The underground is dead; the new frontier for metal music is the hidden scene. It hides in plain view because the vast majority of people treat the internet like TV and pay attention only to what scrolls across their social media screens. Few of them even use computers anymore, preferring the glorified Nintendo of a portable device (and one from Apple, if they want to get AIDS).
One of these hidden scene sites, Old Disgruntled Bastard, took some time to coin up a screed against the insincerity of veganism. This makes for enjoyable reading, and is worth looking into:
Thrash metal, speed metal, whatever one chooses to call it, did a profound ideological disservice to metal at large by introducing politically charged themes from the converging punk and hardcore movements. Traditional metal till that point had been vehement to be sure, but never self-righteous. Death metal and black metal would come around later to define metal philosophy as fundamentally nihilistic.
Metal exhibits a form of active nihilism. To us, consequences in reality matter more than human perceptions, including feelings, impulses, desires and judgments. We are that which negates ourselves so that we can see clearly and through that, realize the path on which intellectual growth, physical bravery, moral maturation and evolution lead us. We want to rise above being human because humanity is unimpressive.
This nihilism causes us to realize that people prefer to think about “equality” frequently because it makes them feel better about life. If they are equal, they are no longer insignificant monkeys, but powerful beings who rule the world with their whims and gestures. This leads to a mentality of tearing down hierarchy and order so that the individual — a prototypical tyrant dedicated to control — can be the only force of power:
More pertinently, what vegans accomplish through this line of reasoning is to conflate genera and species. All animals are not dogs. Just because I admire a dog does not automatically imply I have to love a pig. I go as far as to say that I even reserve the right to discriminate between different pedigrees of dogs, nay, between different members belonging to the same pedigree itself! In exercising my powers of judicious bias, I, in fact, am imbuing animals with a far greater degree of individuation than overzealous vegans who would have all animals resemble the same indistinguishable mass of flesh and bone.
What is species conflation, at its heart, but equality? And what does equality serve but the individual who is afraid he is unequal? The metal underground died of equality, where we all were expected to troop off and view mediocre local bands just because they were metalheads just like us. They bled red just like us. But one cannot have quality with equality. We must be willing to accept natural selection into our souls, and through elitism praise the best.
Returning to veganism, it is ridiculous not because it is merely a social pose and cry for attention — although surely that makes it idiotic — but because it rejects the idea of hierarchy and order. We all have a place in this order, sometimes as predators and sometimes as prey. In the meantime, if we get off the hook of factory farming which produces mass cheap food because everyone is equal and so we cannot deny anyone their “right” to breed and feed, we can treat animals with respect and give them their place in the order too.
Chuck died of AIDS.
Tags: death metal, egalitarianism, funderground, metal underground, Nihilism, Old Disgruntled Bastard, underground metal, veganism
I’ve personally always felt that if metal was to ever dwell on human emotion it’s the emotion of suffering, pain, and sorrow. Metal with a political statement is is punk with HM-2s or shoegaze covered in corpsepaint. The only time it should be political in my honest opinion is when it’s broadly political covering the selfish all consuming impulse of humanity and the materialism and identity the world consumes itself with as opposed to humanity losing focus that only death is real and the weak die because they’re weak.
> if metal was to ever dwell on human emotion it’s the emotion of suffering, pain, and sorrow
I disagree 666%. The best metal expresses aggression, vitality, the drive to conquer and fight and live unapologetically. Suffering, pain, and sorrow are dealt with in metal, not as a means of nurturing self-pity (which makes for boring, soul-sapping music), but as a way of enthusiastically exploring any truth, no matter how bleak it appears. When confronted with a gruesome crime scene of tortured, mutilated corpses, we refuse to look away, because this is a part of life, and denial inhibits understanding that allows more successful navigation of this world.
Metal recognizes that eating other life is a part of life.
You can’t place any value on the life of the meat unless you knew the specific animal it came from. It’s not ‘eating other life’ as it’s impersonal and no longer living. When it reaches your plate it’s nothing more than sustenance. Even if you raised the animal for consumption, its individual life is less valuable (its personality and character) because its purposeful death means sustenance. Animals are nature and live in a constant state of environmental reaction. Conquering nature warrants their consumption.
1) reason why it’s fine to eat meat
Animals eat other animals. It’s natural
1) Reason why it’s okay for me to rape your girlfriend
Alpha animals fuck whatever they want, even if it means killing off the beta that usually fucks what the alpha wants to fuck
Congratulations you’ve just rationalized being a cuck
It’s not so bad for you however because you do not nor will you ever have a girlfriend
In the 80s metal did’t know if it want to simply reflect ideology of anarcho-punk(if not outright liberal bleeding heart emotionality common to rock), with occasional satan thrown in. As such it was always less convincing than hc, therofore redundant. Relevant bands often returns to that state when they are selling out/mature.
In the 10s we have ideology posing as anti-ideology
Horseshoe theory confirmed. I think I’ll not become a vegan queer to prove how much I don’t believe in inequality, thanks
Some things are best dealt with by refusing to have an opinion on them.
Cannibalize the vegans!
This! Vegans are preparing themselves to become the next good source for meat eaters. They’ll be weak, docile and stupid; as on cows.
this makes no sense at all. you will just as easily find your share of the dumbest, weakest, and most easily-led people in your average hamburger take-out.
Just because you ate your neighbor does not make you a cannibal
I rub my unwashed plums in the face of veganism.
Shoot & grow your own food. I’m moving beyond a window garden as soon as the tiller comes by & helping start a community one in my complex. As far as hunting, still looking for a teacher(I want humane kills, not kosher torture rituals…not only that but proper gutting/butchering). Fuck paying for classes & licenses. So many deer locally but they’re all eating on HIGHLY polluted land / brown sites so there’ll be no hunting those ones….I mean unless you want instacanceraids.
Ostensibly, equality also serves those who are viewed as ‘less than equal’: the poor, the weak, etc, whether they fear it or no.
Like (almost) everything (political) humans do, this is self-serving: It really means “people like us”. They’ll come up with other reasons why (negative) discrimination is not only justified but neccessary insofer not-like-us people are concerned, usually ‘lunatic’ (since we’re mankind, who’s different from us must be defective, used very liberally) or ‘addict’.
As a general rule, you’re obviously right. Of course there are quite a few idealists out there who would disagree.
“Returning to veganism, it is ridiculous not because it is merely a social pose and cry for attention — although surely that makes it idiotic — but because it rejects the idea of hierarchy and order.”
If every one stops supporting the meat industry, then the industry will die.
Unless you own your own farm, you have to be vegan if you have any honour, not because predators are evil, but because jewy capitalists are raping the sacred land.
You should know better.
Do not misunderstand this for a condoning of whining political protest lyrics.
Art should not be political, but metapolitical and philosophical, focusing on that which leads to the political position rather than the political position itself.
Hunting is not equal to meat factories. Veganism today is not a rejection of nature, which includes species struggling against each other with prey being eaten and predators starving.
This: https://www.fairwarning.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/AP120429071026.jpg
Is not equal to this: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yJC5-dcFT4Q/hqdefault.jpg
Prozak hasn’t made my VTA come this hard in over a decade. #welcomebacktiger