I was wrong for so many years: for basically the entirety of the 1990s, I had an immature, unsophisticated sense of what rebellion was all about. It’s embarrassing now, but I spent my fair share of time at punk and industrial shows. I wore a biker jacket. Long hair for a time. Lived in bars. You get the idea.
I was taken with various symbols of defiance: Keith Richards, Jack Kerouac, Tom Waits, and Hunter S. Thompson. These were my go-to references—especially Kerouac. I was taken in by the aesthetic put on display by these men. It all felt a bit rebellious, which was very attractive to me. They all offered, in their own way, a middle finger to the Establishment. They didn’t adhere to orthodoxy or convention or established standards.
Punk, too, was rebellious. I discovered the Dead Kennedys in my teens. Lead singer Jello Biafra’s lyrics turned my suburban upbringing upside-down. The DK’s were … well, rebellious. They took a hammer to the vase of conformity.
Then it turned out the Ramones were Republicans, Johnny Rotten was an aging clown, and my beloved Jello Biafra also became a caricature of himself. Punk’s mask fell off. It was not rebellious at all. It was artistically rebellious at the time, sure. But actually rebellious? It was a mode of dress—one that was highly uniform and consistent. Conformist?
By this time I had started to grow up. The year was 2002—age 29, mind you. I ceased to care about all that stuff. I began reading human rights reports. My attention was instead centered on unnecessary human suffering, the mechanics of power, and the writings of Noam Chomsky.
Many “heroes” became buffoons, gave up the hard living, or were dead (Kerouac died a pitiful drunk in 1969, Thompson died a cartoon of himself). Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with hanging up the booze and the smokes (Waits and Richards are both clean living). Nelson Algren was never a hard drinker; he did, however, spend time in bars talking to the defeated and the downtrodden.
And I’m a bit incredulous about the whole hard-living myth anyway. Thompson was seriously well read and wrote a ton; one cannot do that and be, um, compromised. Richards spent an enormous amount of time in the studio and on stage.
They did engage in unwholesome behavior, for sure; but I think much of it is more legendary than anything. We love talking about it. We relish the thought of people having fun, being famous, and getting drunk or acting crazy all the time. We delight in lives we cannot live.
An example of this is Prince. I saw an interview with one of his sound engineers after he died. I think it was Susan Rogers. At any rate, she said that women did show up to the studio a few times. But Prince would start working, and the ladies would get bored and leave. Not quite the lifestyle we hear about.
It’s the mystique of these people. The image is a seductive one. I fell for it: the chimera, the illusion.
Chomsky taught me what a rebel actually is. It’s a person who is not afraid to apply the same standards to his or her own country. It’s a person who asks, How am I contributing to this problem? It’s a defender of the underdog.
Rebelliousness is thinking or behavior that actually runs counter to power’s narrow interests. Monitoring and speaking out about the banks, the Defense contractors, US foreign policy—this all indicates a truly rebellious orientation.
The centers of power do not want people becoming better educated and talking about what they have learned. And they do not want us caring about one another. Power benefits when people are divided and alienated. Power benefits when people are distracted.
In the 1990s I was distracted. I was preoccupied with the image, the mystique, the pose, the posturing, the persona, the affectation of rebelliousness. There is nothing rebellious about drinking, or smoking, or loud music, or tattoos, or various modes of dress. None of these perturbs power one bit. They are merely activities.
Rebellion is fighting for justice, speaking out for those who cannot defend themselves, and standing up to power. Socrates was put to death because he was a threat. Bars and loud music and hard drinking and black leather do not pose a threat. Power does not care about you engaging in these activities. The FBI has never infiltrated a group based on their record collections.
The 1990s are in a deep hole under much dirt. Rock-n-roll is a balloon that has lost half of its air. The post-WWII concept of “cool” no longer has cultural currency; it is a goner. I for one, am less distracted. I have literally and figuratively sobered up. I desperately hope the culture joins me. Many defenseless, voiceless people need us to actually be rebellious.
