Eugenia Williamson, who probably situates as a late model Gen-X'er or early version of a Millennial, meditates on the 40th birthday or thereabouts of punk rock in a Baffler piece called "Punk Crock." You may get the picture that she's not carrying a pedestal for it to mount.
She makes a lot of great points and so you should read the whole article. One of the things that shows up several times is the realization that those on the bleeding edge of the punk rock movement -- sometimes literally -- moderated, calmed and mellowed quite a bit as they aged. And if they didn't age, then they obviously mellowed even more. Rather than spitting in authority's eye every morning for breakfast, they sometimes found themselves becoming the authority -- managing things and/or people and even morphing into those figures of ultimate arbitrary dictatorship, Mom and Dad.
Ms. Williamson takes her article in a different direction, but it would have been interesting to explore how much of the displayed angst, anger and disaffection that characterized punk's snarliest snarls had to do with the age of the snarler as much as any considered worldview. Many of punk's sincerest avatars who've survived feel just as passionately about their ideals now as they did then, but they're trying tactics other than poking safety pins through their noses and barfing on the audience to communicate their point.
John Lydon -- who as Johnny Rotten once proclaimed with the Sex Pistols that England's dreaming had no future -- recently mocked latter-day rabble-rouser Russell Brand for saying that young people shouldn't vote in elections. The rest of the interview makes clear that Lydon hasn't suddenly fallen in love with Thatcherism; he's as committed a liberal as ever. But the kind of opting out that might have identified the Pistols and certainly identifies Brand makes no sense to him.
Mike Ness, who's been sneering as the front man for Social Distortion since the late 1970s, built the middle of his career around raising his two sons with his wife Christine. Ness reduced his solo touring as well as that of the band to have time to be available to them. Although significantly more reflective now than in the band's first big push, any interview with him leaves it clear that he is as motivated about what he sees as society's issues as he has ever been.
As babies, we yell and cry because we do not know how to say that we are hungry or thirsty or wet or whatever. As we age, we may still yell and cry or lash out when we do not know how to communicate or deal with what's going on, although that list is supposed to change or at least shrink a little. And as adults, tears may continue to express feelings which overwhelm our ability to speak. So it may have been with punks and with every iteration of them that crops up in a generation. We see things we think are wrong but we do not know how to talk about changing them, so we howl about breaking them. As experience gives us some perspective, we find other ways to talk about change or even work to make it happen. We scream less -- unless we are Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders -- and we talk and persuade more.
Some of the punkers Ms. Williamson talks to seem somehow embarrassed by the signs of their maturity and press hard to keep hold of the attitude of rebelliousness they used to carry. In a youth-obsessed culture that's understandable, but growing up is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it might be a badge of distinction, because a quick survey of the body cultural seems to suggest there are a whole lot of people who never manage it.
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