Punk Ideology
... Many Punks believe that authority is the ultimate evil as in the Bad Religion song, ‘Portrait of Authority:’ Nothing more Nothing less An icon on the wall Decoration and duress Which many strive to be It’s the marble statue standing over me And nobody has the will to tear it down It determines wrong and right But to me it's just a stereotype And it makes us lose our sight The portrait of authority You tell me that's what I'm supposed to be (It embodies what he cannot be) This says that people would destroy authority if they had the chance, but no one has the will because they are so oppressed. Many Punks think that society is corrupted by authority. Punks are often very involved in the political activism scene and regularly attend rallies and marches to protest things they do not agree with. Often the distrust of authority goes on to discard organised religion the way the Subhumans do in their song ‘No:’ No I don't believe in Jesus Christ My mother died of cancer When I was 5 No I don't believe in religion I was forced to go to church I wasn't told why No I don't believe in the police force police Brutality isn't a dream No I don't believe in the system Cos nothing it does makes sense to me Don't worry you'll get over it You'll grow up You'll calm down Another youth Another fashion You'll get over it You'll calm down you don't really mean what you say You've had too much to drink Don't be so full of hate It's not as bad as you think No I don't believe in what you say You're just part of what I despise Yes you're part of the fucking system I ain't blind I can see your lies cos the system thrives on ignorance What the public don't know, they can't reject in the face of you all I stand defiant The rest of the people They wanna forget Many Punks believe that the church is a coercive organisation devoted to creating total conformity among its followers as in the song ‘Religious Wars,’ also by the Subhumans, In the name of God they left you to die Religious wars there's no reason why They left you to die The ultimate excuse is here Die for a cause, religion is fear Fear of the threat of something unreal Abdicate the way you really feel A lot of Punks are agnostics or atheists, but some believe in a supreme being but don’t give it a name or worship it in a certain way that a religion tells them to. However, there are also Punks who are Jewish, Christian, and all sorts of different religions that are recognised by most of society. There are lots of Christian Punk bands who sing about Jesus and God and the Christian life. Christian Punk bands stand in a certain place in society and critique it from that place but other Punk bands that aren’t Christian stand outside of society or float around within the structure without standing anywhere and critique the system from anywhere they happen to be at that point. Most Punks see the media as a tool of authority, the authority to tell people what to think. Television is often seen as an evil of the establishment but some Punks, especially the teenagers don’t care and watch it anyway. Punks believe that anyone can be a musician, regardless of natural aptitude. Punk rock is more about passion than about skill or talent, if you can convey the passion, you are a good musician. Because of this belief, MTV is considered to be evil. Since it is all about presentation, marketability, and money instead of about passion, belief, and music, it is considered to be the thing that took the music industry, turned it into commercialised crap, filled it with poseurs and sell-outs and spat it out again. Punks believe that if you actually make it onto MTV, you have hate it so much that you refuse to co-operate with the balding guys with comb-overs who are running everything. It is usually considered good to become famous for your contrariness, like Pearl Jam who were more Punk than a lot of self-styled Punk bands even if they are widely considered grunge because of the way they dress. Sell-outs like the ones from the Dead Kennedys song Pull My Strings, ‘I won't offend/or rock the boat/Just sex and drugs/And rock and roll/Drool, drool, drool, drool, drool…my payola!’ are widely despised in the Punk community. They are musicians who, after becoming popular and securing a record deal with a major company compromised their ethics, or their musical quality for a monetary gain. ‘Real’ Punk bands do not set out to gain fame and fortune and if they do manage to become famous they often do not attempt to please the media in the ways that artists who try to be famous do. Poseurs are possibly more despised than sell-outs. While a sell-out actually began as a genuine Punk, a poseur simply goes to Hot Topic, a chain that sells pre-fab Punk clothes, buys everything that fits and begins to listen to the ‘right’ music. Hot Topic is mostly despised because it goes against the DIY ethic and aesthetic sensibility of Punk. DIY is a whole attitude that basically means do it yourself whenever you can so you can get free of the Man the human machine. While most punks go to various department stores for stuff to modify, go to a factory seconds shop like Ragstock or shop at resale shops like the Salvation Army or Goodwill to buy clothes for almost nothing that are then ripped up or modified in a way that suits whoever it is that buys the clothes, Hot Topic seeks to make money off the Punk aesthetic by creating clothes that are cheaply made and fit most people’s idea of what Punk looks like and selling them for ridiculous sums of money. Another problem most Punks I have talked to have with Hot Topic is that it creates conformity, one person who buys clothes from Hot Topic looks exactly like the next person who buys clothes from Hot Topic. Punks consider conformity to be one of the greatest evils of this society so they do not want everyone to dress Punk. The essence of Punk ideology is rebellion against conformity, authority, and what is generally considered ‘normal.’ Many Punks view confo...