Session 10: Ethics/Politics
Session 10: Ethics/Politics
Chair: Robert Rutland
Politics? nah.. Fuck Politics man! (What can we expect from metal Gods?)
Niall Scott
Centre for Professional Ethics University of Central Lancashire Preston, PR1 2HE, UK
No abstract is presently available
Fuck Euphemisms: How Heavy Metal Lyrics Speak the Truth About War and Oppression
Richard Floeckher
Northern Kentucky University, USA
Heavy Metal music is in equal parts loved and reviled for the searing candor of its lyrics. On the one hand, its lyrics have faced obscenity charges and have been scapegoated for everything from teen suicide to school shootings. On the other, they have created meaning in the lives of millions of fans whose loyalty to the music is unshakeable.
There are several aspects of heavy metal lyrics that are attractive to metal fans. This paper will explore one important, and often overlooked aspect: The almost complete absence of euphemistic language one finds in their description of important social issues.
Borrowing part of its title from a brilliant, and often hilarious, essay, Fuck Euphemisms by author and translator Élise Hendrick, this paper will develop Hendrick’s position that euphemistic language disempowers oppressed groups by turning the crimes committed against them and the suffering these crimes produce into mere abstractions. Hendrick points out that euphemistic language is more obscene than the “language of anger” it replaces. Heavy metal lyrics, by contrast are defined by their anger, and it is the rawness of its expression that attracts fans to its message. Where euphemisms hide reality, heavy metal lyrics expose it.
Empowerment involves speaking and writing clearly about the reality of one’s situation. Thus, while Heavy Metal lyrics are often nonpolitical in content (in terms of describing a particular political situation), they can still serve a concrete and, ultimately, positive political purpose. By providing uncompromising , in-your-face commentary on issues of war, poverty and a whole slew of other injustices that contradicts the doublespeak of politicians and pundits, Heavy Metal lyrics lend an angry voice to those whose voice goes unheard in the mainstream media.
Drawing from Hendrick’s essay, in addition to the work of Deena Weinstein and Keith Kahn Harris, I will examine this anti-euphemistic language of heavy metal lyrics from Black Sabbath and Slayer to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.
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