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a punk manifesto
by
greg graffin
i have never owned a record label, nor directed a successful merchandise company, so i don't pretend to be an expert on marketing. i have evolved through my craft as a songwriter, but others have labeled it and marketed it and made it neat for consumption.
although i have made money from punk, it is a modest amount when one considers the bounty that has been bestowed on the companies that promote punk as some sort of a product to be ingested. it has always been my way to de-value the fashionable, light-hearted, impulsive traits that people associate with punk, because punk is more than that, so much more that those elements become trivial in the light of human experience that all punkers share.
since it has been a part of me for over half of my life, i think the time has come to attempt a definition, and in the process defend, this persistent social phenomenon known as punk. it is astounding that something with so much emotional and trans- cultural depth has gone without definition for so long, for the roots of punk run deeper, and go back in history farther than imagined.
even in the last two decades, it is difficult to find any analysis of the influential effect that punk rock had on pop music and youth culture. and rarer still are essays detailing the emotional and intellectual undercurrents that drive the more overt fashion statements that most people attribute to punk. these are some of the wants that compelled me to write this. if my attempt offends the purists, collapses the secrecy of a closed society, promotes confidence in skeptical inquiry, provokes deeper thought, and decodes irony, then i have done my job and those who feel slighted might recognize the triviality of their position. for i have nothing to promote but my observations on a sub-culture that has grown to global proportions, and through visiting much of it, i have found threads of common thought everywhere.
common thought processes are what determine the ideology that binds people together into a community. there is desire among punks to be a community, but there needs to be some shape imparted on the foundations of the punk ideology, and where it comes from. the current punk stereotype is scarred by mass-marketing and an unfortunate emphasis on style over substance.
but these ills don't destroy the punk sentiment, they merely confound the education of the new generations of people who know they are punk, but don't know what it means. it is a long road to understand what it means. this essay is part of the process.
punks are not beasts punk is a reflection of what it means to be human. what separates us from other animals? our ability to recognize ourselves and express our own genetic uniqueness. ironically, the commonly held view, among the marketeers and publicity engines, stresses the "animalistic", "primitive" nature of punks and their music.
they assume that violence is a key ingredient in punk music, and this assumption is easily perpetuated because it is easy to market violence and news items about violence always get column space. this focus on violence misses a key element of what punk is all about:
punk is: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.
violence is neither common in, nor unique to punk. when it does manifest itself it is due to things unrelated to the punk ideal. consider for example the common story of a fight at a high school between a punk and a jock football player. the football player and his cohort do not accept or value the punk as a real person. rather, they use him as a vitriol receptacle, daily taunting, provoking, and embarrassing him, which of course is no more than a reflection of their own insecurities. one day, the punk has had enough and he clobbers the football captain in the hallway. the teachers of course expell the punk and cite his poor hairstyle and shabby clothing as evidence that he is a violent, uncontrollable no-good. the community newspaper reads "hallway beating re-affirms that violence is a way of life among punk rockers".
spontaneous anger at not being accepted as a real person is not unique to punkers. this reaction is due to being human, and anybody would react in anger regardless of their sub- cultural, or social affiliation if they felt de- valued and useless. sadly, there are plenty of examples of violence among punks. there are glaring examples of misguided people who call themselves punks too. but anger and violence are not punk traits, in fact, they have no place in the punk ideal. anger and violence are not the glue that holds the punk community together.
in uniqueness is the preservation of mankind nature bestowed on us the genetic backbone of what punk is all about. there are roughly 80,000 genes in the human genome, and there are roughly 6 billion people carrying that genetic compliment. the chances of two people carrying the same genome are so small as to be almost beyond comprehension (the odds are essentially ½ 80,000 times the number of possible people you can meet and mate with in a lifetime! a practical impossibility)
the genes we carry play a major role in determining our behavior and outlook on life. that is why we have the gift of uniqueness, because no one else has the same set of genes controlling their view of the world. of course cultural factors play the other major role, and these can have a more homogenizing effect on behavior and world-view.
for example, an entire working-class town might have 15,000 residents who are raised with the same ideals, work at the same factories, go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, and like the same sports teams. as their children develop, there is a constant interaction of opposite forces between the social imprinting their culture imparts and the genetic expression of uniqueness.
those who lose touch with their nature become society's robots, whereas those who denounce their social development become vagrant animals. punk stands for a desire to walk the line in between these two extremes with masterful precision. punks want to express their own unique nature, while at the same time want to embrace the communal aspects of their cookie-cutter upbringing. the social connection they have is based on a desire to understand each other's unique view of the world. punk "scenes" are social places where those views are accepted, sometimes adopted, sometimes discarded, but always tolerated and respected.
punk is: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.
because it depends on tolerance and shuns denial, punk is open to all humans. there is an elegant parallel between punk's dependence on unique views and behaviors and our own natural genetic predisposition toward uniqueness.
