Sojourning Outside
If you're not fringe, you're probably cringe.
As always, I was expecting nothing and prepared for anything when I grabbed my phone and had a look at the blue bird app. What I found was the then newest contribution by Heghoulian (find his Substack here).
Couldn’t help but RT it with a silly little rhyme, because that’s what I do. Yet, there’s more to it, and so this guy has me officially spilling the beans right here and now about an idea I’ve had.
It was October 27, 2021 and I was spending some idle time on Twitter while waiting for my Schnitzel variations somewhere. One thing led to another, and in the end, my dear friends of Rechtsausleger podcast (anyone germanophone, go give them a listen!) suggested a “fringe music podcast”:
That stroke a chord, because I had been thinking about such a thing ever since German right-wing (fun) podcasts took off about three years ago. Having spent my fair share of time in New Right spheres, I’ve come to find the boilerplate talking points about metapolitics and some “silent majority” dull and bland. Assuming that the non-parliamentary contemporary right has lodged itself neatly into a subcultural niche with no realistic chance (or intention) of leaving it in the foreseeable future, why not dive into sub-cultural hegemony instead of the tired old Gramscisms and see what may unfold?
There’s always literature, of course. And I see with satisfaction that people my age and below on this side of the political spectrum are way less fanatic about the “classics” (especially Ernst Jünger) by now than even 10 years ago. But there also is so much more: Having come of age in a time where, to my subjective feeling, the internet was yet rather a tool than a “world” of its own, I cling to the notion that it was music with its cultural allusions and sublime sentiments that influenced me the most and set me on the path forward that I’ve been following for almost 20 years now.
As you can see, there is a lot to talk about while looking for gems in the twilight zone that is (presumably) not that tainted by mass-consumption culture yet. And where else could we find any inspiration for unconventional thinking and living?
As Jameson, Fisher, and by now many others remind us, the key factor to today’s apparent overarching stasis is a mass-culturally sustained lack of imagination, a clouded vision of what other conditions might even look like. If any liminal experiences are to be found somewhere below the level of extreme sports and near-death events, they probably lie within subcultures not yet completely commodified. Maybe I’m mistaken, but it should worthwhile finding out.
So go ahead and give me one vision!
(written March 23, 2022)