Punk Rock and Philosophy
Pop Culture and Philosophy #7
edited by Joshua Heter and Richard Greene
Open Universe
I’ve entered a time warp, and I’m suddenly back in the dorms on a Friday night sometime in the early 1980s. I’m back in Johnny Mambo’s dorm room with the usual suspects, consuming mass quantities of beer and bong hits. Important things are being discussed, like is Elvis Costello punk or New Wave? Is that Slits album cover a transgressive feminist statement or a gross appeal to patriarchal misogyny? The discussion turns deadly serious when the question is raised: can you really be a punk if you still listen to Rush?
Punk Rock and Philosophy is part of the Pop Culture and Philosophy series, which tries to make playing with ideas approachable by using familiar topics as a jumping off point. Previous editions have looked at Philosophy and Better Call Saul, Philosophy and Avatar, and Philosophy and Pokémon. Each volume is a collection of essays by academic thinkers who uses questions like “Is Sting more punk than you?” to investigate ideas of authenticity. I find the essays to be both fun and irritating. They’re fun, because I’m a lapsed academic who likes chattering about ideas for the sake of chattering about ideas. The essays are irritating, in that they can’t completely shake the sheen of academic writing. The writing feels a bit smug, knowing that not everyone one will get the joke.
I started this book with a flashback to my younger self seriously debating the nature of punk rock with my friends. I ended the book with a flashback to a meeting of the Popular Culture Association and a session on literary analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Basically, Punk Rock and Philosophy is essays by academics having fun. Your mileage may vary.
