The degree of cool in this post from Open Culture is so beyond cool . . . . If you lived through the punk era or just like the ethos and the music, these short documentaries are awesome. By the way, that's Joe Strummer of The Clash in the image above.

The Art of Punk, MOCA’s Series of Punk Documentaries, Begins with Black Flag

June 18th, 2013

First you set out to smash all institutions, but then you find the institutions have enshrined you. Isn’t that always the way? It certainly seems to have turned out that way for punk rock, in any case, which vowed in the seventies to tear it all up and start over again. Now, in the 2010s, we find tribute paid to not just the music but the aesthetics, lifestyles, and personalities of the punk movement by two separate, and separately well-respected, institutions. We recently featured the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition Punk: Chaos to Couture. Today, you can start watching The Art of Punk, a series of documentaries from MOCAtv, the video channel of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. Its trailer, which appears at the top of the post, emphasizes its focus on, literally, the visual art of punk: its posters, its album art, its T-shirts, and even — un-punk as this may sound — its logos.

The series opens with the episode just above on Black Flag and Raymond Pettibon, designer of the band’s well-known four-bar icon. It catches up with not just him, but founding singer Keith Morris and bassist Chuck Dukowski, as well as Flea from the Red Hot Chili peppers, who grew up a fan of the greater Los Angeles punk scene from which Black Flag emerged. The episode concludes, needless to say, with Henry Rollins, who, though not an original member of the band and now primarily a spoken word performer, has come to embody their punk ethos in his own highly distinctive way. In the latest episode, just out today, The Art of Punk series takes you inside the world of Crass, the English punk band formed in 1977.

Related Content:

• Punk Meets High Fashion in Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition PUNK: Chaos to Couture

• Henry Rollins Remembers the Life-Changing Decision That Brought Him From Häagen-Dazs to Black Flag

• Malcolm McLaren: The Quest for Authentic Creativity

• The History of Punk Rock

~ Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on literature, film, cities, Asia, and aesthetics. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall.

Documentary: Punk’s Not Dead

This cool documentary, Punk's Not Dead, follows the evolution of punk music from its roots to its acceptance into popular culture with The Adicts, Bad Religion, Black Flag, The Damned, Green Day, Minor Threat, NOFX, The Ramones, Rancid, Social Distortion, and many more.

Punk’s Not Dead



Punk’s Not Dead is more than just a tribute documentary. It takes you on an era-by-era journey that puts punk rock’s non-conformist reputation under the knife.

Officially sanctioned by the bands in the film who donated personal photos, fliers and home videos, Punk’s Not Dead follows the evolution of punk music from its anarchic roots, to its use as a corporate marketing tool and acceptance into popular culture, to its reinvention in today’s underground scene.

It is self-financed, independent documentary true to the D.I.Y. spirit of punk culture and combines intelligent, insightful commentary with live performances, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and a killer soundtrack.

Punk’s Not Dead takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios, and yes, shopping malls and stadium shows where punk rock music and culture continue to thrive.

Watch the full documentary now - 97 min

Big Think - Back to School with Punkle Henry (Rollins)

Henry Rollins has become a regular feature on Big Think, and that is a very good thing. In this post, Rollins suggests that kids today might want to consider developing a set of moral beliefs, some personal ethics for how they want to live their lives. 

That may sound funny coming from the Icon of Punk, but Rollins has always been sure of his ethics and forceful in sharing his ethics, either through music, or spoken word, and books, or on the radio. With all the rage he had as a young man, had he not had some ethical foundation in his life, he may easily be another dead rock star.

Back to School with Punkle Henry (Rollins)

Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd on September 17, 2012

Henry Rollins says he thinks he's starting to sound like "a cranky old man." His advise to young people today is to develop "a moral and civic backbone, to have a moral and civic true north." That means young people need to develop a heroic altruism, or, to put it another way, "almost Boy Scout-like." These might be qualities that young people might want to rebel against, which is ironic considering that Rollins himself is the ultimate rebellious role model. 

And yet, Rollins is remarkably consistent in his rebelliousness. He says rebellion should not involve chest-beating or flag-waving but merely upholding a sense of decency, which is itself a rebellion against all of those who would put you down. 

Watch the video here:



Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Occupy Consciousness: Essays on the Global Insurrection

The Evolver Social Movement has made available for free download an anthology of essays by leading figures on the "Occupy" movement, its meaning, and it's future. The e-book anthology, OCCUPY CONSCIOUSNESS: Essays on the Global Insurrection, was edited by Evolver Director Daniel Pinchbeck and Reality Sandwich Associate Editor Mitch Mignano, and offers a variety of viewpoints on the nascent rebellion from writers such as Charles Eisenstein, Doug Rushkoff, David Graeber, Starhawk, and Russell Brand (yes, THAT Russell Brand).

"Occupy Consciousness" Yours to Download

Evolver Social Movement

 

 
OCCUPY CONSCIOUSNESS: Essays on the Global Insurrection: A New E-Book Anthology from the Evolver Social Movement

“Is this movement’s implicit goal to re-engage our humanity? To reach beyond the political, the national and other illusory, temporary concepts and into our true, spiritual nature?” – Russell Brand

The Evolver Social Movement is proud to present "OCCUPY CONSCIOUSNESS: Essays on the Global Insurrection." This E Book anthology, edited by Evolver Director Daniel Pinchbeck and Reality Sandwich Associate Editor Mitch Mignano, offers a variety of viewpoints on the nascent rebellion from writers such as Doug Rushkoff, David Graeber, Starhawk, and Russell Brand. Together these pieces offer an essential perspective on the true significance of Occupy – not a protest movement essentially, but a harbinger of a new way of being.

“Direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.” - David Graeber.

Despite being subject to ridicule from the mainstream and intense suppression from police and government forces in the US and abroad, Occupy has shifted the discourse around critical social, political, and economic issues, breaking the silence around the collusion between government, corporate, and financial interests. The movement points a way forward to a new form of activism designed to build a truly cooperative culture, integrating the lessons of past movements for human liberation, such as nonviolent direct action and the tools for consensus decision-making.

"The transition we are called to make goes far beyond incremental policy changes within the current system, positive though such changes might be. We are called to re- imagine and re-create our world around fundamentally new organizing principles. The old world is essentially on life support in any case. Our choice really is to participate consciously in the birth of the new era, or to have it forcibly and painfully delivered to us." - David Nicol

This anthology is available as a free gift from the E+SM – but in exchange, we ask that you consider making a one-time or repeat contribution to our non-profit initiative, which organizes 40+ local chapters engaged in consciousness raising and transformational practices, issues publications such as this one – and, with your help, will do much more.

SUPPORT THE EVOLUTION: http://www.realitysandwich.com/esm/join-evolver-social-movement-esm 
 
Cover art by Joseph Shipp 

Download 

Grey Matter in Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex Correlated with Conformity or Rebellion

 During a news break on NPR this morning, they mentioned this study and concluded that since there is such a striking difference in the grey matter content in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (between conformists and rebels), these must be in-born traits.

After a face-palm that nearly sent me into oncoming traffic, I knew I had to mention this on the blog today.

The well-known cognitive neuroscientist Chris Frith led the study. Although he is now emeritus, he is still working to develop the new field of neural hermeneutics, which concerns the neural basis of social interaction - this study is a part of that work. He says:

"The ability to adapt to others and align ourselves with them is an important social skill. However, at what level is this skill implemented in the brain? At a software (information processing) or hardware (structural) level? Our results show that social conformation is, at least in part, hard-wired in the structure of the brain." 

It's not a great leap to think that social conformity (or the lack of it) is hard-wired into the brain. However, the NPR story took that a whole big step further in saying that it is determined at birth. It's a statement not actually supported by the study, as this summary paragraph demonstrates:

Developmentally, increases of conformity during preadolescence and decreases during adolescence [8] may relate directly to tandem changes in prefrontal cortex grey matter volume [9]. In evolution, the findings are consistent with the view that expansion of primate cortex may relate to a greater capacity for social learning [10]. Finally, an anatomical correlate of social influence on value suggests the existence of a biological basis for individual differences of a basic ability that allows us to represent, update and integrate the values of others in order to learn socially and manage one's reputation.

NPR really needs to get their sh!t together.

You can read the whole (short) paper at the Current Biology website linked in the citation below. Following the citation is the Wellcome Trust press release.

Citation: Campbell-Meiklejohn, DK, et al. (2012, Feb 21). Structure of orbitofrontal cortex predicts social influence. Current Biology; 22(4): R123-R124, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.012

Scientists identify link between size of brain region and conformity

Science Codex - Posted On: February 20, 2012

Every generation has its James Dean: the rebel who refuses to follow the path beaten by their peers. Now, a new study in Current Biology has found a link between the amount of grey matter in one specific brain region and an individual's likelihood of conforming to social pressures.

Individuals are presented with many choices in life, from political alignments through to choosing which sandwich to eat for lunch. Their eventual decisions can be influenced by the options chosen by those around them. Although differences in individuals' tendencies to conform to social pressures are commonly observed, no anatomical measure has previously been linked to the likelihood of someone conforming under the influence of their peers.

Now, in research funded by the Danish National Research Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, scientists at New York University, Aarhus University and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have identified the first such measure to predict how an individual will react to social pressure.

To identify structural measures of the brain that could relate to this trait, the team first measured the volumes of brain regions in 28 participants. This approach involved a technique known as voxel based morphometry, which allows researchers to measure the volume of grey matter (the nerve cells where the processing takes place) from three-dimensional images of the brain provided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

To measure how participants responded to social influence, they were tested to see how their preferences for certain pieces of music changed after being told what authoritative 'music critics' thought about them.

A week prior to testing, each participant listed 20 songs they liked but didn't personally own. On the day of the test, the participants rated their choices out of ten.

Next, the researchers stated that music critics with expert opinions had listened to the participants' choices and had also rated these songs out of ten. The participants then performed a task comparing their choices with unknown music. Following the task, the participants re-rated their 20 choices, and the degree to which their opinions differed in light of hearing the critics' ratings served as a measure of conformity under social influence.

Strikingly, only grey matter volume in one precise brain region — the lateral orbitofrontal cortex — was associated with this measure of social influence. The linear relationship between grey matter volume and the tendency of individuals to conform was observed in this particular region in both hemispheres of the brain.

In a previous study, the researchers had looked at the level of activity in the participants' brains when faced with disagreement with the experts. This activity predicted how much influence the experts would have. By comparing the measures in this new study with the previous findings, they were able to show that grey matter volume in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex also predicted how individuals responded when the critics disagreed with their opinions. These findings suggest that the brain region is particularly tuned to recognising cues of social conflict, such as when someone disapproves of a choice, which may prompt the subject to update their opinions accordingly.

Study leader Professor Chris Frith says: "The ability to adapt to others and align ourselves with them is an important social skill. However, at what level is this skill implemented in the brain? At a software (information processing) or hardware (structural) level? Our results show that social conformation is, at least in part, hard-wired in the structure of the brain."

Dr Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn, first author of the study, explains the implications of their findings: "This opens a new chapter on the social consequences of brain atrophy and brain development. People with damage to this region often display changes of personality and social interaction. This finding suggests that perhaps we should look at how these individuals learn what is important from the expressed preferences of others."

Source: Wellcome Trust

David S. D'Amato - The Science of Anarchism

David S. D'Amato offers an interesting post at the Center for a Stateless Society blog - a discussion of an article by Todd Gitlin - The Left Declares Its Independence, New York Times, October 8th. It seems to me that Gitlin accepts the conservative premise that the #occupywallstreet protesters are anarchists - I think that's wrong. It's definitely decentralized, but it's not anarchy.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

The Science of Anarchism

Posted by David S. D'Amato on Oct 10, 2011

Columbia University professor of journalism Todd Gitlin writes (“The Left Declares Its Independence,” New York Times, October 8th) “the core of the [Occupy] movement … consists of what right-wing critics call anarchists.” Rather than taking the same snide, dismissive approach to anarchism typical of the news media and academia, he goes on to observe that “[t]he culture of anarchy is right,” that the interests of “[t]he corporate rich” largely control both major American political parties.

Gitlin describes contemporary anarchism accurately (if generally) as “a theory of self-organization,” one opposed to a plutocracy of elites who have “artfully arranged a mutual back-scratching society to enrich themselves.” For my life, I can’t think of a better way to describe the way that the state and capital work together against the common man and genuine free markets.

Gitlin is surprisingly genial toward anarchism, or at least toward his own image of it, but anarchists are still widely regarded as agents of chaos. The question: Why?

I’ve always been of the general opinion that the project of science itself is inherently subversive, dangerous to established ways and their guardians. Science, the quest for truth with its empirical and rational methods, explodes our preconceptions and offers us glimpses at the workings of a reality that still seems little understood and out of reach.

If the subatomic particle did not spring into being when human beings discovered it, but was always there, then we must wonder what kinds of marvels — today only the subjects of science fiction — will soon be revealed as truths. Of today’s ideas, we must wonder too which of them that are now the in realm of the eccentric or kook are in fact that wave of the future.

Through the history of the idea, and even before there was a name to designate it, anarchism’s adherents found it through a range of paths. Nineteenth century American anarchist Benjamin Tucker labeled his ideas “scientific anarchism,” the natural and inevitable result of consistently recognizing the “Sovereignty of the Individual.”

Read the whole article.