been the only major underground
movement to tackle a technical philosophy of existence and
spirituality, and has contributed through its public image
an association with hedonism and spirited off-the-cuff
living.
2.4.3.1 Hedonism
The excesses of metal players and fans are well known,
spreading the virus of divisiveness between drug takers
and others.
2.4.3.2 Nihilism
The cold-eyed stare with which metal reduces the
negative or ambiguous in life to null or little value
gives it the same epic power as the raw literality of
its characters during a journey.
2.4.3.3 Romanticism
The daring Romeo and Juliet style rapiership with the
darkness of reality and its intensity gives metal a
powerful Romantic background.
2.4.3.4 Politics
Politically more people are electing to follow metal
lifestyles, meaning that fewer moral and more logical
decisions are going into politics.
2.4.3.5 evil mysticism
As the public forefront of popular culture's
fascination with evil, metal music is almost an ikon
for Satan himself.
People often ask why metal is fascinated with evil and
has been since its inception in Black Sabbath, who were
formed partially to enable their occult beliefs a
forum. The answers perhaps lie in the definitions of
romanticism and nihilism coming together for a dark but
empowering worldwide: as if inspired by Dionysius, the
crafty god of wine of the Greek era, or by Fenris, the
wolf of apocalypse of the Norse, metal bands have
rejected order in favor of chaos and hedonism. The
hedonism is explainable to the materialistic
parametrics of nihilism combined with the passion and
life-seeking sensuality of romanticism, and the chaos
is the midnight tempest which buffets away the weak and
encourages autonomy and independent direction in those
who would survive. Humanity's path toward apocalypse
has made even more trenchant these views, and
consequently varying interpretations of evil exist in
metal today.
Some have even taken this farther, to associate the
Bacchus/Dionysius spirit of mind with its Nietzschean
metaphor of the brave, independent, and analytical yet
impassioned artist struggling in a world of sleepers.
I have said too much and will leave it there.
"Watch as flowers decay
On cryptic life that died
The wisdom of the wizards
Is only a neurtured lie
Black knights of Hell's domain
Walk upon the dead
Satanas sits upon
The blood on which he feeds"
- Slayer, "Die by the Sword" (Show No Mercy)
2.4.3.5.1 Satanism
To discuss the topic as briefly as possible,
several popular types of satanists and their
beliefs include:
- LaVey satanists: They use The_Satanic_Bible
as an inspiration or basis for their belief system,
which is closely related to humanism. They do not
necessarily believe in the existance of
supernatural figures, including god and satan, and
believe that worshipping these imaginary figures
does no good and is degrading.
A good reference on this Satanism is
The_Satanic_Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey.
- "Hollywood" Satanists: This group uses a
combination of the name Satan, Satanic worship,
Satanic rituals, and Satanic references to shock
and offend those who buy into the "Satan is evil"
that mainstream groups/cults have propagated. They
often are poorly educated in the occult and more
well studied occultists will reveal errors and lack
of knowledge in their statements on Satanism.
- Devil-worshippers: There are few, if any, of
these groups in Satanism. Christians and Jews
would like you to believe otherwise. You are
advised to not take statements from their religious
opposition as truth, when it is far more likely to
be a "straw man" argument, where a biased mockup of
your beliefs is created and then skewered for its
artificial extremity.
- Gnostic/Transcendental Satanists: These apply the
principles of "evil" in a very distributed and
analytical, abstract method, coming up with a
peaceful but nihilistic philosophy that is
terrifying to normal people but highly sensible.
"It's a concept album about what once was before the
light took us and we rode into the castle of the
dream. Into emptiness. It's something like; beware
the Christian light, it will take you away into
degeneracy and nothingness. What others call light
I call darkness. Seek the darkness and hell and you
will find nothing but evolution."
- Varg Vikernes, va...@burzum.com
"Cursed
Black magic night
We've been struck down
Down in this Hell
Spells surround me day and night
Stricken by the force of evil light
The force of evil light"
- Slayer, "Black Magic" (Show No Mercy)
2.4.4 Decryptically
Metal, like most Postmodern art, is an experience and not
a medium. Hence there are several layers which must be
removed from their compacted form, "decrypted" and served
up to the reader by some part of the inner brain. This
enables the music to survive longer before being
aesthetically ripped off.
2.4.4.1 Experiential Conception of Art
The lyrics, culture and music of heavy metal warriors
is heavily encrypted within experiential reference and
heavily technological language, but like many other
genres from this period it does provide a literal
level, and a meta-level, to all three facets of its
art.
2.4.4.2 Existential Gateway to Darkness
To decrypt it is to understand it and be open to virus
Metal's virus comes wrapped in the appearance of
death, meaning that where there is a weakness to
death, it equalizes and penetrates. The morbidity,
paranoia, passion and politics of metal over the
years has shown a passage by which one accepts
death, and the nihilistic chaos of material reality,
and in doing so lays down the foundation for
transcending it.
To do that is to become a gleeful nihilist; a
postmodern nihilist is a "post-nihilist"
One would transcend material with nihilism, and then
transcend nihilism with its natural self-reduction:
a "post-nihilist" would be one who could
nihilistically view human existence and see within
it a space for creativity, joyful in the emptiness
and impermanence of reality. Metal, by introducing
structure and spirituality and Romanticist
individualism and nihilism, issues to its listeners
a challenge to explore it deeper and bond with what
causes it to be, rather than what it "is."
"Falsified Spirits Farther They Fall
Soon They Will Join Us In Hell
See The Sky Burning The Gates Are Ablaze
Satan Waits Eager To Merge."
- Slayer
================================================================
(c) Copyright 1994-2006 Hessian Studies Center @ www.hessian.or