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A very interesting topic. I can see both points of view. Whatever works for you, man. I'm a graduate. cool

I'm not even close to college (I'm in 7th Grade sad ), but I don't know if I'm going to college or not. If I do, I'm probably going to major in something like psychology or philosophy.

one thing i have learned though out my many years of punkage (if you can call it that) is that punk isn't even punk.

everyone sees the hypocrisy of elitist punx. punk isn't about being something.

punk isnt about being punk to be exact. punk is about not being about. if you catch my drift. or at least not being a tool-bag.

punk is do what you want, do what you need to do, be who you need to be, act how you need to act. its not about being/doing/acting against the mainstream, or acting against anything authoritarian. its about finding a purer path for yourself, usually that means cleansing yourself of corporate, social and political nonsense. but to be honest it can mean anything.

the first punk rockers weren't interested in bringing down the system, at least the ones that i have seen interviews from. it all started because they were tired of Bull s**t music tarnishing the name of the rock and roll philosophy. so they dumbed it down, purified it into the simplest form possible, eliminated the bull s**t from their lives.

i think the greatest thing punk is, is anti-bull s**t. so dont get pulled into the bull s**t. especially not in the name of punk.

Which early punkers weren't interested in bringing down the system? Even back to pre-punk there were bands like MC5 but then it grew into an extremly anti-establishment style, especially with the early bands like The Damned, D.O.A., The Sex Pistols (who I personally dislike), The Clash, The Dead Boys, The Smiths, and the list goes on and on. Yeah, there were some apolitical punk bands like the Ramones, but for the most part they were leftists politically and very much against upholding society's expectations, and even the apolitical ones focused on going against the mainstream and breaking society's standards, even the most mainstream bands again, like the Ramones. So which punk bands have you seen that weren't interested in purposfully avoiding the mainstream, breaking standards and being extremly anti-conformist and probably anti-authoritarian if not being completly against the system.

Anyone who blatantly screams 'ANARCHY!!!!!!!!1' is asking for trouble. Anarchy is a school of thought with hundreds of different ways of looking at it, different styles and different philosophers that went years before punk.

Or bricks.

The connection between Anarchy and punk was that it was en vogue at the time punk was coming around.

I don't remember where I read this, but somebody from the early days described punk- even in the late eighties, when it was on MTV- as something for the intellectually curious. Something you looked into if everything else was getting a little monotomous (sp?). I like that idea better than shiteads in spikes screaming 'ANARCHY!!11one'