If you are a fan hardcore punk or industrial music, especially if you were old enough to be around in its 80s-90s heyday, you know the name Steve Albini. If known at all today it would be as a successful producer (Nirvana was one of his more notable efforts). At the helm of such bands as Big Black, Shellac and one whose name is too offensive to print, he was a leading figure of those scenes, and confrontational even in a confrontational culture. His music was abrasive and brutal, obscene and nihilist, sparing no one its venom. There are song titles and lyrics that inspire many a repulsed WTF from today's sensibilities, and the repulsion is well deserved.
With a whole subculture of fellow cynical, jaded posing and mocking Gen-Xers, I too felt that the “Greed is Good” Reagan years, the Bomb, and the rise of Televangelists who seemed no different from carnival barkers, loud annihilating music was a dark and appropriate response to the coming darker, dumber times. I didn’t share his opinions, but the music was too cathartic to ignore. It was an angry time for me as well. My own cynicism, hip mockery, and Absurdism fit right in. I and my cohorts did not offer a solution to all this madness; we just seemed to want to laugh at everything while it burned to the ground. It was a lifestyle built around a “Now” that was quite different from the sense of “Now” in Zen. This was a not a mindful Now, an aware Now that saw beyond the self and toward the suffering of others. It was a Now that saw no future, and hope as something to joke about.
Albini’s later, deeper understanding does not seem to a transformative moment of awakening. Does it have to be? An “oh, now I get it” moment is just as powerful and example for others to see as any “AHA!!” moment. He did, however, come to realize the privilege through which he (and punks like me) ran our mouths. Whereas, as he said, we thought we were explicitly reflecting the banality of decline and hate in our society, we were also in a position to remain aloof and hip. Certainly, punk’s lip service to freedom and DIY was not reflected in its language, especially toward marginalized groups. (ok, there were exceptions but this isn’t a punk history lesson, or isn’t meant to be).
Recently Albini surfaced in a couple interviews, referencing those years. He talked about the culture he lived in and the times; he talked about how ignorance and immaturity contributed to his rage. He didn’t have to turn the spotlight on his past, drawing attention to his words and songs. But he faced his past head-on, publicly apologizing without drama or unnecessary words, but taking full responsibility; he was aware he could never take back his storm of words, but he acknowledged his past with the typically brutal candor of his old music. People have been posting his quotes and song lyrics on social media, all leading to the expected threads of vitriol and threats. He faces them all, pointing out that there are even worse examples than those chosen by the Twitter (now X) universe.
We now live in a culture where it seems as if nothing is real unless it is streamed live; for helpful and unhelpful ways that has made a focus on what we say and do more scrutinized. It helps us to see just how conditioning and fear make us insensitive with our words and opinions; it can also make one fear to speak candidly, or to choose words that will generate positive reactions or likes. Yet it would continue to be an exercise in ignorance without a personal understanding of one’s beliefs and motives. If the Buddha encouraged us to personally test his teachings before professing belief in them, how much more do we need a refreshing look in the mirror before we share our own thoughts and moods? This can be a time of liberation from ignorance, even as it seems to also be a time where ignorance and hate have been green-lighted to be shared with zeal.
We can never take back the hurtful things we’ve said in the past, even with apologies. To take responsibility for them now, to acknowledge their effect, is no big deal, yet it is. Some never face themselves, no matter how long they live. In this time of both a deep scrutiny of language and its distortion into misinformation, when it is the seeming obsession for the compassionate as well as the paranoid, Albini’s meditation on his own past language and ignorance of its power beyond the power to shock and rebuke has a harsh candor and dignity to it that I see as genuine, whether he applies this insight into future actions or not.
In blunt and gentle fashion, but always with compassion, the Buddha’s Dharma reminds us that out there is a resting in the peace and sanity of our Original Mind, and its subsequent fuel for helping others; it is out there and will be found, because it is not out there and there is nothing to be found. We already have this sanity and each of us can wake up to its presence at our own pace but wake up we will. It’s easier to believe in fire when being warmed or harmed by it, but sticks, matches, gas, stoves everywhere point to that something being there just waiting for a spark. We don’t pray for it to come; through practice, Great Faith in Zen is the faith that the teachings are a way to light that fire. The Buddha could not have in any way seen the world as it is today. His words, not being dogmatic, do not have to be awkwardly shoehorned into the present to seem relevant, are renewable no matter the era.
We are not tied to the past; we are tied to now, and the Buddha’s direct admonitions and practices for clearing the deck of the mind’s chaos so as better to see ourselves and the needs to those around us are relevant no matter the era.
What effects of your own ignorance and attachments have you come to realize?
Does age bring wisdom, or do we just get sick of our ignorance?
We have no choice but to own our words, our greed, our fear, our ignorance; no less, for the benefit of all, do we choose to own our compassion, our understanding, the fruits of learning how to be much bigger, (and always growing) we are than we used to be. We owe that first to ourselves, then to everyone else.
(note: on May 7, Steve Albini died of a heart attack at his home. He was 61.)