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Gothism Today
Gothism Today
Gothism today has broader implications than Gothicism. Gothism has waned since the mass murder at Columbine High School. The evil doers were involved in contemporary Goth culture. After the attacks its blatantly morbid aspect was no longer merely amusing or reluctantly tolerated by parental authority. Innocent young Goths were found guilty by association, of having at least a propensity to gratuitously act out their favorite scenes of wild and wanton violence. Many Goths old and new went underground while others simply outgrew the fadish cult. The events of 9/11 sealed the tomb - those events are rubbed in American faces every day as if they were the only real terrifying events in the world simply because they occured on sacred American soil.
No, virtual violence is no longer a cool scene in the cultural underground, at least not as cool as it used to be. Hardly anyone in the cowering mass wants to be associated with the cultivation of violence since its obscene realization in the wave of terrifying acts sweeping the world. Of course the highly organized terrorism of the United States designed to fight fire with fire and to get revenge on terrorists both real and imagined is quite popular, and violence in entertainment still reigns supreme over love stories.
Unfortunately, few people are aware of the subconscious link between such violent events as the Columbine killings and the bombing in Bali. We have reason to repress what lurks underground - the more we do so, the more real instead of virtual the underground becomes. Something must be wrong with the scenic picture of people happily consuming and producing and consuming and producing. One seemingly random act of violence against that fleeting happiness follows another, and the bored media loves it because people love it. Authoritarian governments arise to fight the hydra. Violence spreads until the world is awash in the blood and gore the Gothic kids merely imagined in response to homely authority.
What lurks underground? Contempt and even hatred for the social scene which is supposed to be good, the scene that requires individuals to lie to be good or else be cast out and even to perish. That is, the obscene is a protest against the official scene, sometimes referred to as the Big Lie. The obverse of the scene is a spiritual or romantic protest of the 'noble' individual and of 'aristocratic' groups of 'nobles' against the hypocritical social restraints of the materialistic mass, the self-hating, competitive 'bourgeois' or middle class who preach physical and moral hygiene, godly brotherly love, and even immortality. But they really are bags of gore with religiously dirty minds who love the devil, who hate and murder their brothers en masse, and who, instead of going to heaven, rot in graves if not cremated.
Since the young are engaged in a struggle to distinguish themselves as individuals and since that struggle is typically a rebellion against homely authority or small-scale homeland security, we should not be at all surprised or shocked by the postmodern Goth culture that threw the awful truth in authority's face. Each generation has forms of protest, and some forms reappear. Each form has its significance. Gothism in fact is as old as the hills. The experts who deny any link between our recent Gothic youth culture and the inspiring Gothic period following the Black Plague are mistaken; they do a great disservice to the kids who should know about the positive aspects of that period as well as the positive influence of modern Gothic literature on the Romantic. Mind you that when we went out into the field and interviewed our Goths we did not find Columbine killers. We found confused teenagers, of course, many of them intelligent and instrospective, interested in music and literature - potential intellectuals. They were mishandled by authority and seem to have melted into the crowd. Beware, however, when the Sun goes down on the Big Lie.
Yes, young rebels turn to adult culture for their identifications; the more exotic the better; perhaps old enemies of the official religious culture - the Oriental religions. And let us not forget the noble Arab knight whose designation 'arab' means 'noble.' It was not that long ago that many Western boys dreamed of participating in desert jihads waged by ruthless freedom fighters on camelback. Indeed, it is with that in mind that social scientists urge the immediate 'modernization' and 'reformation' of Islam, that it might put its Allah in a transcendental closet too, and join Protestantism in bourgeois feel-good faith, faith in Anything Goes - as long as there is a profit in it. If it were not for the religious particularism of fundamental Islam contradicting its pretentions to universality, if the propagandists focused on the general protest against bourgeois, capitalist culture, titanic homeland security would no longer be able to recognize the face of evil and would soon be overwhelmed by the evil empire it conjures up while fanning the flames under the smoke signals in order to fatten its paychecks.
Why did homeland security fail the last time? Because of the Big Lie the Goths warned us about. The patriotic hypocrisy. Patriotism? There was no Pater overlooking his brood with a loving eye. Therefore there was no brotherly love or neighborly love. Indeed, some security agents privately denied that widespread bortherly love could even exist. Of course not, for eveything is done for the want of money, according to the competitive American Way - life and liberty is confined to the pursuit of property or its almighty god behind the Almighty Father cited; that is, the Almighty Dollar.
Not much has changed since the building of the latest bureaucratic Titanic. There is confusion on the deck. Another super agency is wanted to run that one. Security is a little better now that everybody is watching, but the nature of the game is to milk the holy cash cow dry. Chairs are moving around on the deck. Some will make fortunes while others complain that they do not have basic equipment. People with security clearances continue to live the Big Lie.
Beware.
