Necropolis #52 – On the Metaphysics of Death

Dear HM
Firstly, thank you for taking the time out to write a civil and cogent reply, I appreciate it. I will now, in the time honored tradition of bad internet threads, quote you at length and reply.

“Prozak’s writing on metal in particular remains hugely influential within the underground, I think you would be surprised how many anus.com alumni litter the scene, this is not tantamount to endorsing his political views, which I abhor. (I am not aware of the Anders Breivik connection)”

1) I am quite aware of the 1st phenomenon you point out – I’m an example of it. In fact I found your blog trying to find discussion of extreme music that wasn’t grounded in this odious, moronic (and most importantly) unscientific/irrational/dishonest teleology. Naturally the first thing I found was “growing up in the ANUS”

2) To some extent it is an annoying self-referential problem – a lot of the underground canon was created in part by people like Chris Blanc, making him, in hindsight seem prophetic and whatnot whereas it’s just his (& likeminded others) tastes that were originally used to define somewhat of a canon in the early days of the internet. Which is also, why you were often into the “right bands at the wrong time” as you put it in your piece about ANUS.

3) The breivik connection is tragicomic at best As “prozak”, Chris was quite fond of wishing for all sorts of violence on others (you’ll notice amerika takes a slightly different tack). I don’t know if its directly because of that that the persona changed from prozak to stevens or anus split into DMU and amerika, but the cliffnotes version is as far as I can tell:

Chris wanted leftists and other undesirables killed–>Brevik obliged–>Thanked “prozak” for inspiration explicitly–>”Prozak’s” balls dropped off saying Brevik has courage he doesnt but he supports the actions in principle as it “has raised the cost of being a leftist” in Europe –> Presumably scared of the fuzz and/or Antifa coming after him –> “Prozak” re-brands as Brett Stevens, a mild mannered *thinker*, who ironically now uses his blog AND DMU to clutch pearls and wring hands about “Antifa Terrorists”.
https://www.amerika.org/politics/breaking-the-back-of-virtue-signaling/

“I have no problem acknowledging the influence he had on me…”
Same, See above. Perhaps we both need to work harder to escaping it, not through rejection but a dialectical overcoming of it. (See end of this reply)

“In regards to platforming, deathmetal.org and the DMU have an exponentially larger platform than HM, so on a practical level it’s not possible for HM to amplify Prozak as an individual, his infamy stretches far beyond the small reach of this site.”

1) Fair enough.
2) Please lets call a spade a spade and “prozak”/Brett Stevens as Chris Blanc, by (what I think is) his real name. I’m writing anonymously because I really only intend this communication for you. If I was to put a blog out with my political beliefs I assure you it would not be anonymous.

I’m not a fan of the “Every profound spirit needs a mask” nonsense, I’m much more of a “the communists disdain to conceal their aims and views” kinda guy :p

A third rate fiction writer who learnt a little bit of coding and thus thinks he’s “smart” calling for the mass slaughter of billions who is too cowardly to use his own name has really only one “asset” – ANONYMITY and I see no reason to provide him that.

“….This is reconciliation via music…”

1) Now we get to the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. I see your point, my first instinct is to say its a fools hope and as you so eloquently put it “too naïve to survive contact with reality”

2) However, what the hell do I know? I would prefer to follow in the footsteps of *my* intellectual heroes (Marx, Engels, I’d name others but here me being from the global south and you from the north would probably soon find both of us on opposite sides :D) and write a *counter-history* of metal. a *counter* metal FAQ. In Marxs method (I presume with a philosophy degree, even if it is from reactionary England (j/k) you have some familiarity with the guy’s method, and far more then me, I come from STEM :p) of immanent criticism perhaps, or just rigorous, good old fashioned scientific and materialist inquiry. By which I mean, not RABM or some other fake teleology, but an honest-to-goodness history of metal.

3)To that end, I am putting together other like-minded friends. I was wondering if this is something you’d like to be included in or would consider contributing to. There is ofc a lot we would need to discuss, so I suppose this is where I should end this rant and ask what’s a good way to reach you for private communication, *if* you’re willing.

4) All this will take a few months to years. I have PhDs to apply to and (hopefully) start this year, which will put me back in contact with my collaborator – a metalhead Physicist who’s never heard of ANUS but agrees with their top 15 list in Black and Death metal. If you agree, we can start corresponding. I would love to be educated about metal and the history of it from someone who doesn’t feel my skin color bars me from attending European universities to study things their own white-supremacist ass is too dumb to. We’d have a lot to discuss – not least our widely divergent politics despite being “left”. But I think it could be a productive and fruitful exchange & worst case scenario we’d lose nothing but time.

Sorry for the wall of text, my age must be showing since I’ve done a horrible job of being organized.

Live long and prosper and all that. Ciao.

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