From the Dept. of Things That Make No Sense: RABM

[Dedrater]

I think Anarchist Black metal is the only consequence when it comes to politics in Blackmetal! All this NS bullshit is stupid as fuck, because its just the opposite of the idea of radical individualism, that black metal was all the time! Even when you think that this "survival of the fittest" thing is your way, you cant ignore that all fascist scum always lost the fights and wars! You should educate yourself a little bit for example about the spanish civil war, the role of the church and their connection to the franco fascists. But thats just one example...and then you should think again if it really makes no sense at all.

Black Metal was never about "radical individualism".  It was always about Collectivism, from the perspective of the Individual - "What can I, as I am now, do to improve my family/tribe/clan/other significant group?", as well as "Can I, by improving myself, improve my <group>?".

How stupid is that?! BM was never about something like that, never! It was about nihilism, misantrophy, individuality, standing outside society, being an outlaw, dont care about christian ethics and their bigotry... collectivism was never part of Blackmetal.

Varg:

Individualism is all fine, however only one type of individualism. The "advanced" world we live in have a tendency so over-simplify everything - of course because of their "humanism" and their "humanistic" and "caring" will to make comprehensible for the retarded idiots they breed as well. Instead of saying "positive individualism" (i.e. artistic creativity, courage, initiative, the ability to lead others, inventiveness etc) and "negative individualism" (i.e. egoism, the strong desire to only care for what is best for oneself etc) they just say individualism. This means that they let negative individualism thrive as well, if not exclusively.

Link: http://www.burzum.com/burzum/library/interviews/varg/

Euronymous:

Satanism comes from religious Christianity, and there it shall stay. I'm a religious person and I will fight those who misuse His name. People are not supposed to believe in themselves and be individualists. They are supposed to OBEY, to be the SLAVES of religion.

I can also say that I will NEVER accept any band which preaches CHURCH OF SATAN ideas, as they are just a bunch of freedom, and life-loving atheists, and they stand exactly the opposite of me.

Link: http://www.fmp666.com/moonlight/mayhem.html

Ignore the originators like everyone does if you want, though. Who are your sources? Wolves in the Throne Room and Ulver?

[Athanasius contra mundum]

I think Anarchist Black metal is the only consequence when it comes to politics in Blackmetal! All this NS bullshit is stupid as fuck, because its just the opposite of the idea of radical individualism, that black metal was all the time! Even when you think that this "survival of the fittest" thing is your way, you cant ignore that all fascist scum always lost the fights and wars! You should educate yourself a little bit for example about the spanish civil war, the role of the church and their connection to the franco fascists. But thats just one example...and then you should think again if it really makes no sense at all.

Black Metal was never about "radical individualism".  It was always about Collectivism, from the perspective of the Individual - "What can I, as I am now, do to improve my family/tribe/clan/other significant group?", as well as "Can I, by improving myself, improve my <group>?".

How stupid is that?! BM was never about something like that, never! It was about nihilism, misantrophy, individuality, standing outside society, being an outlaw, dont care about christian ethics and their bigotry... collectivism was never part of Blackmetal.

I guess that Enslaved's Vikinglr Veldi, as well as any other black metal group that worshiped ancient culture, is now officially not black metal... just because you don't want it to be.

[reasonable]

I think Anarchist Black metal is the only consequence when it comes to politics in Blackmetal! All this NS bullshit is stupid as fuck, because its just the opposite of the idea of radical individualism, that black metal was all the time! Even when you think that this "survival of the fittest" thing is your way, you cant ignore that all fascist scum always lost the fights and wars! You should educate yourself a little bit for example about the spanish civil war, the role of the church and their connection to the franco fascists. But thats just one example...and then you should think again if it really makes no sense at all.

Black Metal was never about "radical individualism".  It was always about Collectivism, from the perspective of the Individual - "What can I, as I am now, do to improve my family/tribe/clan/other significant group?", as well as "Can I, by improving myself, improve my <group>?".

How stupid is that?! BM was never about something like that, never! It was about nihilism, misantrophy, individuality, standing outside society, being an outlaw, dont care about christian ethics and their bigotry... collectivism was never part of Blackmetal.

But collectivism has always been a part of radical leftist politics. So let me get this straight: (1) You don't like collectivism; (2) You're okay with anarchism, presumably leftist anarchism.

The only way I can make sense of this is if you are an advocate of individualist anarchism, but that is a strain of anarchism quite distinct from what is normally considered anarchist. I saw no indication that this RABM movement has anything to do with individualist anarchism. It seems more like an egalitarian/collectivist movement. Please make sense of this for me.

[Athanasius contra mundum]

Black Metal was never about "radical individualism".  It was always about Collectivism, from the perspective of the Individual - "What can I, as I am now, do to improve my family/tribe/clan/other significant group?", as well as "Can I, by improving myself, improve my <group>?".

I believe you are imposing your personal philosophy -- or at least your personal definition of what the philosophy of black metal should be -- upon a movement that as, a whole, is pretty ideologically inconsistent. An earlier thread featured Mannheim, admittedly a fairly minor player in the scene, claiming black metal is about individual freedom, while fellow bandmate Euronymous on multiple occasions expressed hedonistic desires destructive to both the self and society. Are we to take these viewpoints completely at face-value? Of course not, the same way we don't take every but of Varg's ideology seriously.

And then there are bands and albums that really show no ideological bent except a juvenile opposition to Christianity. Is Havohej espousing some collectivist ideology? Bathory's early albums, by Quorthon's own admission, were largely schlocky, adolescent Satanism based off pulp lit, and even his later, pagan-influenced stuff was chosen mostly to piss off Christians. Black metal is neither ideologically homogenous nor particularly profound on the whole, yet it remains great, intelligent music. We should not have to impose superfluous ideologies on something to enjoy it.

That said, liberal black metal doesn't make much sense to me. Leftist policies have always been about empowering the weak, while black metal has always seemed to revel in power and its application. So in this sense I think you are right when you say this stuff doesn't fit quite right, but you are wrong on what this inconsistency is.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you only enjoy music because of its political implications, then where the hell did the soul in you fly off to? Is life just something that needs to be corrected to you? Life haters GTFO, in my opinion. I do think that ANUS.com doesn't largely promote that metal is right-wing in that sense though, as much as they promote that metal is about the communication of the idea of power, and that plays into more right-wing ideology than left-wing.

[Sammaellofi]

Knowing those hippies it's probably in a low bitrate though...

This is one of the most odd, yet strikingly true statements ever posted on here.

[Cargést]

point

response

It's not about politics in the slightest - I should have made that clearer.  Here's my thought process:

Black Metal has always communicated "the Sublime" (please don't ask for a definition of this, you know what it is);
Nature and the natural world are primary physical manifestations of "the Sublime", and are also primary topics of and inspirations for Black Metal (of the second wave - Emperor, Enslaved, Burzum, etc);
If Black Metal mirrors, by the conscious decision of the musicians involved or not, many and various aspects of Nature, it stands to reason that it could be a vehicle for the entirety of what Nature can teach us about how we should live our lives.

Any understanding of "the Sublime" must leave the individual in question with the knowledge that he, or she, on their own, is entirely and wonderfully insignificant, within the broader spectrum of existence(s).  In the natural world, insignificant individuals come together to form groups (packs of wolves, prides of lions, whoops ["I was absolutely livid"] of gorillas) which, acting together, accomplish more than those individuals could on their own, both for themselves and, potentially, for their species.  It stands to reason that a form of music which can, definitely, communicate these things - not that it does, all the time - should therefore be seen to support "Collectivist" ideas, in as much as certain people actually want to be productive during their lives, and Nature shows us that "working together" with members of your own <group> is conducive to success.

[Conservationist]

Coming up next, the Klan makes reggae.

Genres exist in differentiated form for a reason...

You blur genre lines too much, blur the difference between their species of thought, and you end up with a dull grey average.

Which is rock music. Fuck that.

[Cargést]

Oh, Conservationist, why so serial?  Surely it's more important to enjoy life than to do something useful?  Chillax, dude.

[nothingnowhere]

Why is this argument pointless? Because RABM FUCKING SUCKS . You got your Godspeed You! Black Emperor in my Burzum!

[ChapelOfTorment]

Wow, that song was fucking awful. Something about post-rock "gentle" clean guitar really scrapes the insides of my eardrums. I'd be okay with post-rock if it sounded more like this, but literally every post-rock band I've ever heard just really bugs me on a subconscious level.

Knowing those hippies it's probably in a low bitrate though...

This is one of the most odd, yet strikingly true statements ever posted on here.

I was sort of joking, but now that I think about it, this all makes sense in some weird way. The point of uploading music would nominally be to share it with others, and if you respected the music, you'd want others to hear it in good quality sounds (probably why we post FLACs and use the Fraunhofer codec and/or decent bitrates here). Hippies/weekenders/false metallers upload in a low bitrate and don't even check to see if their files are corrupt or not because they don't care about the music itself, but rather about the whole image of sharing music.

[E]

...and if you respected the music, you'd want others to hear it in decent quality sounds so that if they like what they hear, they'd get off their asses and buy that album or go to that performance.

[mandrake]

It was stated here about individualism]s link with black metal
Well i think most common and widespread misconception about individualism is it's meaning (supposedly) as egotism, "anti community", anti society (any society) etc These are different things, as we have solid social theory based upon individualism, the view that's opposed to any leftist, rightist or other popular, or unpopular popular that this sad last few hundred years developed upon us.

As so many other historical cases of artistic souls trying to develop political positions, black metal musicians fail as well. You just cant be a romantic and an individualist, political wise, but you are very much likely to be as an artist as such.

To me is not such an surprise this red direction in BM. As NSBM, they are a form of socialism. and the Commie vs NS clash is historical.

[Dylar]

Why is this argument pointless? Because RABM FUCKING SUCKS . You got your Godspeed You! Black Emperor in my Burzum!

If all the post-rock chord strumming actually led to something other than more post-chord strumming, it might not be so damn annoying.  As it is, it never seems to be anything more than a placeholder or background texture for samples.  FAIL.

[Thamuz]

I'd never heard of RABM before this thread, and I still don't really see any evidence of its existence other than in some very small, insular circles.

One thing is for sure, ANUS.com jumped right on the bandwagon and wrote up a derogatory article about someone else's fantasy world.

Amazing series of events.

[Athanasius contra mundum]

I'd never heard of RABM before this thread, and I still don't really see any evidence of its existence other than in some very small, insular circles.

One thing is for sure, ANUS.com jumped right on the bandwagon and wrote up a derogatory article about someone else's fantasy world.

Amazing series of events.

From what I understand, the article was emphasizing the similarities between far-right and far-left music, and explaining why it found both genres boring.