Hijacking Of Subculture

[Selfsurprise]

This is quite a broad subject but it's one I feel to rather close to my interests, but I'll try to keep it brief.

 

Certain underground movements and subcultures emerging from the 1950's and beyond had appropriated certain images and ideas from the scary elements of 20th century politics. Whether it's bikers, rock music fanatics and various freak folk culling Nazi insignia in their apparel and design, the Eastern European avant-garde repurposing fascist tropes for their happenings and "situation art", or punk and new wave parodying the stoic and po-faced behaviour of neo-fascists and other conservative demographics (Reagan Youth, are a band that spring to mind) we have seen right wing extremist idols manifesting within what tend to be reactionary and usually left-wing circumstances.

 

Well I'm a fan of many strange musical genres that, on the face of it, could be misconstrued as being sympathetic to nationalist views and right-wing ideology. Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial, Power Electronics and even some Black Metal groups display a marked tendency towards world war and militant themes, usually as a sort of historical narrative to draw inspiration from. Perhaps in retrospect it was somewhat naive of me to not realize that the real contingencies of right wing politics would try to hijack certain cultural practices.

 

I've noticed a disturbing trend among certain genres of music, fantasy literature and even computer gaming sources that are harbouring an increasingly vocal and cohesive minority of people with undeniably racist/nationalist views, often espousing deeply incorrect political and social narratives that range from indiscriminate Islamophobia to outright holocaust denial - but all without the kind of automatic denial that would of met such outright conservatism not so long ago. I'm not ignorant to the fact that right-wing politics are gaining an ever steadier foothold in Europe, so I'm not so surprised regarding the efforts of certain people to shoehorn their beliefs into various contexts, irrespective of how valid or warranted they are. The point of this thread is to ask you all if you've seen similar trends arising in your interests and hobbies respective communities, and to ask if you agree that these individuals aren't openly challenged about their politics as much as they would of been ten years ago.

[Vapymid]

But is it the extremists hi-jacking sub-cultures or sub-culture are born in the extremist circles and then go out into the mainstream? I always thought the latter...

 

Personally, I don't like any of the genres you mentioned and I never had time for extremists (either right- or left-wing) so I'm not the best person to judge the causality here...

 

The Prog rock isn't being obviously hi-jacked by anyone if you don't count maybe Neal Morse's religiosity, so... I'm quite content on that front

 

But, in general, these are times when extremist views are flaring up, especially among the less educated, more easily manipulated youth, who always make fertile soil for "easy" solutions ideology. But it spills over on a broader scale too... Take UKIP or Cobryn's Labour...

 

I am slightly surprised by the BNP and EDL though, they seem to be too quiet...

 

Regards

[Selfsurprise]

Nobody takes the EDL or BNP seriously though, I'm not even sure their members even understand what it is they espouse. I think they have less constituencies than The Monster Raving Loony Party... :3 Despite all the venomous discourse on the left and right in England, I suspect the English lean instinctively towards cautious centralism.