The CCC(C) Took My Baby Away

"Never Mind the Tagmemics, Where's the Sex Pistols?" by Geoffrey Sirc introduces an interesting idea: "I don't mean to romanticize Punk, but rather to heuristicize it, to trace what I feel is its most useful, essential thread" (981).

That is, to teach writing as a way of rejecting writing, and ultimately "purifying writing, loving writing," and practicing, "the simple, unconscious art of the fetish" (984).

This is an intimidating pedagogy, the one of the Punk. In fact, I firmly believe it will not work.

I was interested in this article immediately (as a former Punk with a now re-emerging Punk Rock ethos) but realize that there is a difference between practicality and idealism.

The very foundation of this a Punk pedagogy is contradictory (particularly basing it on the "theory" of the blindly rebellious Sex Pistols). Dan Graham claims that Punk, as a stage of music appreciation, was "a preliminary stage" in the ultimate dismissal of albums "in favor of making one's own music" (984).

I think it's a matter of word choices. How can learning to hate writing make one want to write? If this is indeed an analogy of Graham's idea, let's consider what Graham is really breaking down. Listening to punk is considered an action that leads one to stop listening to and start creating music. No education in the art is necessary, just attitude. I understand and appreciate that.

But consider the differences between music and writing, particularly writing in a composition class. In music, there are albums produced as a commodity and live performances, which were/are especially valued in the Punk scene for the very reason Graham points out. A punk rock show is a place where the act of listening converged with the act of creating. This should be the same in the classroom; students learn (of) the rules and then adapt to or reject them and emerge as independent, clear thinkers.

But it's the way Sirc puts it: "We never taught writing as a way of hating writing" (984). Maybe we never should. If you want composition students to do what Punks did/do, you want them to take a passive, private action like listening, to an active, public venue where performances are held. The composition classroom is not analogous to listening to Punk music and gaining that self-awareness that instructors hope for.

Why?

1) Composition classrooms have no private space that translates into a public space where listeners become the listened to. Perhaps the private space is online in a blog posting or in a freewriting journal but these are all activities carried out and assigned in what would be the public space. The Punk rock venue is the classroom also. The classroom is where the student should emerge from learning to creating. Students are then evaluated on this development. But, as Sirc claims, "Punk performance was not judged according to standard criteria: 'Whether they were good or not was irrelevant'" (979). How are we to assess progress?

2)If there is any analogy to listening to music in composition, it is reading. Sirc neglects this connection to writing. Good writers are avid readers who learn to adapt authors' styles, just as Punk musicians would learn to reject the records they listen to. If you are to be like the Punk as a burgeoning writer, you must read and reject the rules or forms you come across. If you want to be really Punk, like the majority of Punk musicians, you may not even have to read. Wouldn't that be the ultimate rebellion? Ignorance?

This is no longer a pedagogy of seeming hip while covertly getting students to become autokinotonic writers. This is now an attack on literacy, a serious consequence of embracing Punk as a way of learning or teaching.

The problem with Punk (and why so many echo the credo that "Punk is Dead") is that Punk was never as self-aware as Sirc claims it was/is. Teaching students to be self-aware is a bold, brave, necessary move in the classroom, but to take that step through the words and actions of Punks is not practical.

The ultimate failure of a Punk pedagogy reveals how Punk works in the first place: Rebel against anything, at all costs, dismantle a system and let someone else figure out how to make it all work again. We see this in the story of Sid and Nancy, which Sirc lightly touches, where there were vague answers to a seemingly senseless but brutal crime. The Punk-ness of the Sid and Nancy incident is the very chaos Sirc attempts to harness. The Punk does what he/she does to exhibit his/her ethos and the job is done. Consequences be damned. Sometimes, as was the case with Sid Vicious, even the Punks don't have answers when pressed for an explanation of their actions or ideals.

A Punk pedagogy is set to fail from its inception in its dishonesty. Punk, as a form of music and philosophy, was never meant to be appropriated in a system like that of a university where there are such defined figures of authority. I can appreciate the trick that a Punk pedagogy attempts to pull, but it is an echo of a de-centered classroom: the students seem to be in charge, but they only gain that "authority" by having it given to them by a greater authority. Authority is the antithesis of Punk Rock.