Friday, December 4, 2009

Spengler meets subcultural theory

Decline of the West's whole culture versus civilisation thing, i realised underpins quite a bit of my thinking about music, i wonder where i absorbed it from... must be Nietzche presumably

i think you could do quite an interesting mashup of Spengler into subcultural theory/Dick Hebdige, etc, cos if you think about it a lot of subcultures are just CULTURES (in the Spenglerian sense) as opposed to CIVILISATION (market-oriented, eclectic, cosmopolitan, audio-decor/audio-couture). subcultures are pockets of tribalism and of less-civilised, less-effete modes, more participatory and social-cathartic forms of music...

there are also, often, warrior-cultures.... which is what a lot of gang culture is anyway, bastions of a Medieval mindset.... subcultures are all about hierarchy, display, aristocracy etc....

even the concept of "race-feeling" has some applications to things like rave and jungle (junglists as a people, a sort of post-racial race)... cf Black Moth Super Rainbow's "Start A People"

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