TEN ESSENTIAL PUNK ROCK TRACKS, #7: Believe it or not, Joseph Stalin was once the darling of lefty intelligentsia everywhere. No kidding. In the 1940s, smart liberals across the western world would brook no criticism of him -- partly because the Soviets were an invaluable ally against fascism in the second world war, but also because they genuinely admired what they perceived to be the perfect collectivist society that Stalin was building. As liberal intellectuals saw it, the Soviet Union under Stalin was feeding the poor, giving everyone a job, and making sure no one slipped through the cracks. And really, who could argue against that? Who? Well, one UPSTART did argue with that. His name was George Orwell, and he wrote a little fairy tale called _Animal Farm_ that was a pretty blunt metaphor for the dangers of unchallenged collectivist thinking -- a protest against the suppression of individuality that collectivism is prone to when it marches unchecked, unchecked by UPSTARTS. One publisher after another rejected _Animal Farm_, and mostly because they didnt like its open criticism of Stalin and collectivism. Even T.S. Eliot rejected it, writing to Orwell, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore are the best qualified to run the farm -- in fact there couldnt have been an Animal Farm without them.... Of course, _Animal Farm_ eventually did get published, and it has since become an iconic story about the value of individuality. And I like to think that its because of upstarts like George Orwell poking us liberal, collectivist lefties, reminding us that we might not have all the answers (even though I think we do most of the time) that liberal ideology in the United States (and certain other places) has been able to make gradual progress here without succumbing to the dangerous excesses that killed so many people in... say... the Soviet Union... Cambodia... even Jonestown. Its not that collectivist thinking is inherently wrong. I, in fact, think its inherently right. But every revolution, every ideology, hell... just everywhere that people come together and start agreeing with each other... everything like that needs an UPSTART. Im an upstart! (HEY!) / Whatre ya gonna do? / Im an upstart! (LISTEN!) / Im talkin to you! Punk rock has had many declared anthems over the years: from God Save the Queen to American Idiot. It is a form of music that cant help itself but churn out one anthem after another. Of all the punk rock anthems that have come and gone since punk rock emerged in the 70s, this is the one I find most compelling. Rock and roll has always had an element of rebellion. Punk rock, when its good, is always about rebellion on some level. When the Wild One was asked what hes rebelling against, he answers whaddaya got? He might as well have followed that up with, Im an upstart! Whatre ya gonna do?
Posted on: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 02:29:33 +0000