Death metal
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Conservationist
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Death metal
I don't think it is a depraved art form at all (to paraphrase another thread). It's a nihilistic artform, meaning that there is nothing human in it, and some mistake that melancholic misanthropy for fatalism.
- Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Death metal
All art forms reflect some aspect of the culture they emerge from, as mirror perhaps - exaggerated masks, and sometimes reflecting hidden or denied aspects. In this nihilist age, nihilistic art-forms are to be expected and should be accepted. If it could be called "depraved" at all, it could only be so because it arose out of a depraved, declining culture, like maggots feasting on a corpse. The question remaining is if it's arising in opposition, as cure, as garbage collectors or as pure celebration. Same question goes for all art of course.
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Conservationist
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Re: Death metal
I agree. However, I use language somewhat differently.Diebert van Rhijn wrote:All art forms reflect some aspect of the culture they emerge from, as mirror perhaps - exaggerated masks, and sometimes reflecting hidden or denied aspects. In this nihilist age, nihilistic art-forms are to be expected and should be accepted. If it could be called "depraved" at all, it could only be so because it arose out of a depraved, declining culture, like maggots feasting on a corpse. The question remaining is if it's arising in opposition, as cure, as garbage collectors or as pure celebration. Same question goes for all art of course.
To my mind, nihilism means a lack of belief in the inherent, which includes social pressures (most modern people confuse these with organic culture, mainly because in a multicultural world real culture is taboo).
Nihilists however are free to perceive the only thing which is inherent, which is reality itself, including (a) the biological need for species survival (b) culture/heritage as a time-honored Darwinian adaptation to the same and (c) the spiritual essence described by Advaita Vedanta and the original Upanishads, which describes that which material physics (a method) cannot (origins, goals).
You may find this description of active nihilism to be relevant; maybe not.
Death metal is not counterculture; it is opposition to counterculture. Much of it is Romanticist, post-human (Lyotardian), naturalistic and enabled of the spirit of vir, which makes it in complete opposition to modernism, multi-culturalism, the personal ethic of convenience and the stage in the Platonic cycle of civilization death and rebirth in which we now exist (the Kali-Yuga, for you Vedantists out there).
Personally, I'm sort of fond of death metal, but like all genre descriptions, the term "death metal" suffers from being inclusive. I think Cannibal Corpse and Opeth are the worst pandering crap to hit the airwaves. But early Incantation, or Demigod, or even the formative years of Florida death metal (Obituary, Deicide, Morbid Angel)? Well, those I can live and love.
And for those with a Dutch origin, it's important to remember the Dutch helped invent death metal (Sinister, Pestilence, Asphyx) and remain important contributors to it.