Killer Culture

Wow, I loved this reading. I found it incredibly insightful and informative. I agree with David Kupelian 100%. A majority of our nation is struggling to find an identity. The media is the driving force that leads anyone without a moral back bone to cling to anything, even the most absurd and perverse, all to gain that sense of individualism and identity. I love the part where he says:

The fact is, what has risen out of "the pit" in today's world that bears
a striking resemblance to the ageless spirit of defiant paganism,
spirit now inhibiting millions of people "freed" by trauma (drugs,
illicit sex, bodily mutilation, and so on) from the pain of their
own conscience.

Though David makes his own opinion known he backs it up by citing other pieces and websites that don't even agree with the points he is trying to make. For example when he quotes BME. This is a site that supports and discusses body modification. He uses quotes and definitions from the site to demonstrate how easily we defend the activities people partake in that are arguably insane. He correlates body modification with self mutilation (or cutting). I thought this was fascinating. I have a number of friends who have experimented with body modification, including genital mutilation. I never could truly understood why. Looking back, I see that all of these friends have struggled with emotional problems and have come from very broken homes, As cliche as that sounds. Their parents were almost always inconsistent, self centered, and most of them suffered from emotional disorders. These same friends constantly tried to do things that were different and unique, throughout our entire adolescence and have carried their behavior on into adulthood, trying to find some sort of identity. I always equated it with teenage rebellion and left it at that. Until reading this writing I hadn't put much thought into the way the media feeds this teenage rebellion, nor had I thought of where this rebellion came from. I always saw these behaviors as rebellion against parents, simply because that's what hormonal teenagers do.
The fascinating point David Kupelian makes is that our society, especially or media, encourages this no-limits/self mutilating attitude. The envelope is pushed and pushed and pushed to the point where people feel they need to be infected with HIV to feel unique. I know from my own experiences and background that without some sort of moral back bone to stand against that the culture we live in will truly eat you alive. I was lucky enough to "grow out of it and become normal". I still have a lot of friends caught up in the world of trying to find identity. Some of them are still productive and are going to college and working at steady jobs but a larger number of them still act like teenagers. They party it up almost daily, can't keep down steady jobs, and use a lot of drugs. They partake in body modifications, hate religion, and can't understand how I have changed so much. A lot of them feel that I am the one missing out on life, that I am a sell out. They still argue over what music is still hard core and what bands have "sold out". They are constantly on the hunt for an outfit, movie, or band no one has ever heard of or seen. It is so sad to me and so difficult to watch. It also a little humerus. For the longest time, I thought I was the liberated one, looking back I was a slave to "cool". This writing feels like something I could have written myself.