THE
PHILOSOPHY OF PUNK – CRAIG O'HARA
I don't wish to be too critical but if Craig O'Hara's book The Philosophy
Of Punk is about the philosophy of Punk then it's very much like a
Winnie The Pooh guide to global economics as practiced and analysed
within the confines of Hundred Acre Wood. Winnie The Pooh's great, of
course, and AA Milne's books can teach us many important and good
things but at the same time, Winnie The Pooh is a fucking bear of
very little brain who gets his advice from a frightened piglet by the
name of Piglet.
It's all good and enjoyable stuff but you wouldn't really base your
whole existence on earth and use as a guide to life the teachings of
an imaginary bear in a kids book, would you? Not unless you're a a
Christian or a Muslim and you follow the Bible or the Koran, of
course. Ha ha ha!
In his defense, O'Hara only wrote his book originally as a
'graduation requirement' for Boston University in America and it was
only meant to have been read by three professors. Hence, because this
was his entire intended readership he obviously felt he needed to
explain the most simplest and basic things such as, for example, what
a fanzine is: 'A magazine put out by Punks for and about Punks'.
This is all well and good and perfectly reasonable but it needs to be
said it does tend to lower the bar somewhat.
So, what have we got? What are the main tenets of Punk philosophy, or
as O'Hara puts it, 'the Key Particulars of the Punk Philosophy'?
Well, according to O'Hara essentially they're A: Anarchism
(encompassing pacifism and direct action). B: Gender issues
(encompassing sexism, feminism, and homosexuality). C:
Environmentalism (encompassing ecology and animal rights) and D:
Straight Edge.
O'Hara's main sources on which he bases his research are the
magazines Maximumrocknroll, Flipside, and Profane Existence, along
with the book Threat By Example. Again, this is all well and good but
the problem is that whilst having a global audience they are all
American publications and this means that though quoting a lot from
such English bands as Crass, Chumbawamba and the Subhumans, it's all
perceived and interpreted through the prism of American culture, an
American education, and American-forged sensibilities. It's
near-unavoidable for O'Hara to not do so.
We are all a product of where we are from, be it geographically,
socially or economically. I am a product of my Englishness and my
background just as O'Hara is a product of his which means, of course,
that my perception of Punk is as much affected by these things as
O'Hara is affected by his. We can try to meet in the middle and try
and build on that which we have in common but it's never going to be
a hand-in-glove fit and there's always going to be differences.
With this in mind, I would argue that these differences and these
commonalities are political ones and right there is the nub about
O'Hara's book. Rather than it being the philosophy of Punk that he
writes about, it is in actual fact the politics of Punk. If viewed
this way, the whole thing tends to become a whole other ball game.
Philosophy is a way of interpreting the world but as Marx said, the
point isn't to interpret but to change the world. And if the
political ideas you espouse are not doing this then they are
redundant and they need to be reconsidered, revaluated and then
reapplied.
I wouldn't say O'Hara's book is totally redundant but it's fairly
close to being so. It prods at a number of ethical ideas which makes
for it being worthy but unfortunately being worthy nowadays doesn't
really cut it. We may not be dealing nowadays with anything so stark
as, for example, Nazi extermination camps but we are dealing with the
kind of politics that leads to such camps.
Western capitalism is an abomination. It's been an experiment that
has served its purpose and now needs to be reined in if not totally
overthrown. It is a man-made system that is essentially destroying
the world. It's as simple as that. For sure, we can see the benefits
of capitalism but these benefits are greatly outweighed by the
downside. For sure, we can see the goodness of man and his beauty,
compassion and his empathy but we also see the stupidity, the
selfishness and the greed.
Being nice to your neighbour and being anti-war in an abstract kind
of way is a good place to start as from little acorns great oaks grow
but in our heart of hearts we know it's not enough. The juggernaut of
destruction has long passed us by and is now miles in front down the
highway, leaving us as little more than road kill.
To bring the juggernaut to a halt we need to somehow scrape ourselves
up off the ground and somehow catch up with that juggernaut and then
somehow ram it off the road. Or even somehow get in front of it and
somehow build some kind of road block so as to somehow bring it to a
halt. Somehow. If we fail to do so then it's going to be like the end
scene in Thelma And Louise and the juggernaut is going to go flying
off the edge of the cliff to its own destruction, at the same time
taking out not only everything in its wake but also everything in its
path.
But then there's this doubt, isn't there? This doubt that tells us
that actually we know we're never going to catch up. Little victories
might be gained and we might curb some particular outrage but in our
heart of hearts - stuck in our tiny, isolated bubbles – we know the
power we hold is as nothing compared to the power of that and those
we are against. So when in Rome we do as the Romans and we attend the
gladiator games, we indulge in the orgies and we get drunk on the
wine. In the meantime, the barbarians are gathering at the gate, the
volcano is about to blow and our empire is going to be buried.
We know it's coming, we've heard the warnings but either like the
cows in the field we're too dumb to realise it's a slaughterhouse
we're heading for or in actual fact we simply don't care either way
as everything is so void of any meaning that life and death are now
virtually the same things?
The philosophy of Punk? Let's crack open another beer and talk about
something else. Something even, dare I say, a bit more interesting
and a bit more relevant? Why don't we instead talk about sex, dope,
guns and fucking in the street? Let's just talk about anything else!
Let's talk about anything that might up our game a little bit and
enable us as individuals and as a world to move forward. Let's up our
game and try and break free from the stranglehold we are being held
in. Let's up the ante a bit and try and escape from the self-applied
noose that is slowly tightening around our collective neck.
John Serpico
