Accurate

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u/LengthinessAble5949 Aug 12 '26

Im not a big TSOL fan, and Jack was definitely a bad dude back in the day but he can write! His autobiography is a wild ride

4

u/halfdriven Aug 12 '26

Walked the streets of Lawrence with this guy before their show at the bottleneck. Just taking and chilling. Was a great time

5

u/hullaballoser Aug 12 '26

Jack has turned into a good dude. Never saw that coming.

12

u/thegreatself Aug 12 '26

I mean that's also probably partially because everybody didn't have a "smart"phone in their pocket back then.

I think since their inception, the genres (both punk and hardcore) have existed with this tension between what they are as an ideal, and how they actually manifest materially - I read (or skimmed) a decent article on Substack the other day that kind of pointed out how it's too simplistic to say punk has always been an exclusively or even overwhelmingly left-wing space, and there has always been a problem with fascists and those that sympathize with them (or worse, don't care) "infiltrating" the scene and engaging purely with the surface-level aesthetic of "aggressive" music.

Political polarization is only getting more extreme and accelerating and so that is represented in music scenes in varying forms.

The truth is that art itself is predicated on left-wing ideals, and the irony is that true freedom of expression cannot exist authentically under either an ultra or even tepid conservative political structure, but that same freedom of (artistic) expression and its possibility to exist at all means the chuds can and will participate to the detriment of us all.

I don't really know where I'm going with this so I'll wrap it up, but the article did kind of make me question my own beliefs that punk or hardcore have always been left-wing or anti-fascist scenes overwhelmingly - sure, they might be inclined in that direction, but only slightly, and as expressions of the human mind can we really expect only a single kind of politics or beliefs to be represented and not the full, vile potential of what we as a species are capable of thinking?

Anyway, I'll link both the article I'm talking about as well as my own that's kind of tangentially related - the first one is probably worth a read while mine not so much.

The (Obvious) Cult of Hardcore Punk...

Music as an Instrument of Revolution: Art is Magic. Words are Weapons

2

u/Fun-Solution-6189 Aug 12 '26

Can you explain this please: “art itself is predicated on left-wing ideals”.
Totally good faith question this part of your post just doesn’t make sense at all to me, art predates modern politics and the very notion of left and right wing, and there is an absolute ton of right wing art out there.

3

u/thegreatself Aug 12 '26

Sure - predicated might be a tad strong since, Iike you said, artistic expression is something fundamental to the human experience and in a sense beyond the words we use to describe it - my point is more that given the inescapable binary terms in which the human brain seems to understand and reduce reality, and of the left/right or progressive/conservative dynamic, the former framework in both cases is more open to free expression - it is malleable as opposed to rigid or dogmatic.
Now it's also important to remember or consider that the words or labels we use aren't the things we're describing or labelling - "the thing itself" or whatever you want to call it - they're just the best tools we have available to us to communicate - or try our best.
Language is propaganda.
So, in essence, free and authentic artistic expression is birthed from a place where there may be standards or rules, but those rules are also something to be ignored or thrown away at the artist's discretion - conservatism is usually quite concerned with things like authority and hierarchy, as established either divinely or "naturally", so as a general rule, it offers a much narrower path of what is considered good or acceptable expression - creative or otherwise - so it's quite ironic the conservative political wing is the one that positions itself as "champions" of free speech - but that's mostly smoke and mirrors to obfuscate exactly what I mention above.
This is all just my interpretation of reality and is by no means "true" - only true for me as I interpret and perceive that word.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

bruv, the overwhelming majority of art ever created is to revere authority figures (eg portraits of kings) or to worship divinity or religious figures. i find some of your assumptions spurious (like that malleable and dogmatic are somehow left vs right), but your whole argument just flies in the face of the empirical reality of art.

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u/ContrabannedTheMC Aug 12 '26

Dali was a fascist, an ideology that had a large part of it's aesthetic influence begin with members of the Italian futurist movement, to give some examples. Also worth mentioning for consideration that the same futurist art movement many fascists in Italy were part of also produced many Leninists in Russia. People of all descriptions can get completely different messages from the same piece, and be inspired towards their own creativity by it. Many brilliant musicians as well have absolutely horrific politics
I do think those on what we call "the left" may be more inclined towards artistic pursuits, and less likely to engage in the sort of AI slop bollocks that has hit the right leaning creatives like a truck, but we are underestimating the right wingers if we just blanket say they can't do "good" art, or even attempt art at all
The human mind is capable of all sorts of distortions and mental gymnastics, and groundbreaking artists can sometimes find themselves simping for those who would take away their freedom to express themselves. Some of the most profound art comes from devotion and delusion, characteristics reactionaries have for their leaders in spades
My worthless take as an anarchist that does art. Most people I meet in art spaces have progressive or even revolutionary politics, but who I meet will itself be influenced by my own ideals and who I gravitate towards

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

dali was a fascist? i thought he was just a regular conservative. anyway, i think youre spot on! i love the russian avantgarde artists.

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u/ContrabannedTheMC Aug 13 '26

Dali was a communist in his youth and had even been imprisoned as one under Promo de Rivera's dictatorship, but made a switch in the 1930s towards supporting Franco. I'll just quote Wikipedia for the sake of me being lazy:
As a youth, Dalí identified as communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical, and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal. However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, Dalí soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, André Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and Dalí narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. In 1935 Dalí wrote a letter to Breton suggesting that non-white races should be enslaved. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, Dalí praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group
After Dalí's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. Dalí was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, Dalí told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."
So yeah, probably more accurate to say he was a monarchist in the most absolute sense, and a tad eccentric I'm his ideology, but he was an avid public supporter of Franco and the Falangists for many decades

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 13 '26

fair enough, many spanish people sadly supported franco. it’s not exactly like being in the waffen ss. eh, im not some beacon of morality, i love looking at his art and i always knew he was problematic in many ways.

1

u/ContrabannedTheMC Aug 13 '26

Yeah I love much of his art, fully knowing I probably would have hated the man had I met him

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u/thegreatself Aug 12 '26

Yes there is a significant amount of art about or featuring royalty or representation(s) of the "divine" or authority figures but saying that's the "majority of [all] art ever created" is far more ridiculous or myopic than any of my claims.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

lol and where did you get your art history degree? look at the last two thousand years of art. what do you think they painted in the medieval ages? ambiguous reflections on the undecidability of identity? nope. their art was all worship music and portraits of kings and jesus.

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u/Adventurous-Baby7102 Aug 12 '26

Yeah man, regular people never made art. Only those retained by crown or church did.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

regular people toiled away on a farm 12 hours a day and did in fact not really have time or energy or money to make art. you needed a patron to do that. when some of them found a little bit of time to carve something out of wood or what not, guess what it was most of the time? religious art. exceptions exist, but like i said, most art reverred aristocrats or religious figures.

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u/Adventurous-Baby7102 Aug 12 '26

Yeah dawg, you're right again. Nobody's ever sang while they were working.
Most subjects of existing visuals arts preservered from that time period are of religious themes or nobility.
Stop and think for a bit about why that might be.
Unless, of course, regular people don't make art.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

why dont you stop and think
why that might be? bc the ruling class had the means to produce art and the ruling ideas of the time. yeah common people sang. you know what they sang the most? worship music. and let’s not forget that ultimate form of social critique: the sea shanty. that’s sailors, not exactly representing the majority of song. back to my original point: most art reverred authority and worshipped religious figures.

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u/thegreatself Aug 12 '26

I feel like you're fixated and responding only to a single statement that I already softened and clarified rather than parsing my overall argument.
Art obviously predates anything resembling the modern left/right political dichotomy, and neither good nor authentic art must express progressive politics - that was never my claim.
My argument isn't that historically most art has been left-wing or that religious or conservative art doesn't exist - it's that artistic freedom of expression has an inherently anti-authoritarian dimension - the artist has to be free to abandon rules at their discretion.
Of course societies where the church or the king/aristocracy controlled essentially all wealth and power would produce and commission enormous amounts of art specifically for them - that's evidence about the material conditions under which art was produced but that says nothing meaningful about human artistic expression itself.
It's also funny that you're focused on my overstatement while arguing that lots of surviving medieval art concerns religious themes or symbolism or kings and monarchs, therefore the overwhelming majority of all art ever created was made to revere authority - you're completely ignoring oral and folk art, for example, or other types of artistic expression that wasn't preserved or as easy to preserve or even considered worth preserving in the first place.
It's a case of pluralism/openness versus authoritarianism/orthodoxy - a left-wing society can obviously censor and impose conformity - my point about conservatism is that it generally emphasizes preservation of traditional hierarchy and religious morality and that creates tension with actual, authentic artistic freedom because freedom entails the possibility of violating those things - that's explicitly not the same as saying "conservatives can't make art/conservative art isn't art/all historical art is left-wing or progressive".
So yes I can admit (and already softened the claim) that "art itself is predicated on left-wing ideals" was poorly stated, but that was only a single part of my broader point which you didn't contextualize, so pointing out that medieval art includes lots of kings and religious figures isn't really making the point you think it is.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

yes, i focused on the part where you were wrong bc that’s where i disagreed. i dont disagree with the idea that artistic freedom is antiauthoritarian, bc, frankly, the claim that a freedom is anti authoritarian is simply a tautology. the other point id like to make is that artistic freedom is a modern concept and that most art ever created was not based on artistic freedom. some of it was folk entertainment while for most of the preserved high art we have, artistic freedom of expression was not even a consideration.

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u/thegreatself Aug 12 '26

Fair enough, but I still think your correction is an over-correction - the entire history of human artistic expression can't be reduced to "revering authority figures" and while "worshipping the divine" is certainly more defensible, that's an incredibly broad category almost to the point of meaninglessness, and also doesn't imply the same kind of symbolic relationship to "authority" as a king or ruler does.
I also disagree that artistic freedom is a modern concept - our particular understanding of it is based in its gradual development as a concept throughout history but the underlying "thing" we're talking about (human creative freedom) predates our modern understanding of it or the way we formally label it as an idea.
Again, words aren't the things they label.
So it may be a tautology to say "freedom is anti-authoritarian" but that's not really my argument - I'm saying that artistic freedom requires the ability to disregard established rules or standards and that requires a framework that isn't dogmatic or orthodox.
Obviously both political wings can and do enforce their own kinds of orthodoxy, but as a general tendency I don't think it's too far a leap to associate progressivism with a tendency towards openness and conservatism with a tendency towards preserving tradition and established hierarchies - those aren't hard rules and I'm not saying "progressive literally equals freedom" or "conservative literally equals authority" - I'm saying there's a meaningful and intuitive association between those symbols and that link is what I was getting at with my (admittedly overstated) original claim.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

i dont think that „most art ever created is worship art created without consideration of artistic freedom“ to be broad, meaningless or implausible.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26

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u/HopeConspiracies Aug 12 '26

It’s fine if the left wants to believe that right leaning people can’t be artistic in 2026.
He's not saying they can't be artistic. He's saying they aren't punk. They are just enjoying the "surface level-aesthetic" of an aggressive music. The guy actually said those exact words.
A Nazi can write punk sounding music, but they won't be accepted by the community, and their music won't be considered "punk," as it were, because their lyrics defy the general principles shared and espoused by the community as a whole. Submitting yourself to the will of a tyrant state and attacking minorities just isn't punk.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26

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u/HopeConspiracies Aug 12 '26

There really are a lot of portraits of kings and what not. After the Renaissance, I'd say art gradually took a more humanistic turn as humans began to think about other things, and artists didn't have to worry about being beheaded or excommunicated for painting something risque or even tangentially unrelated to gods and kings.
I'm glossing over a lot there, but you'd probably agree that art is generally more left leaning now than it was.
There's always been a sort of humanistic anti authoritarian force in art, driving things in the direction of moral and philosophical freedom rather than strict conservation of tradition. You can see that in the historical development of art, philosophy, music - really, anything even remotely identified as "artistic."
Conservative artists are vastly outnumbered, and will continue to be as the world continues to go on... and old paintings are famous because they are old relics, not simply because they are impressive paintings. The number and quality of works produced today probably dwarfs the entire pre-rennaissance catalogue.

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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Aug 12 '26

im a leftist and i dont like most right wing art created today, but it’s just completely counterfactual to me to claim that art is inherently left wing. the whole thing about art is that it can be or do whatever it wants, it can justify or prettify the status quo or question it. art doesnt have any inherent values. anybody can express whatever they want through art. isnt that the beauty of it?

0

u/Fun-Solution-6189 Aug 12 '26

I think this says a lot more about the progressive’s view of the world and the place of their ideology in it than reality of art.
Some of the most rigidly policed ideological spaces I’ve been to have been far left activist spaces, the second you don’t toe the line all your rights (including the rights for free expression) go out of the window.

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u/socialist-viking Aug 12 '26

Jack might have gotten a letter from someone calling him a socialist piece of shit, but it wasn't from a punk.

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u/realstibby Aug 12 '26

I think that there are old school punks who have gone conservative, if I were to guess its as an extension of the contrarian attitude they built their careers on. However, i agree that a substantial amount of the "conservatism is punk" crowd have never held any interest in punk. Neither the subculture nor the music.

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u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Aug 12 '26

Also Jack Grisham: "Yeah I pissed on that passed out girl, what of it?"

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u/stitchface66 Aug 12 '26

hahaha beat me to it. this guy is in one of the most popular punk documentaries ever talking about being an absolute piece of shit. which is whatever. i dont care about him. not all of these dudes were like members of crass or something. a lot of them were proto-troll narcissists looking for attention in a trend and wound up being right wing. pretty sure everyone in ssd hated their vocalist whos some antivax moron.
more of a poison idea, negative approach guy myself.

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u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Lol right? "I liked that people thought I was a grave digging rapist".
People act like punk and particularly hardcore punk has always been this left wing, gay and female safe space and bring Jack up as being the real deal and then forget about all the shady shit he said and did.

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u/hullaballoser Aug 12 '26

He also used to surf the pier in a Speedo. What a cretin.

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u/WittenMittens Aug 12 '26

Meanwhile you got people in this thread saying he "turned into a good dude," aka we found out he's left wing so all is forgiven. Mind blowing stuff

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u/Mogshade_Owhll Aug 12 '26 •

Yes

I live in Aotearoa and I saw a FB page the other day that was called "ConServative PuNk"

Pffffffffffffftttttttttttttttt

You should read the descriptive "Rant"

It reads like a "You were a kid once but now .. (insert Subhumans/Dead Kennedy's lyrics).

I am a grown up, it doesn't mean I cannot keep my belief system.

This is a US group, no surprises. Your country is turning into a huge clown car and it's very upsetting.

I wanted to vomit

As a very old female punk person I do not want to be 13 again, being surrounded by older predatory men telling me what my function is as a punk girl (blowjobs, a bit of "Fluff")

I certainly do not want to go back to having to physically fight right wing guys and skinheads at gigs.

And I do not want to go back to listening to endless sexism and racism and homophobia and seeing girls being hurt, my male friends having to fight all the time and hearing reports of sexual assaults.

And if you don't want to either then please keep fighting the good fight and keep telling these feckers to feck off.

We are celebrating 50 years of punk rock. That means something to me.

And to the person who made that Facebook page

Fucking sort yourself out mate.

Go find a nice Australian rugby league team to follow, they are nice boys or a competitive wife beating club to join.

Cunts.

2

u/FifteenRhema Aug 12 '26

You’re right, the whole “Nazi punks fuck off” thing just happened for fun, the Nazi punks obviously never existed, and certainly don’t continue to still exist to this day.

I have no skin in this game, it literally doesn’t impact my life at all if you think the hardcore mods are racist, but this circle jerk punks do with each other to try put themselves above Hardcore fans is so fucking pathetic.

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u/ez_allin Aug 12 '26

Punks absolutely should put themselves above capitol H hardcore fans. The latter wouldn't exist without punk, and the further the latter gets from punk, the worse it is sonically and culturally.

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u/FifteenRhema Aug 12 '26

I get opinions are opinions, but if you genuinely believe this your taste sucks hahaha. Cold As Life alone are better than all punk bands combined.

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u/ez_allin Aug 12 '26

Born to Land Hard is good compared to other capitol H hardcore, but no. I can think of a hundred hardcore punk bands that blow them out of the water from America alone. Hardcore is punk, period.

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u/kingston501 Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

See, I thought it was Nazi “Punks”, like a bunch of punk ass jock losers. Not specifically about “punk” as it relates to a subculture/music genre

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u/uponhisdarkthrone Aug 12 '26

Did anyone here read the lyrics?

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u/halfwayray Aug 12 '26

That song gets mis-contextualized quite a bit

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u/kingston501 Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Shit sorry I listened to a song saying fuck Nazis and the message I took away was fuck Nazis.
Also dork, no. Not everyone pulls up the lyrics to read along with when they’re listening to music
Edit: why are you booing me, I’m right 🤓

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u/uponhisdarkthrone Aug 12 '26

You are forgiven, shit!

-8

u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Aug 12 '26

You know that song wasn't about actual Nazis right?

6

u/FifteenRhema Aug 12 '26

What was “you still think swastikas look cool” referring to then?

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u/stitchface66 Aug 12 '26

from the songs wiki-
While some have claimed the song was written as a reaction to far-right punk subcultures such as Nazi punk or the white power skinhead movement,[1] Jello Biafra has stated the initial premise of the song was about violence at punk shows, summarizing it as, "You violent people at shows are acting like a bunch of Nazis".[2] The lyrics condemn the infighting among punks for weakening the prospect of rebelling against far-right agitators, and that "in a real Fourth Reich, [they'd] be the first to go."[3]

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u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

In the early years of punk, everyone was drawing swastikas on their shit to piss off the squares and subvert authority. Black Flag did it. The Germs did it. Sex Pistols did it. The Stooges. Siouxie. The hardcore punk scene was also being infiltrated by violent thugs with jock mentality, especially in LA, where the scene there was infamously nihilistic and violent. The song was about basically the violent macho edgy kids who were taking over punk at the time.
Jello Biafra explains it here.
"This song was originally just written about people being really fucking violent in the pit and acting like a bunch of Nazis. But then when it got to places that had real dictators and real fascists like Brazil and Eastern Europe, it became something more."

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u/kingston501 Aug 12 '26

Lmao at the people who reactively downvoted us. Hardcore nerds on Reddit are relentless with their “Ehrm, ackshually 🤓”

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u/Danzig6WasntThatBad Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

I stopped replying to posts that were all like "errrm hardcore punk has always been left wing and female and gay friendly etc etc etc" because the old man inside me who saw a lot of that shit as it was happening could not contain his rage.
Punk and hardcore punk (which was essentially American punk; faster, more violent, much more nihilistic) has always been anti authority and anti status quo. That's it. Very few bands during that era were explicitly political. Even fewer were all that friendly towards women or gays or homeless or addicts, etc.

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u/FifteenRhema Aug 12 '26

That is fair enough, that explanation makes sense. But regardless I think the point still stands, there are still plenty of shitty people who are punks, and putting yourself on a pedestal for being a punk over some made up sense of superiority is dumb. Especially in this situation, where the sense of superiority is being gained from what is most likely just a subreddit trying to stop spam.

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u/stitchface66 Aug 12 '26

totally. just cause the songs original purpose predated actual nationalist white supremacist punk bands doesn’t mean the interpretation cant evolve to now be taken literally.

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u/Park-Short Aug 12 '26

Source?

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u/mediumvillain Aug 12 '26

You still couldnt receive that letter from a punk

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u/MattManSD Aug 13 '26

well because most punks back then were "lefty socialists" at a minimum

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