ISIS And '60s Counter-Culture

Alan: I am an unabashed child of the sixties.

And increasingly, I see the popularity of ISIS as a kind of Beatlemania.

The substance of this new Islamic counter-culture is antithetical to the shibboleths of "Peace and Love." 

But the structure is nearly identical: total disregard for mainstream values, replacing them with "rock star" adulation - the rock star in question being a "punk" version of Muhammed.

In both counter-cultures, those who fail "the test of hipness" are looked down on as laughable outsiders - infidels who just "don't get it." 

"You know what I mean?"

In the rock opera, "Tommy," cognoscenti proudly proclaim their gnostic superiority: "We forsake you. Gonna rape you. Let's forget you better still."

Give a jihadic twist to the rock idealism of the 1960s and "We're Not Going To Take It" becomes a common creed.

The only discrepancy in these two counter-cultural belief systems is that The Who declare contempt for religion although even here, more than a billion Islamics say that ISIS holds religion in contempt - and going beyond contempt parodies religion with necrophiliac satanism.

We're Not Going To Take It 

Welcome to the camp
I guess you all know, why we're here
My name is Tommy
And I became aware this year

If you want to follow me
You've got to play pinball
And put in your earplugs
Put on your eye shades
You know where to put the cork

Hey, you getting drunk, so sorry
I've got you sussed
Hey, you smoking mother nature
This is a bust

Hey, hung up old Mr. Normal
Don't try to gain my trust
'Cause you ain't gonna follow me
Any of those ways
Although you think you must

We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it

We're not gonna take it
Never did and never will
We're not gonna take it
Gonna break it, gonna shake it
Let's forget it better still

Now you can't hear me
Your ears are truly sealed
You can't speak either
Your mouth is filled

You can't see nothing
And pinball completes the scene
Here comes Uncle Ernie to guide you to
Your very own machine

We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it

We're not gonna take it
Never did and never will
Don't want no religion
And as far as we can tell

We ain't gonna take you
Never did and never will
We're not gonna take you

We forsake you, gonna rape you
Let's forget you better still

We forsake you, gonna rape you
Let's forget you better still

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

Listening to you, I get the music
Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you, I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinions
From you, I get the story

Listening to you, I get the music
Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you, I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinions
From you, I get the story

Listening to you, I get the music
Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountains
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you, I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinions
From you, I get the story

Just as sixties rebellion quickly devolved into "style" and 

"fashion," there are already signs that ISIS is going "out 

of style."


Overseas recruitment is in free fall and "first wave" 

ISIS volunteers - often disaffected adolescent naifs in search 

of meaning -- are returning to their home countries bitterly 

disillusioned by "the bad trip."


Perhaps the key difference between "Christendom's 

counter-culture" and "ISIS counter-culture" is that the latter 

has a dependable "resource pipeline" so that the chronically 

unemployed (and unemployable) can access a permanent 

meal ticket -- for themselves and their families -- by 

becoming paid goons, mercenary rebels whose Official Story 

provides a "religious" cover for carnage although its 

substance is unadorned thievery and "divinely ordained" 

cock-strut.


A further difference between "the sixties" and jihadist 

nihilism is that ISIS has enduring appeal for psychopaths

whose unemployability in any nominally-sane political 

economy creates a constant cadre of ISIL "workers" who, 

whatever values they profess, apply themselves to what 

they do best: thievery, rape, murder and mayhem. 
  

They forsake you. 

They're gonna rape you.

They climb Mohammed's mountain. 

They get excitement at his feet. 

From him, they get their opinions. 

From him they get The Story.

That story is jihad as divine authorization for apocalypse wrought by the smiting hand of "God's scimitar" on earth.

"Any Religion That Needs Fear To Thrive Is Bad Religion"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/any-religion-that-needs-fear-to-thrive.html

"Bad Religion: A Compendium"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/bad-religion-compendium.html

Good Religion And Bad Religion
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/bad-religion-and-good-religion.html

"Terror And The Other Religions"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/terrorism-and-other-religions-juan-cole.html

Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  

"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

More Merton Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html