It’s official: the moral panic that earned the religious right seemingly permanent satire has completely flipped to the other side of the political spectrum.
In the days and weeks following the traumatic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, leftist media outlets and their sympathizers throughout North America have been engaged in some sort of Nazi witch hunt. Of course, people committed to finding demons eventually find them – and this time, it’s rock music.
Recently, the Calgary Police department in Canada released a seemingly routine warning to parents alerting them of the signs that their children may have been recruited into the ranks of the far-right.
For the most part, the list reads just like any other propaganda piece, and could really apply to any cult-like craze. Warning signs include a sudden lack of interest in education, violent outbursts, and a derision for authority (including government). But the following bullet point stuck out:
“Playing loud, heavy music with violent lyrics.”
Suddenly, it’s as if we’re back in the 1980s, and Tipper Gore is still screaming at Dee Snider over some off-color poetry.
Now, many of us probably remember the controversy surrounding popular rock music during that time, and the religious backlash it garnered as a result of the aesthetics associated with it.
Looking back, it’s easy to see how many mainline Christians were put off by heavy metal’s popularity. Bands like Slayer and Venom typically incorporated anti-Christian images into their performance including satanic pentagrams and inverted crosses. This “scare” lasted well into the 1990s with artists like Marilyn Manson being blamed for horrific events like the Columbine school shooting.
However, with time, this scare largely died off. Now, many contemporary churches even add electric guitars and large drum sets into their Sunday services. Extreme shock rock still exists, but is mainly enjoyed in venues not much larger than your average studio apartment.
But according to the Calgary Police, the musical movement once associated with a mythical counter-culture is now virtually the same as donning a swastika on your clothing. In other words, it’s pretty clear that no one in the department has ever attended a heavy metal concert. Not that one needs to in order to understand that the Third Reich isn’t terribly popular in such a setting, but those that have are certainly still laughing at the report.
As any rational person could expect from a subculture populated by individuals who actually think having long hair is a practical decision, modern rock music is actually incredibly liberal. In fact, many fan favorites have made their living by penning lyrics condemning authoritarian regimes including Nazi Germany.
Slayer’s Angel of Death, for example, recounts the horrors of the Holocaust. Black Sabbath’s War Pigs takes a jab at authoritarian regimes as a whole, condemning their tendencies for using war as a way of maintaining political legitimacy.
The aforementioned bands aren’t exactly new, either, so it’s rather surprising that such themes have been completely overlooked.
Granted, heavy metal isn’t nearly as popular as it once was — and there have indeed been individuals identifying with the movement who have also tried to push some questionable political opinions. Burzum’s Vark Vikernes, for instance, once self-identified as a Nationalist Socialist. However, Vikneres never really enjoyed any popularity. Most of his albums were actually recorded from prison after he was arrested for committing several acts of arson in addition to murdering a fellow bandmate.
It’s long past time for this neo-Nazi hysteria to end. By lumping in every possible subculture into the same category as one of the most reprehensible regimes in history, leftists are effectively giving Nazi sympathizers a much larger platform than they deserve.
~ Liberty Planet
