Music is sound that resembles life. It reveals not only the experience of life, but the emotions and ideas that the musician has in response to life. Heavy metal music sounds like a certain way of life, because a similar thought process is required to become a heavy metal musician. For this reason, heavy metal is more than a style; it’s a culture.
The metal genre does not fit into the easy categories used for modern music. While it sounds modern, it champions the values of older times, such as honor, bloodlust, aggression, emotion and passion. It denies the plastic modern existence and insists on meaning being found in experience, not ownership. For this reason, heavy metal is a cross between ancient ideas and modern methods. Our utilitarian contemporary society has no words for what this is.
Since heavy metal isn’t on the radar for mainstream civilization, they write it off and claim that people listen to metal for the sole purpose of irritating their parents. They deny its musical value, explain away its artistic value, and brush it aside by assuming it is not serious and worthy of study. For this reason, Hessians, or those who are part of the heavy metal culture, are one of the most marginalized groups in modern society today.
We have all seen varying ethnic and religious groups fight for their right to be recognized as unique and to have special rights and privileges. If at the “modern” university we have a Black Studies Department, and an Asian Studies Department, why not a Hessian Studies Department? Hessian culture has in the years since 1969 been a fundamental force in shaping our society, and remains one of its most persistent critics, all while developing its own way of existing.
Not all Hessians are alike. Some care about nothing and will not understand this web page at all. The few who believe in life and in the heavy metal lifestyle will find that Hessian culture is something they have sought for years, perhaps without knowing it at all. For Hessians, hessian.org is a reference material of their own society within an outer society. For those of you who are outsiders to Hessiandom, this is a chance to broaden your “diversity” and learn about an entirely singular culture that thrives among the things you consider normal, but will never bow down and join them.
http://www.hessian.org/
17 CommentsTags: hessian, hessian studies
