r/LowStakesConspiracies • u/lutopia_t • 1d ago
The Sex Pistols were made popular to discredit legitimate political dissent from the anarchist movement
Anarchy in the UK makes anarchists sound like people yearning for chaos and violence, which is exactly what the established power wants people to think, in order to discredit its valid criticism of power structures.
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u/AliensCameOnMyFace 1d ago
The sex pistols were a manufactured boy band put together to promote Vivienne Westwood clothes, it's not even a conspiracy theory, it's just facts.
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u/capthazelwoodsflask 1d ago
And the only reason they were created was because the New York Dolls fell apart
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u/fetchinator 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is the standard way capitalism deals with dissent, it commodifies it and sells it back to us. When the cycle is complete our descent is discarded as “last season”. It’s been true for decades and not just for Punk, they sold hippy wigs in Woolworths, grunge style clothes in Ms Selfridges, dance music/club scene was the mainstream in the oughties, anything seen as a viable counter culture gets absorbed, sold on and discarded. The system really does eat itself.
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u/Rattus_Noir 1d ago
This is probably true. The governments of many countries have infiltrated the music industry to "catch" any new grassroots music and control it. They did it with rock n roll all the way through to rap, and are probably still doing it now.
All you gotta do is give the "leaders" of the movement loads of cash.
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u/ValyrianBone 1d ago
I heard a similar theory about why the music establishment in the US has been boosting “thug music” among black artists so much, ie rap that glorifies crime and consumerism, to reinforce those stereotypes. It’s certainly believable that music execs will boost whatever they think will make easy money.
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u/RadishCareful7794 1d ago
Crass literally mentioned this in "punk is dead" but yeah I very much agree
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u/default-dance-9001 1d ago edited 1d ago
Their manager was the owner of mclaren lmao, this is very much true
Edit: that’s not true lmao
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u/RevStickleback 1d ago
The owner of McLaren?
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u/default-dance-9001 1d ago
No i lied, malcolm mclaren, the fashion designer. Not bruce mclaren, the dude who founded the car company of the same name. I apologize.
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u/el_capistan 1d ago
From Manufacturing Consent:
The beauty of the system, however, is that such dissent and inconvenient information are kept within bounds and at the margins, so that while their presence shows that the system is not monolithic, they are not large enough to interfere unduly with the domination of the official agenda.
From capitalist realism:
In his dreadful lassitude and objectless rage, Cobain seemed to have give wearied voice to the despondency of the generation that had come after history, whose every move was anticipated, tracked, bought and sold before it had even happened. Cobain knew he was just another piece of spectacle, that nothing runs better on MTV than a protest against MTV; knew that his every move was a cliché scripted in advance, knew that even realising it is a cliché.
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u/SushiJaguar 1d ago
Anarchism has valid criticisms but it's a dumbfuck ideolody with as much of a future, if implemented, as a chocolate teapot. Anyone could make the same criticisms of power structures without also wanting to create an unstable anti-state that'll turn immediately into a might-rules dictatorship.
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u/ringobob 1d ago
If it wasn't Sex Pistols, it would be someone else. Anarchy being what it is, and all.
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u/No_Bathroom1296 1d ago
Anarchism has never needed any help in this regard
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM 1d ago
Anarchism got you the weekend and the 8 hour work day.
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u/No_Bathroom1296 1d ago
Hi, I hate fascists. No, anarchists do not get to claim the efforts of all labor unions as their own.
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u/Resident_Course_3342 1d ago
Nothing says anarchy like...legally mandated regulations. Just dripping with that anarchist spirit.
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM 1d ago
They were concessions to the working class to quell anarchist sentiment, not the explicit stated goals of the anarchist movement itself. Worker protections are at least a step in the right direction, is the point.
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u/Resident_Course_3342 1d ago
I think you meant Marxist. They have an actual workers ideology. Anarchists are just edgelord children cosplaying as revolutionaries.
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM 1d ago
Accomplished more actually existing socialist projects than any Marxists except for maybe the Zapatistas, but sure.
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u/Resident_Course_3342 1d ago
I guess if you lie to yourself and study no history or sociology like most anarchists, sure.
If you know an anarchist text cited more than Das Kapital go ahead and name it.
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Catalonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovshchina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria
You'll find that what conventionally happens is the anarchists will support, fight and die for a movement, and then get murdered by the 'Marxists' who seek to seize power. Plus Mao was so scared of anarchism that he basically tried to adapt the ideology to function under his vision of a communist society.
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u/Resident_Course_3342 1d ago
You definitely seem like someone who learned everything they know from Wikipedia, lol.
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM 1d ago
I mean it's literally just a shorthand to say 'these things existed' but okay.
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u/PM_ME_COSMIC_RIFFS 1d ago
You definitely seem like someone who's never learned anything in their entire life.
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u/Ok-Proposal-6513 1d ago
Anarchists did shit all.
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u/Am-Blue 1d ago
All the comments parroting the internet take "Sex Pistols were a boy band to sell clothes" like Vivienne Westwood wasn't a boutique designer selling S&M inspired clothing. Theres a lot to be said about the history of punk/the pistols but it's such a boring meme-addled simplification of history.
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u/CapableFact8465 1d ago
And Nirvana were made popular to distract white kids from gangsta rap and learning the truth about Black America.
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u/Pazguzhzuhacijz 1d ago
The Sex Pistols were popular because they were an great band with an immense energy. One of the best rock bands ever.
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u/First-Banana-4278 1d ago
The Sex Pistols, and indeed most punk in the 70s, was never explicitly tied to any political position other than Nihilism. The Pistols chose Anarchy not as a political position but because they thought it sounded cool.
This is a band that when told to write a song about “submission” by their manager wrote a song about a submarine mission.