Saturday, September 2, 2017

Our Current Crisis Of Culture

it is obvious and easy to realize what the current crisis of culture is. and it is easy to explain, why this crisis is so plainly visible to many - while to others it is invisible, even to the point that they insist there would be no crisis at all.
in the last decade of the 20th century, people were bored with the generic tripe that polluted the music area - all that cheesy eurodisco, all those ridiculous poser "hardrock" bands, and so on. instead they wanted new, fresh, different, groundbreaking, breathtaking ideas, concepts. and they got them. some created techno, acid, others dark ambient, breakcore, or other experimental and different music. it is impossible for those who did not live that era to realize how hard these sounds hit everyone; how the feeling of revolution and utopia and paradise music spread. because they are used to it now; but those living then, were not.
now, for nostalgics, the scheme is easy: revolution was in the air; we go to techno paradise, experimental music will break through, forgone by the rock relics and the boring pop genres. but, according to them, something went wrong, and the revolution failed and did not come. but nothing could be more from the truth.
we had our techno revolution. we had our breakcore revolution. we had our dark ambient move. and - we won.
and this is exactly the problem. if we were just crushed by the state repression, or this music had never left its shell, the situation would be much better now. where is the problem with this, with this successful change?
because, we wanted new ideas, new movements, new society. and we have them. but, now, as they're established - they are simply not new ideas anymore. "our" new ideas are the old ideas now. what was once revolutionary - techno and its genres - is now reactionary. because life is about change, about movement, about breaking from the past each time anew. it cannot stop, it must not stop. yes, the techno breakthrough, the breakcore moment did *indeed* bring a lot of new ideas and modes to the musicworld; but these days, they are simply not new anymore - they belong to the past too, became boring, and worse, predictable, formatted, precut. in that other decade, it was a breath of fresh air when boring pop songs were cut up and tuned to frantic beats - nowadays, you know this exactly how the breakcore track by some bullshit artist is gonna play out, when you hit play.
the same goes for society; society is indeed different from how society was in the 90s, 80s, 70s. but - it still sucks. or rather, it sucks - again.
our current culture, our music, our mode of living, is indeed the result of the breakthroughs, the social and sonic revolutions of the 90s; rave utopia came true; as came breakcore resistance. but utopia grew stale; as did resistance. not because these ideas were wrong - they were glorious. but because they are no longer new and exciting; they are old, and conservative, and established. our past revolutionaries are the establishment of today. this can be seen in the all-night techno clubbers; the "party and forget society" myth still holds true for them; but it no longer has the utopian aspect, anarchist, fantastical edge to it, that it had to the first ravers.
the revolutionaries, the ravers, the experimenters, wanted new ideas in that past decade; and they got them. but now, they are not fresh anymore.
culture is always the product between two forces; the agents of change, and the agents of standstill. those who were agents of change in that other decade, are agents of standstill now. and the genres that were agents of change; speedcore, acidhouse; too are agents of standstill now.
now, to get back to our beginning of this texts, this explains why this "crisis" is not visible to many; rather, it is not "visible" to the agents of standstill; as they *want* standstill, they do not see the problem. they appreciate it if nothing changes and culture and music just goes on, and doesn't change, so they approve of this.
the cultural standstill, that is gripping western culture now, is just the "normal situation" for them now.
while for the agents of change, this annoying situation is plainly visible.
what needs to be done, is to rise up once again; to forget the concepts of past music and culture and society. to find something new, create something new, create something great, something wondrous. to produce music that was not done before; to rebel, to revel, to rave, to start a revolution.
"techno" is multiple decades old; and just as tripe as rock was after it lasted several decades. leave this behind; find new ideas, moves, possibilities, methods.
the ideas, the genres, that were so revolutionary in the past, are the moments of reaction now. we need to move on. to create something - awesome. to reach utopia!

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Table Of Contents

Hardcore Techno And Anarchist Theory all texts written by Sönke Moehl This E-book can also be downloaded as a PDF at: https://www.dropb...