PUNK/ASKĒSIS by Robert Kenneth Richardson a Dissertation
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PUNK/ASKĒSIS By Robert Kenneth Richardson A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Program in American Studies MAY 2014 © Copyright by Robert Richardson, 2014 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by Robert Richardson, 2014 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of Robert Richardson find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. ___________________________________ Carol Siegel, Ph.D., Chair ___________________________________ Thomas Vernon Reed, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Kristin Arola, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “Laws are like sausages,” Otto von Bismarck once famously said. “It is better not to see them being made.” To laws and sausages, I would add the dissertation. But, they do get made. I am grateful for the support and guidance I have received during this process from Carol Siegel, my chair and friend, who continues to inspire me with her deep sense of humanity, her astute insights into a broad range of academic theory and her relentless commitment through her life and work to making what can only be described as a profoundly positive contribution to the nurturing and nourishing of young talent. I would also like to thank T.V. Reed who, as the Director of American Studies, was instrumental in my ending up in this program in the first place and Kristin Arola who, without hesitation or reservation, kindly agreed to sign on to the committee at T.V.’s request, and who very quickly put me on to a piece of theory that would became one of the analytical cornerstones of this work and my thinking about it. Thank you all for your assistance and input and for allowing me the room to do my work in my own ways. I also want to thank the following Washington State University staff and faculty for their encouragement, help and support during this process: Jean Wiegand, Bob Eddy, Liz Siler and George Kennedy. In each of you I found not only guidance and a ready smile, but also a soft place to fall when I needed one. This process is often characterized as being extremely isolating and, in fact, it is. But, each of your presences was a constant reminder to me that it’s people that matter first—even when you have a draft to get out and more work to do than you think that you will ever possibly survive. A very special thanks, too, to Rose Smetana, who stepped in at a critical juncture in this process and helped me cut through a swath of formidable university red tape. I am so grateful to you all. Also, thank you to Victor Villanueva for his early participation in this process. iii A very special thanks, too, to several friends and colleagues over the last several years: Gregory Phillips, Regina McMenomy, Mary Jo Klinker, Erika Abad, Frank King, Shawn Lamebull, Ben Bunting, David Warner and Sky Wilson. I may not have ventured out often, but when I did it was inevitably in the company of one or more of you. Thank you for sharing your insights, your irreverence, your humanity, your humor, your commiserations and your corroborations. Finally, thank you to my family: Brett, Max, Dexter, Chibi and Maxi, who are my greatest joy and comfort in this world. Without each of you, my life is unintelligible. And to Holly Zemsta, who, for the last eighteen years, has supported, encouraged and loved me through a variety of triumphs, challenges, pains and progressions. I am so pleased and truly proud to have you as such an integral and ongoing part of my life and work. iv PUNK/ASKĒSIS Abstract By Robert Kenneth Richardson, Ph.D. Washington State University May 2014 Chair: Carol Siegel This work examines the aesthetics of traditional punk culture and interprets them as a contemporary form of the ancient Greek practice of askēsis. The primary research for this work was composed of personal observations and experiences, an archive of both academic and non- academic texts and both written and video interviews. The goal of this project is to intertwine the voices and experiences of various individuals prominent within traditional punk culture within a framework of a broad range of philosophy and cultural studies scholarship (the works of Michel Foucault figure prominently here) in order to arrive at a broader understanding of traditional punk philosophy and culture. Given that punk communities are often inherently resistant to not only being studied but to the methods and objectives of traditional academic research inquiry, this work observes a handful of guidelines and notes: 1) Traditional punk culture can be represented by specific spokespeople, artifacts, performances and artistic output, 2) Punk culture can be read as text, 3) Video interview sources will be used frequently in order to avoid some of the inherent problems of transcription, and 4) The language in which I’ve chosen to write the piece is intentionally v designed to be accessible and comprehensible to both academics and a more general audience rather than being limited to a small audience of academics who all share a jargon-dependent discourse. Utilizing these frameworks and sources, I argue that not only is traditional punk a form of askēsis, but that the purpose of traditional punk aesthetic and askēsis is the cultivation of experience in the pursuit of raw power. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTERS PREFACE: Slave Day .........................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................5 CHAPTER ONE: Thinking Feeling: Punk as Care of the Self: Patti Smith, John Lydon and Issues of Transgression, Transcendence and Critique in Traditional Punk Culture .. 44 CHAPTER TWO: Iggy Pop, the Curtain and the 50 Foot Long Erect Paper Phallus ...... 69 CHAPTER THREE: Punk/Askēsis/Parrhēsia ................................................................. 89 CONCLUSION/CONTINUATION ............................................................................... 106 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 110 vii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Figure 1: “Save Pussy Riot” ........................................................................................................4 2. Figure 2: “Pussy Riot’s Victorious Defeat” .................................................................................6 3. Figure 3: “Police Arrest Punks in Indonesia—in Pictures” .......................................................13 4. Figure 4: “Close Guantanamo” ..................................................................................................17 5. Figure 5: “Iggy Walking on Crowd” .........................................................................................77 6. Figure 6: “Iggy Pop” ..................................................................................................................85 7. Figure 7: “Pussy Riot Sochi” ...................................................................................................102 viii “What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.” —Michel Foucault “Art should be life.” —John Lydon 1 Preface Slave Day She had been bought to be a slave. Whether the black garbage bag she wore for a dress or her bronze metallic flats were her idea, I still don’t know, but what I do know is that she looked bored. Sitting in a desk kitty-corner from her in the back of my 11th grade geometry class, I could clearly see that. In the slack of her back and the way she held her pale porcelain chin in her left hand, elbow resting lightly on her knee, “Soon,” she seemed to be thinking, “this will all be over,” and then she could go home. At the time, the student council at the Midwestern public high school I attended had an annual practice of raising funds for both the council and various council-endorsed charities by holding special events. Clash Day encouraged students to dress in clothing no two items of which matched. On Lovely Legs Day, students, teachers and administrators alike could wear shorts and solicit amongst the faculty and student body collecting spare change or cash as a sign of validation that they either clearly had “lovely legs” or were so pathetic that a sympathy donation was in order. That holding a “Slave Day” might have been even the slightest bit inappropriate on any number of levels (which is to say that is was reprehensible) never, it seemed, occurred to either the student council, the administration or any of the teachers (grown- ups?) at the overwhelmingly white, clique-riddled, economically privileged school that I attended. (By “privileged” I mean that the high school boasted its own hockey rink, an Olympic- sized swimming pool, an auditorium so large and well-equipped that it was often used by the community at large for special performances, twelve tennis courts, two gymnasiums where general PE classes