[Industrialblog,
February 25, 2005]
Emo? Huh?
Apparently there's a kind of music called emo. I'd never heard of it until Michele brought it up over at A Small Victory. I don't know anything about it. Apparently some kids cut themselves while listening to this music. It's a whole lifestyle thing.
Dem kids today. I guess tattooes, piercings, smoking weed, free Internet porn, school shootings and designer drugs aren't enough of an emotional rebellion/release. I guess anorexia, bulimia and suicide aren't mentally edgy enough. Now you have to cut yourself, too, and not even while attempting something as purpose-driven as suicide. What's the world coming to?
I don't get it. [I hear my ex- now: "You don't have to."]
If you want to get high, get high. If you don't, don't. If you want to kill, tell the Marines and they'll be happy to set you up. But what's this cutting yourself up?
Some blame the culture. Well, duh. Of course it's the culture. Culture merely means thought. You don't have to be a cognitive psychologist to know that your thoughts matter--if you immerse yourself in negative thoughts, you'll be in a bad mood, and people won't like you, which will cause more negative thoughts, and more bad moods. And so on.
I don't know the emo stuff, but I do know this: The problem we all face in this culture is combatting the negative and unhealthy thoughts that bombard us from all directions, which is what Pope John Paul II calls, "the culture of death." It's a whole host of issues that dislocate us from our proper relationship with God and each other, usually grouped together under the heading, "sin."
Like most reasonable people, I don't think you can pull one item out of a culture and say, "oooh, this is the cause." Kids cut themselves because they've got problems in their thought patterns, and they probably picked up those patterns somewhere. There are plenty of negative examples around, especially of people immersing themselves in negativity, whether in musical choices, their own thoughts, or their choice of friends.
Dem kids today. I guess tattooes, piercings, smoking weed, free Internet porn, school shootings and designer drugs aren't enough of an emotional rebellion/release. I guess anorexia, bulimia and suicide aren't mentally edgy enough. Now you have to cut yourself, too, and not even while attempting something as purpose-driven as suicide. What's the world coming to?
I don't get it. [I hear my ex- now: "You don't have to."]
If you want to get high, get high. If you don't, don't. If you want to kill, tell the Marines and they'll be happy to set you up. But what's this cutting yourself up?
Some blame the culture. Well, duh. Of course it's the culture. Culture merely means thought. You don't have to be a cognitive psychologist to know that your thoughts matter--if you immerse yourself in negative thoughts, you'll be in a bad mood, and people won't like you, which will cause more negative thoughts, and more bad moods. And so on.
I don't know the emo stuff, but I do know this: The problem we all face in this culture is combatting the negative and unhealthy thoughts that bombard us from all directions, which is what Pope John Paul II calls, "the culture of death." It's a whole host of issues that dislocate us from our proper relationship with God and each other, usually grouped together under the heading, "sin."
Like most reasonable people, I don't think you can pull one item out of a culture and say, "oooh, this is the cause." Kids cut themselves because they've got problems in their thought patterns, and they probably picked up those patterns somewhere. There are plenty of negative examples around, especially of people immersing themselves in negativity, whether in musical choices, their own thoughts, or their choice of friends.
I know a teenage girl who killed herself with an overdose while lying in bed in her Sunday best with a rosary in her hands and the "Ave Maria" playing on a phonograph. Then there were the two stoners years ago who locked themselves in a room (n one of their parents' houses (while the parents were present and with the knowledge of the parents) for hours playing Judas Priest and getting drunk and stoned, who then grabbed some shotguns and ran through a playground shouting "Do it, do it, do it!" before they killed themselves. Judas Priest was blamed for their death, because it was maintained that the words "Do it, do it, do it!" were backwards-masked onto their album. (No one thought to call Lindsay Buckingham to the stand, who sang these same words in Fleetwood Mac's "Secondhand Blues".)
An exhaustive review of the "Judas Priest Suicide" case can be found here.
Its prevalence, and how popular it is, I don't know, and I don't know if they're changing. The latter could be as a result of a culture which is too unwilling to punch other people. I sometimes wonder if excessive passifism isn't unhealthy in this world.
Or do you mean a tendency to pass?
:)