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"Self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as aesthetic pleasure of the first order." Walter Benjamin, 1930. When Judeo-Christian principles took over the nature-based paganism of early peoples, man's connection with the earth and nature began to break. Humans no longer thought of themselves as part of the animal kingdom, but as lords over it. Life ceased to be "fight or flight" or "kill or be killed", but rather humans became concerned with appearances, morals and judgment. They broke their clans, separated from one another, and built walls and fences. Eventually, they built strip malls, parking lots and cubicles. Over time, man's connection to his fellow man, to the land and to the beast within became more and more distant. Now, at least three generations have grown up outside of the natural world, and today's American teenager has been raised in war. It is no surprise, in our dehumanized industrial landscape, and in a culture that values the slick and the shallow over the natural and humanistic, that a generation that also possesses little hope of reaching those mediated ideals or even living as well as their parents did would give rise to a subculture of negation seeking the primal thump and throb of animalistic rage. The violent and dangerous music of death metal binds this modern tribe together. Teenage humans break their alienation in the immediacy of blood, spit, sweat and hair; the feeling of an elbow, a fist or kick to the face; the trickle of blood or the loosening of a tooth. It feels normal. Concrete, leather, steel and mud bring them to their primal roots and closer to their natural state of being. Black or Death metal rejects modernity and Christian ideals. Its followers seek existence outside of the cultural, religious and social mainstream, and they don't want you to join them. Their bands have names that are intentionally gruesome (Cattle Decapitation, Cephalic Carnage, 3 Inches of Blood), pagan (Earth, Celtic Frost, Primordial) , and anti-Christian (Angel Corpse, NecroMessiah, Candlemass). Their logos are specifically designed to be nearly impossible to read and unpleasant to look at. They use Nazi, Satanic and sexual imagery because they know it makes you sick. The music is harsh to the ears and the "lyrics", violent and death-obsessed, are a purposefully indecipherable guttural stream of grunts and screams that sound like the devil being burned alive. This music will literally make you crazy. That is why American soldiers listen to it before going into battle, and that is why it is also used as a means to torture captured "enemy combatants" in places like Guantanamo Bay. This music and culture is not political. In fact, it is expressly apolitical and mostly unconcerned with current events. These kids don't give a fuck about global warming. They are already living in the end times. Some have X's on their hands because they are too young to drink. But, who needs alcohol when you've got methamphetamines and Adderall? They wear corpse paint on their faces to show on the outside that they are already dead on the inside. They are not afraid of the apocalypse, but embracing it. And they are growing in numbers. So, listen, if you love your appliances you had better bolt them down, because THE BEAST IS COMING!!!!!!
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