They come in many shapes and sizes, and some are particularly well-adapted to all things technological, from laptops and "compsci" paraphernalia, to cell phones and PDA's. And though many show a love of neo-gothic dress and values born merely from personal preferences -- i.e. self-styled goths -- yet, an overlapping set of values (or, better, "anti-values") is easily detectable among the disparate members of this growing community, or in cases involving no community, this growing movement or trend.
But first, we should do well to distinguish these, whom I call, "Neo-goths" from their more ancient historical strains, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, or from the Bulgaric or Slavic Goths of the high Middle Ages with whom we associate gothic cathedrals, castles or other architecture.
In the first century, Romans noted them under various names, from which in English, we derive as "Goths." Wikipedia mentions that the historian, Cornelius Tacitus, wrote of them as "the Gothones [located] south of the Mare Suebicum (Suevicum), the Baltic Sea. In other words, they were from the area of the northern mediterranean, not far from Asia Minor (present day Turkey). The Goths refered to themselves simply as "Gutans." Pliny the Elder, famous for his letter to the Emperor Trajan requesting advice on what to do about "those troubling Christians" -- that would be us -- (A.D. 96), called the Goths "Gutones," a Latinized form of the visigothic word above.
The two Germanic tribes -- Visigoths and Ostrogoths -- which occupy the most space in university history textbooks do so because they presented the greatest threat (when they were not helping) the Roman Empire. Many of them sold their fighting services to the Roman regular army from time to time as mercenaries.
The western branch of Goths (Visigoths), -- then dwelling in what is Bulgaria today -- eventually yielded a leader, known as king Alaric I (A.D. 395-410), who, among his other military victories, managed to sack the city of Rome in the final year of his reign, leaving the famous Christian writer, Augustine of Hippo, to wonder what would become of things. At the time, to most, it seemed like the end of the world. And it was. This signaled, however, a rather long slow death of a very large empire, which most historians would agree managed to hang on (fragmented) until about A.D. 565.
Ostrogoth (i.e. eastern goth) king, Odovacar, accomplished a similar feat in A.D. 476, becoming the first Germanic king of all Italy. Christianity had made headway among the ostrogoths, but only in its heretical form known as "Arianism," a version of which today is commonly popularized by a group calling themselves "Jehovah's Witnesses" (the Watchtower organization begun by Charles Taze Russell in the 19th century). Arius of Alexandria had occasioned the council of Nicea (A.D. 325) in his counterfeit teaching that "There was, when the Son was not." In other words, he denied the full deity and eternality of Jesus Christ the Lord, and was excommunicated for his christological heresy.
By this time of Odovacar (natively "Odoacer"), sacking Rome seems nearly to have become a hobby. As early as the 3rd century B.C. Hannibal had marched on Rome with soldiers on elephants, and some two centuries later, Mithradates of Pontus had troubled Rome repeatedly. By the third century (A.D.), Rome's power at the empire's edges was clearly beginning to crumble. The Vandals -- from where we get the word "vandalism" -- didn't exactly do Rome any good either.
The ancient Gothic peoples had developed cultures of their own, prior to their encounters with the faith of Jesus, but many of the details of these form the basis today for much dispute between historians. And these range far beyond the scope of this abbreviated analysis.
It was through the much later descendants of these, (with quite a bit of admixture) who had migrated to the area including what we now name as "Poland," that the later sense of the term "gothic" came to mean something associated with the supernatural and horror. The "transylvanian backdrop" to every early Dracula film, for instance, finds its setting consistently established in "gothic" terms.
Kay Mussell's bibliographic reference guide to the history of gothic and romantic literature very helpfully explains the earlier popular sense of the term "gothic," and its literary-critical origins. The romantic novel popular in the nineteenth century (think "victorian themes") had its genesis in Great Britain, and was imported to America in the 1790's.
Such novels inherited the labels "gothic and romantic," though these terms never specified the same attributes. Mussell's introduction explains:
"In the world of gothic fiction, danger often threatens in the form of a villain ... The gothic world is supported by a highly particular set of conventions. Most [such] stories are set in a remote place or time that lends itself to the complete intertwining of a terrifying mystery with a succesful love story .... Women in these books are doubly victimized: by their feminine powerlessness, and by their location in a place (castle, monastery, crumbling mansion, remote island) where a gothic villain can threaten them. The novel depends upon a social order which is hierarchical; the conventions of gothic fiction, such as mysterious inheritances, hidden identities, lost wills, family secrets, inherited curses .... require a world in which social mobility occurs through family identity, rather than through individual success."
Doubtless, the author could have continued with -- "secret passages, revolving bookcases, incantations in strange tongues said just so, and highly specific sets of rules for defeating the villain -- a wooden stake through the heart, silver bullet," etc. This was the world enshrined in Hollywood's earliest attempts at what we have come to know as the horror film, which nearly always begins "on a dark and stormy night," or at least on a downright creepy one.
The Victorian "gothic romance novel" thus set the pace that Hollywood quickly seized upon and developed. For science fiction horror, today we have samples like "Alien." Stephen King's novels have yielded countless terror film episodes we might call the supernatural or preternatural genre.
Here is a picture of victorian gothic dress, at a photo taken from the annual German goth festival at Leipzig, which -- you will note the caption below indicates -- regularly attracts some 20,000 goths who gather to do what goths do. (I am using the lower-case "g" purposefully to distinguish these as Neo-goths, rather than the historical counterpart). Many goths will doubtless object to my characterizing them as joinging groups. This is a counterinstance to that anticipated complaint. Not all goths are isolationists.
See Leipzig goths in Victorian wedding garb --http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5047668.stm
These all had predecessors in earlier decades, from those featuring Bella LaGossi, Alfred Hitchcock, and Rod Serling's very popular two television series, "the Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery," the latter of which was shown only late at night on many stations, for the unsettling nature of some of its content.
Mussell continues (pp. 6-7): "After the heyday of the gothic novel in Britain and America around the turn of the [nineteenth] century, the tradition splintered in a number of different directions. [Edgar Allan] Poe [(1809-1849)] was influenced by gothic conventions in his stories of horror as well as in his stories of detection. Science fiction was also indebted to the gothic fiction for its premise of the seemingly supernatural or strange explained by rational means."
Later, television shows and movies dropped the explanation "by rational means," rendering their scripts straightforwardly occultic, or sometimes delusional and malicious -- even randomly malicious at times -- in the case of the now-famous "psycho" movie genre. And, of course, here, to actually kill the bad guy, you have to do it several times. Even then, he is never really dead. The seeming never-ending existence of evil lends itself to creating movie characters, when they seem to represent "pure evil," who bear a kind of invincible badge. The (ultimately) "undefeatable villain" alone -- Freddy Kreuger, Michael Meyers, etc. -- can stand for the evil seen in the world, which despite all our many efforts to mitigate or squelch it, always seems to make a comeback.
Pictures with the "living dead" (or "undead") theme, ran in rather large supply, both frightening and mesmerizing countless millions shortly before the rise of the Neo-gothic movement, the latter of which trend appeared only in force in the 1980's. This can hardly be a coincidence. The internet has also served to propel the movement, in large part via its easy connectivity across the globe.
The prohibition era's "speak-easies" of the 1920's, underground pubs and nightclubs, as it were, often featured women as entertainers, who could be seen often wearing overtly "Egyptian" makeup and garb. This showed a culture generally becoming more fascinated with ancient Egypt themes, as Egyptian archaeological discoveries began to go mainstream, precoccupying the both the scholarly and popular mindsets. After the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt on November 26, 1922, an Egyptian craze captured the national imagination. This fact could not help but show up in the film industry. A quasi-scholarly "paganization" of sorts, waxed popular just before the stock market crash of 1929, and the consequent Great Depression of the 1930's.
In 1922, for instance, Hollywood opened the "Egyptian Theatre," showing a host of films with such titles as, "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb," "The Return of Dracula." This provided a good deal of new content for Hollywood, but the gothic-novel structure of its scripts remained relatively unaltered. The "pseudo-resurrection" theme of the living dead now had a new creature to sport in front of young, mesmerized audiences.
Here is a short factoid list -- interesing tidbits about the theatre for your perusal if you wish. http://egyptiantheatre.com/egyptian/eghistor.htm
The New York Times featured a few drawn pictures of Egyptian dress popular for women from this time frame here http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG00/rekas/tut/king.htm, with some interesting historical data.
Consequently, ancient history in general (not merely ancient Egypt) enjoyed something of a renaissance during this period, sparking the popular imagination with curiosity of what might next be discovered, and what ancient mysteries would yet be uncovered in the tombs of the pharaohs. The U.S. coinage of this era even bears witness to this great popularity of classical and Egyptian artifacts, with the introduction of the "mercury dime," a ten-cent piece featuring the "winged" head of the Roman messenger-god (like the Greek "Hermes") on the obverse (front) of the coin.
See the mercury dime up close? (It is quite ornate, or as ancient historians would say it, very "Corinthian"): http://www.coinresource.com/guide/photograde/pg_10cMercuryDime.htm
Corinthian pillars (as opposed to Doric or Ionian) had more elaborately decorated features. The Victorian era was replete with "Corinthian" clothing.
The 1930's in hollywood saw a similar rise in movies featuring a gothic novel structure in the script, with Egyptian mummies -- as a prototype for the later cinematic idea of "zombies" -- which coincidentally also began to re-emerge in the Western consciousness in the 1960's and 70's. See the now-famous cult classic "Night of the Living Dead," and the other many variations of this Hollywood theme for such specimens.
There is even now a parody on this movie genre, called Shaun of the Dead, a satirical play on words aimed at the overdone series, "Dawn of the Dead," the former of which features a clumsy and unlikely, baseball bat-swinging hero, who somehow manages to down countless zombies with makeshift weapons. And, of course, the zombies still do not run. They can only power-walk after their would-be victims. The same is true for the mummies. 5,000 mummy movies later, and they still can't run either. Some conventions die hard. Maybe they should try duct tape instead.
This is a picture of Shaun about to whack a zombie (The result was just what you think, an angry and injured zombie):
http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/blshaunofthedeadpicse.htm
The 1970's situation comedy series, The Adam's Family, likewise poked fun at earlier characters commonly found in horror films from decades past. "Morticia," the dutiful housewife, was notably, well, not living any more. She appeared in a fashion that would later be called "quite gothic."
In the meanwhile, rock groups of the late 1960's like Black Sabbath, and of the 1970's, like KISS and AC/DC, notably sported overtly dark themes and colors, a trend which exploded in numbers shortly thereafter. The heavy metal trend of the 1980's was soon followed by a yet more chaotic form of music, which genre has since been dubbed "punk rock," for its loud lyrics and asymmetrical sounds, which often deliberately eliminate variation in tone. Anyone who has seen a video clip of any performance of AC/DC or KISS -- not that I am recommending this for anyone except for adults doing research -- can easily recognize a proto-gothic form of dress, and deliberately anarchic or chaotic behavior, the shunning of "the rules" of ordinary decency (some would add common sense to the list of stage-presence casualties).
Here is a picture of the AC/DC album cover for "Highway to Hell." The title needs no comment. http://www.catacombscds.com/product/AC-DC_-_Highway_to_Hell_Poster_Flag.html
These were the modern trends already in motion, in which Neo-gothism found an increasingly interested membership (or else, "anti-membership").
The wikipedia article on-topic says of the Neo-goths:
"The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture found in many countries. It began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from nineteenth century Gothic literature along with horror movies ...."
Some of its more common features include:
1. Body piercing, sometimes used to create a sense of the disfiguring of ordinary features. This appears to make one just a little less "human," and a little more "something else." The intended point aims at defying contemporary social conventions and mores associated with appropriate forms of dress and appearance.
2. The wearing of a great deal of chains as part of a style of dress
3. The visually shocking use of only black and hite make up, on either gender (cosmetic androgyny).
4. The wearing only of darker clothing, trenchcoats, leather, and the like
5. A flaunted rejection of authority (political and eclesiastical), social structure, rules and popular trends (somewhat ironically).
6. An anarchistic disdain of regulations affecting personal choices, hostility to government (esp. current political figures) and of corporations. Whatever they perceive to influence the lives of others -- beyond the control of the average person to affect -- forms a special object of verbal abuse.
7. A nihilistic outlook denying -- as either false or irrelevant -- the existence of moral absolutes or objective truth
8. (Among some) a fairly adept study of particular intellectual pursuits. Again, this is ordinarily due, not to formal education, but to internet access, where the body of good literature continues to grow alongside the typical trash anyone with splash of personal dignity wishes to avoid.
Formal public education appears to be on the way out anyhow, as informal educational sources become more readily available online, and from private sources. Many public high schools are now simply dangerous. On the internet, a wide range of views come to the forefront immediately, and a ready debate format remains at hand, to sharpen one's iron by interacting with others who dissent from the view any particular reader might hold. This bodes well for debate and rhetoric courses taught privately or online.
9. A propensity for the use of violent, abusive or profane language (this seems to be an adjunct to its post-punk rock origins, and its self-conscious disregard for social conventions). Obviously, this is not unique to them, but it is entirely consistent with other Gothic subcultural characteristics.
10. Halloween as a lifestyle. Dressing up (most often at night, but some do so at all times, or at any time) to portray one's self variously is not new. This is the stuff of Hollywood. Renaissance faires, and other like festivals, foster or enable the dress-up and role play modeling characteristic of Neo-gothism as well. But today's Goths do so not for a living (i.e. acting), or for celebratory reasons, but often for one of several expected reasons, both personal and social (and sometimes political).
Much of the critique offered later here will apply to Halloween -- "Day of the Dead" in Spanish -- with respect to its anti-biblical character, not to mention its sugar-saturating dietary problems. It should be called "National Dental Bill Day."11. A fascination with all things death and deadly. From horror films, vampires and zombies, to kill-sport video games, and bands specializing in social commentary (e.g. as in typical lyrics of grunge or death metal songs) regarding governmental abuses, and individuals famous for notorious crimes, this subculture embraces the concept of death.
This is perhaps the darkest side of the Gothic movement. Some of the more popular bands among some Neo-goths are, not surprisingly, Slavic, since this was the home of Goths of the high middle ages, and which formed the backdrop for the terror Goth novels, imported to The United States via Britain (like punk rock and the Neo-gothic movement of today itself), and eventually of Hollywood's early horror films. Dracula's accent is always slavic.
For any parents who might wish to know who the goth bands are -- their music is very popular -- here is a long list (directory) of these bands. [Just say no]. You can start your research here if you want more info: http://www.nyx.net/~astoker/gothmusic.html
12. (Among some) apocalyptic themes of death and destruction, the fall of civilization, the rise of anarchy and similar themes common to punk rock groups and their offshoots.
The wikipedia article continues:
"The goth subculture has associated tastes in music and fashion, whether or not all individuals who share those tastes are in fact members of the goth subculture. Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles. Common to all is a tendency towards a lugubrious, mystical sound and outlook. Styles of dress within the subculture range from death rock, punk, androgynous [this deliberate mixing of genders], medieval, some Renaissance and Victorian style clothes, or combinations of the above, most often with black attire, makeup and hair."
Finally, it is noteworthy that one sort of Neo-goth, commonly dubbed a "lolita," or a victorian-dressed "doll-like"Goth of sorts, has grown rather popular in Japan, where this subculture has gained extraordinary popularity among the youth.
And now on to our Biblical and historico-cultural analysis.
What are Christians to make of this set of postmodern trends identified somewhat accurately as the Goth subculture? We should do what we always do: open the Bible to the appropriate pages and note the related texts. Here are a few suggestions from history to start off the critique.
First, the apocalyptic and nihistic bent of Neo-goths should hardly surprise us, given that their predecessors of choice rose to power at a time when the "world-that-then-was" found itself in the state of collapse. The sky was falling. Even St. Augustine was astonished at the evident dismantling of the only world he had ever known. When the objective world around you begins to fall apart, the barbaric behaviors of those who seemed once so remote seem to hem in on you. This could hardly have been anything but unsettling.
In contrast to apocalyptic scenarios, the Bible teaches the gradual and inexorable sanctification of the Church. This has social consequences. It leads to better teaching (knowledge), wisdom and greater virtue in both the Church, and in those societies wherein it occupies a central role, as the "salt of the earth" (an element which restrains evil by both example -- mercy and charity -- and moral persuasion, by preaching and teaching the Word of God). One of the primary functions of the law of God is to restrain evil in societies.
Civilizations, however, history is wont to tell us, do come and go. Only the Church and the Word of God are here to stay. Neo-goths have chosen, rather than to fear this collapse (which they will often see as inevitable, not merely possible), to embrace -- or even encourage it. Ironically, just because of the internet, it would prove extremely difficult to collapse the West in any way similar to that which occured with the Roman Empire.
The infrastructural design of the internet enables it to withstand virtually any kind of deliberate attack, and it would remain self-sufficient regionally in many areas, even in the case of a general nuclear assault. Even a 3/4 destruction of the world wide web (difficult to imagine) could simply see a regenerative building process happening quite rapidly around the globe to restore it in short order. And its records are fairly permanent, and easily copied to offline sources. Goths should know this.
Websites should therefore be required to bear the disclaimer:
"We are sorry, the apocalypse has been canceled due to lack of interest and funding. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused doomsayers, anarchists, nuclear weapons vendors, hyperactive shortsellers, emergency foodstuff purveyors, and punk rockers. But take heart. Republicans can still entangle us in countless unjustified wars, and Democrats may yet tax us all into oblivion with all manner of useless programs. Keep the faith. Hilary in 08."
Nihilism -- a Latin derivative for "nothing"-ism -- rarely receives any kind of extended philosophical defense, for the simple reason that (as one might suppose) the conventions of philosophy currently practiced do not quite fit the nihilistic mindset. Freidrich Neitzsche is an exceptional, and highly instructive, case. Neitzsche also quite helpfully died right on cue, in the year 1900, providing a convenient sectional divide leading into Twentieth-century philosophy. Way to go, Fred.
The fundamental flaw from a rational standpoint with nihilism are these:
1. The denial of all conventions (sets of rules) falsely treats all conventions as though they are of the same kind. This is manifestly false. A contractual arrangement between businesses is nothing like mere table manners. The first has legal ramifications; the second does not. And these are nothing like the legal code found in the Bible, which proves foundational to any stable society (since its origin is transcendent, from God, not merely men). There are many different kinds of social coventions and sets of rules. And these have distinctions with very important differences.
2. The denial of all conventions is itself a convention (A course of action recommended by some as a rule or guide). This proves that: A. conventions are inescapable -- it is never a matter of conventions v. no conventions, but only WHICH conventions we will uphold (and why). B. Anti-conventionalism is self-refuting in the nature of the case. It cannot withstand its own critique.
3. The Nihilist is like the man who brings an invisible knife to a gunfight. He has bought what Christians call "The Myth of Neutrality," in offering no explicit, well-defined, and comprehensive alternative to what he presently critiques. This violates the first rule of debate, "You cannot beat something with nothing."
Those who answer that they do not care about debates are obviously lying (They cared enough to give this answer; why not simply say nothing at all?) Second, most who adopt the gothic persona are teens or people in their twenties. Young people notoriously argue with those whom they disagree. So do Protestants. And neogoths certainly have complaints. Either those are justified or they are not. The refusal to debate thus amounts to a concession that their complaints are groundless. Nihilism cannot even complain in a consistent way. Protestants can. Martin Luther did it 95 times. There are both lawful (i.e. Hannah poured out her complaint to God lawfully) and unlawful forms of complaining in the Bible, but that is another post.
4. The Bible, which is the Word of the Living God (no matter how many people -- who cannot ultimately justify anything -- say otherwise), offers the only comprehensive, systematic, highly detailed, fully-integrated, and utterly sufficient standard for developing an entire civilization of right conduct, virtuous citizens, and the foundations of every legitimate art, science and technology. It also includes their proper scopes and limits.
Second, Christians should understand the trend of body-piercing as a form of self-mutilation -- though the effects are far less drastic at the outset. Untold medical complications can arise from needlessly cutting or jabbing one's self with sharp objects. Yes, this would include more traditional forms, like ear-piercing.
The sixth commandment clearly forbids all such efforts, no matter how mundane or ordinary the unnecessary cuts may seem. Do not do according to pagan customs just because they are commonplace. The reason you have skin is that it helps keep the blood on the INSIDE, where it is supposed to stay. This obviously does not forbid haircuts or nail-clipping. That stuff is dead already. If your ears are already pierced, the point is moot, and don't seek to change anything. And don't pull out your fillings out either.
Qualified people (medical doctors, surgeons, etc.) can cut people in order to heal them. But the average person, not skilled in healing arts and sciences has no business cutting himself at any time, unless in some emergency (as when a person might cut himself to spit out snake venom after being bitten). Parents, if your would-be gothic teens absolutely insist on cutting something, hand them a hedge trimmer and point to the back yard (or wherever your yard needs help).
The bottom line here is that Christians may not deface God's property, and "you are not your own, but were bought at a price." Self-mutilation, the destruction of God's image, is forbidden -- even a "little bit." The Bible is pretty clear on this point, and it should be non-controversial among God's people. "You shall do no murder" also means "Don't stab people," "Never stick your hand in an operating blender," "Do not play songs which encourage people to hit other people with hammers," "Be nice to your brother," and "Suicide bombing is right out."
A second noteworthy biblical principle has to do with avoiding not only evil itself, but also the "form of evil." No person may lawfully act as though he does what is evil (or plans it) against innocent people, while avoiding the actual sin for which he has created the appearance.
Thus, those who dress the part of a villain, deliberately flaunting social conventions for the purpose of shock value, commit the secondary sin even if not the primary -- that which they pretend to commit, either by associating deliberately with persons notorious for evil (dressing up like a villain), or by doing numerous "small things" (i.e. self-mutilation or dressing immoderately). The apparently villanous "persona" so created clearly violates the biblical prohibition against creating the appearance of evil.
The deliberate wearing of all or only black contrasts sharply with the appearance of the saints in the resurrection unto glory, where each wears all and only white. Light is both a culturally universal symbol of goodness, and darkness of evil. The "good God" even of ancient Persian mythology has the title "god of light." And the converse is true as well, since Ahriman is the god of darkness. The Bible plainly declares, "God is light; and in Him is no darkness [i.e. sin] at all."
Nihilism and darkness go together, as do true education (wisdom) and light. This does not mean one cannot wear black pants. It means that the purposeful wearing of ONLY black -- or even mostly black -- for the express purpose of either shocking others or defying social conventions -- some of which are both good and necessary - is itself an evil. This is no different in principle than gangs who adopt an outward symbol in the form of this or that color - used to threaten others by either "defining their turf" or else for joining together a group of people for the purpose of breaking the law, or doing what tends to lead others to break the law. Gangs seldom convene for the purpose of cleaning up a community, or committing random acts of charity.
1 Thess. 5: 21-23 reads:
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul **and body** be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Adopting a Neogothic persona enables one to derive a sense of identity from this association, as part of a larger movement which entails no personal or ideological commitment to specified teachings, except to a set of values contrary to whatever actually now exists (sometimes called "anti-values"). Interestingly, the anti-establishment tendencies of Neo-goths might enable them to see what those indoctrinated in the doctrines of the naturalistic sciences cannot, the bankruptcy of evolutionary theories and the naturalistic sciences, for instance.
Many of the features of the Neo-gothic subculture can be explained as those of a generation of young people -- I have seen no older Neo-goths (Billy Idol does not count) though I have no doubt they exist -- who have grown up observing the fruit of the so-called "Enlightenment" (anti-biblical) values of early America in homes (where no real discipline is practiced) in schools (where no objective values are permitted) and in universities, which given their "enlightened" rejection of Biblical teachings, have absolutely no solid answers to any of the major philosophical questions articulated by thinkers of the ages.
The Enlightenment project has ended in the abolition of any objective truth-claims. Visit any community college or public university, and this becomes eminently clear. The Neo-Goths have simply taken this conclusion one step further -- application -- meaning the denial of any real value of anything found in such a culture, which they recognize is collapsing under its own moral and epistemological bankruptcy, just as Rome and many empires before have done.
Thus, Neo-goths, in many ways, represent something like cultural critics willing to be more consistent with "Enlightenment" principles, taking them to their logical conclusion. Their very existence thus represents a reductio ad absurdum to the rejection of biblical standards so common in our day, although they hardly think of it this way.
But Christians would do well to note this.
Given the rejection of the Word of God, at any one significant point (since it bears the mutual consent of ALL the parts), necessarily entails nihilism, the abolition of all wisdom, knowledge or understanding. Put just a little differently, "All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Christ" (Col. 3:2). The neo-gothic historical viewpoint, "terminism," sees not only an end to civilization, but a relatively local one (in time), as either desirable, or else inevitable, or both.
The truth is, this is troublingly bizarre, since history shows that in every case (without a single exception so far as I know) that when a society is presented with the choice of anarchy or the worst possible dictator we have seen in a while, they always choose the latter. The collapse of even the worst civilization is worse than its perpetuation. Anyone who adopts gothism thinking that there was something romantic about the Middle Ages can be refuted with a single word -- "dentistry." The Goths did not have medical either, and they could not play DVD's.
Pretentious cyber-gothism thus has members pounding away on keyboards which, had everyone become a Goth, would likely never have existed. It was ideological Puritanism, not any form of Gothic outlook, which enabled the industrial revolution, and the subsequently sharp rise in the Western standard of living, which in turn yielded the technological revolution. Anyone looking for a predecessor of choice to provide for a better civilization should look to Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Beza, Rutherford, and Gillespie. If you do not recognize those names, this probably means that you are in the wrong subculture.
If on the other hand, no civilization is a good civilization, you have the problem of a "bad eye," a lack of charity in judgment, which finds only the faults, and not the good as well. I do not believe for a moment that the Puritans did always and only good things, nor that the Roman Empire never provided anything good for anyone, even though they crucified the Son of God. They did, after all, give us the arch, aqueducts, the Pax Romana (peace), and a few significant advances in legal understanding. And they did do the roads.
Social and cultural criticism proves very helpful in its own right, but tempered criticism is even better. Ask a well studied Neo-goth, "Where is the good in modern society?" and (from a Christian standpoint), you will have put your finger right on the greatest problem with the subculture -- a lack of gratitude, toward God (or anyone else), which shows up as an inability to isolate the good features as well as the bad, in a society.
For instance, the U.S. has an excellent track record on providing freedoms to its citizens not available to people living in other countries. On the other hand, it has very little order to its organizing documents and basic institutions. 21st-century American pluralists are trying to live by a legal code written by 18th-century Deists. Now THAT is Monty Python funny.
I suppose we might as well have a legal code drawn up by 19th-century Mexican mercenaries, or 20th-century Canadian hockey players, and try that for a while. We could be the U.S. of NHL, and Congress could settle their policy differences on the ice, like men. This way, CSPAN would be much more exciting, and we could sell tickets to congressional hearings to pay down the national debt.
Now back to gothism. The victorian and Medieval-Renaissance oriented Neo-goths often look backward nostalgically in their rejection of present culture to a more favored time and place, at least in certain regards, while others use the same dress features precisely to mock them (in particular ways). Others look forward in their rejection of the present culture (usually that of the West) and see the collapse of "a mighty empire which gets its just desserts" for its many abuses, which some can enumerate at length.
This outlook, of course, fails to acknowledge the real possibility of repentance and reformation on a grand scale, which Postmillenialists regard as our inevitable future. Let the reader recall that the Reformation refers to that Renaissance of biblical understanding, resulting in a sharp rise in the level of education of the average European (and eventually, American) because its advocates insisted on people learning how to read the Bible, and whose beneficial effects have long outlasted those of the Renaissance (and which will just as easily outlive the so-called "Enlightenment's" legacy).
We must concede the point of history to the Neo-goths, however, that this may not happen before a collapse of similar proportions to that of Rome, stopped short by a global interconnectedness that comes in prepackaged units. Economic collapses do happen from time to time, especially when governments foster them by ignoring biblical priniciples of economics. And the Lord does what He pleases.
Neo-goths should know better than to postulate the kind of total collapse that occasioned the Middle Ages. The next apocalypse already has a safety net. And for the record, just what the middle ages were the middle of, historians are still debating. (Few surfs stood around complaining about "these hard times in the Middle Ages. If only we could skip ahead to the Renaissance, now that would be something!"). Most agree that after WW II, we entered the era after the modern era, and, for all their education, historians could do no better than dubbing this the "post-modern" era, followed inexorably by the era of more creative prefixes.).
Interestingly, the ancient Goths advanced as fighting kingdoms. They had kings (Alaric I and II, Odovacar and Theodoric, etc). Neo-Goths reject the very idea of such a political hierarchy and social convention, viewing these as riddled with abuse in the nature of the case. They do not invent architectural styles, make outlandish castles with too many gargoyles, having big pointy teeth, or build kingdoms.
Visigoths had very few URL's, and probably would have enjoyed spam (which abbreviates "spiced pork and ham") since rumor has it that this substance can be eaten with little noticable side effect for a person likely to die in mortal combat on the battlefield at or before age 25. The good news is that people who die from battle ax injuries almost never get cancer.
From a biblical standpoint, Neo-gothism actually forms a somewhat helpful reductio ad absurdum of Enlightenment-based institutions and doctrines, such as the supremacy of the naturalistic sciences in matters of knowledge, the simple assumption that what is commonplace is good, and for its counter-cultural dislike of "received orthodoxy" is more than willing to challenge often-taught errors establishment types repeat (i.e. "America is a democracy," "Lincoln freed the slaves because he wanted freedom for all," etc.).
Hint: America was founded as a republic, and the U.S. constitutional founders (who were white male, slave-owning aristocrats to a man) hated Democracy as much as tyranny -- see Madison's Federalist Papers); and Lincoln issued the Emancipation proclamation (September, 1862) as a war measure to cripple the South economically, and incite insurrection among its slave populations; he also wanted to send all blacks back to Africa. And Lincoln's brave heroism in preventing the South from seceding from the union was actually a violation of his oath of office, since the U.S. Constitution then granted the right of secession to the several states upon an appropriate majority vote. Many constitutional scholars -- who hate slavery - readily admit this (My "U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction" professor at Cal State Hayward acknowledged this with the attending grimace one might expect. Some facts are uglier than others. This one almost no one likes.). The problem was that the South intertwined the issue of slavery with constitutionally guaranteed FREEDOM of states, using the second to protect the first. This was contradictory in a highly inflammatory way.
In their studies (and some do study), by pointing out such contradictions and by defacing other "orthodox errors," The Neogothic, anti-establishment bias can actually serve as a corrective to the received "wisdom" too often passed down in public forums ("fora" is the correct word, but no one uses it) unchallenged. Of course, if a neo-goth can do it, a homeschooled Christian could do it better, as Christians have a self-conscious objective standard by which to pass moral judgements CONSISTENTLY in terms of the Christian worldview; and neogoths have no such standard, nor could they, given their presuppositional bias against such traditional outlooks.
It might also be interesting for Christians studying either U.S. history or politics to note that the Deism and Unitarianism which stands behind the political dogmas of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution:
1. Stands in direct contradistinction to Christian teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity, esp. the Lord Jesus as the king of every nation (You will notice that these documents carefully omit any mention of Him, favoring a generic and nameless deity instead).
2. Was the construction of Masons and religious pluralists (people who think all religions are basically of the same sort)
3. Proposed a Deism as consistent with the "Enlightened" naturalistic sciences, which since not long after1859, the year of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, on the view of most practicing scientists, those same sciences which they supposed earlier had demanded Deism, actually refuted that Deism via evolutionary theories. Now there are almost no Deists.
Here is the Declaration of Independence: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
And the U.S. Constitution http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
The goths would probably enjoy this kind of critique (shrug).
Yet, the social critique they offer (and they do in their lyrics at the least) typically mixes both legitimate concerns with overanxious doomsday expectations, excessive political corruption charges, and all the historical difficulties associated with semi-elaborate conspiracy theories. People are as evil as they suppose, but not nearly that risky with their own property, rights, welfare and necks. And like most conspiracy theories, the ones from the top have two basic flaws: on the one hand, the conspiracy is highly successful, so that the foolish masses have all been duped into buying the popularized version. On the other hand, the one specifying the details of the particular conspiracy theory has figured it all out, showing that the conspirators were not nearly as clever as the theorist must suppose to make them that successful. In informal logic, this is called the fallacy of self-exception.
And now for a brief word about excessive corruption charges. Here is a contradiction to be avoided -- suppose a man charges a government with tyranny. He is probably right. But it is possible to accuse in a heavy-handed way which ironically turns out to be just as DRACONIAN in its disposition and unevenness as the government targeted by the accusations. If you tyrannize the tyrants, people may have difficulty telling which is what, and might think you worse than they. This does not mean that tyrannical governments should not have the whistle blown on their poor judgments. It does mean that there is a way to do this without having everyone want to stone the ones blowing said noisy instrument for spotlighting abuses.
To be sure, conspiracies do happen from time to time. The Bible (see Acts) recounts a conspiracy by 40 men who vowed secretly to kill the apostle Paul, which was foiled by Paul's nephew. But rarely does the less educated and most conspiratorial analyst (a third party) figure it out first, when he or she was not immediately privy to the events described by the theory.
Second, the people in the alleged conspiracy are always evildoers, doing dirty deeds. But they are never so evil that they can't get along with each other. This highlights the simply proven historical point: the more people involved in a conspiracy, and the longer the period of time required for them to stay in it, the harder it is to avoid public exposure of the conspiracy, which is the prelude to punishment. Witness Enron. And people do not like punishment; therefore, they generally avoid acting in concert with others to do evil unless they believe it is very unlikely they will get caught, or fear the consequences of some alternate course of action more. This makes transgenerational "secret conspiracies" highly implausible given human nature (where some person or group in power stays there by all manner of corruption over many generations), unless this refers to communist governments. But the corruption of such governments is hardly a secret, now is it. And the U.S. Congress seems to have few defenders these days.
Neo-goths and the myth of neturality. Today's Goths cannot provide the logical basis for their critiques (even when they are correct). Thus, their critiques themselves can be shown valid-but not-sound, even where they are correct. Only the Christian worldview can ultimately substantiate any critique.
Neo-goths offer a failed social critique (no better than those they oppose and so are self-condemned) in that it challenges structures of sound capitalism and others together with the bad, since they have no way ultimately to distingiush the two, without a legal code which can differentiate them, as does the decalogue in particular, and the Law of the Lord more generally.
Their social critiques presuppose the existence of objective moral values and logical standards, which they admittedly cannot justify. Their "logical" attacks on the integrity of the Holy Scripture thus suffer from this same self-canceling deficiency, showing each of their criticisms levied against the Bible invalid ON THEIR OWN terms. This challenge is not reversible, as the presupposing of all the Word of God as a unit of thought enables one to provide both the logical and prelogical conditions for logic, science and morality, which they need for their social critiques. In other words, they argue like Christians against much of the ills of postmodern society, and then deny the foundations of those arguments in denying the only source which could possibly establish their critiques. This is not uniquley a "Neo-gothic" -- but a pagan -- problem in general, as no particular non-Christian worldview can provide the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of logic, the sciences or objective moral claims -- levied against corporations, governments or anyone else.
The Neo-gothic obsession with death forms the basis of false religion and results from a hostility (in principle) to general revelation -- both objectively and subjectively. Romans 1 and Hebrews 2 explain that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the wickedness that men do, and that as a consequence of this revelation, the guilty (that would be all men) fear death excessively, and this fear preoccupies or enslaves them as a kind of "bondage." But the Lord Jesus died that His people might be freed from this by His once for all sacrifice.
Hebrews 2: 14-16 reads:
"Forasmuch then as the children [of Abraham] are partakers of flesh and blood, he [Jesus, King of the Jews] also himself likewise took part of the same [nature]; that through death he might destroy him that had [note the past tense] the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the [same human nature of the] seed of Abraham."
Here, we learn that the ordinary pagan condition remains one of slavery (bondage), not only to sin, but also to the fear of death, its consequence. For the wages of sin is death. So the neogothic obsession with death stems from an improper response to the light of nature. They signify their rejection of it by shunning light in favor of the darkness, and by embracing death as though it were a good thing, rather than an enemy; yet, for Christians it remains a toothless tiger, full of sound and fury, signifying something like a short nap. Few people fear a siesta. For the people of God there remains a rest. Death ends in rest, so the fear is removed by the death, and especially by the resurrection, of Christ. Thus it is said, "Awake O sleeper, and Christ will shine upon you."
The gothic response to the threatening light of nature, which impels all men to some sort of religion in every culture around the world, is simply to deny the threat and pretend that death is not an enemy. This is called, "Whistling in the dark." So the improper response to the light of nature which forms the root of this movement seeks to render death "user-friendly" when it fact it will do nasty things to the wicked. Safety is not found in ignoring and pretending that things are other than what nature tells us. Romans 1 -- the written Word -- confirms this.
The Wisdom of the proverbs (general revelation personified) specifices that "all who hate [reject] me love death," and so the rejection of the wisdom of God found in the light of nature leads only to death. And the love of death, or playing it up as though it were a good thing, is a neogothic characteristic consistent with their rejection of nature's light. For God declares His law there, and "the wages of sin is death..." (Rom. 3:23). The Bible plainly challenges His people to "Choose life." Deuteronomy 30:19 reads:
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:..."
This fairly plainly amounts to a command to reject not only the Neo-gothic anti-value system, if it can be called a system, and all other like programmes, subcultures, or choices inconsistent with the prolife command found in this text.
1 Corinthians 15 names death "an enemy," not part of the natural order, but a divinely-imposed and irrevocable penalty for sin. This means that God originally had no intention of killing anyone (for there was no sin at the first), and that death was not part of the original creation. You will note that only the trees and vegetation were given to men for food, not other animals (until after sin entered the picture). This is why it was called "very good," and which makes it much different than today, where the Scripture simply calls the created order "good." The existence of death has demoted us (since we caused it via sin, which always draws God's curse).
No animal or person would have died had sin not entered the human equation with the original sin of the first forefathers of all men. This means there was NO second law of thermodynamics, the advance of entropy over time in closed systems, until humans rebelled against their Maker. This state is not normal, and the Puritans rightly noted this in calling it "the estate of sin and misery."
Death, the final consequence of advancing entropy in humans, is accelerated by sin. Conversely, "righteousness exalts [blesses and preserves] a nation ..." (Prov. 14:34). This is because God blesses (removes the curse to some extent by degree) the house of the righteous.Like the postmodern Goths, the Egyptians showed a certain fascination with death, leaving to the world the most complex and intricately made monuments in the form of graves. The pyramids were royal and aristocratic graves. The final words of the book of Genesis hint ominously at the later condition of Israel in the mudpits in these words describing how Joseph was prepared to leave Egypt by faith -- "In a coffin in Egypt." This was not merely the condition of Joseph, but soon all the Israelites felt this way. In the end, God delivered His people Israel, but the Pharoahs each were discovered by generations thousands of years later -- in just that condition "In a coffin in Egypt." Okay, it was a sarcophagus. Some people can afford fancy pine boxes.
By way of contrast, the biblical teaching regarding sacrifice holds that only Christ's utterly sinless once-for-all sacrifice (For He was holy, harmless and undefiled, and God from very God as light is lit from true light) has any real merit before God to procur His favor, just as all the Older and Newer Testaments teach of Him, that the Christ must first suffer and then enter his glory. Resurrection, eternal life in glory, not death, forms the final thema of the Christian faith. This stands stridently opposed to all false religion, which glorifies death instead, in this way or that, rather than overcoming "Thanatos" (god of death and the underworld in several mythologies) as the final enemy subdued under the feet of the Lord of Glory.
Neo-goths embrace portrayals of death for its countercultural value (shock value), without realizing that this actually affirms the establishment view of death as part of the natural process taught in every form of evolutionary dogma propagated by the Darwin cultus. Evolutionists see death -- the death of the weaker members of a species -- as both good and necessary here -- as the way to higher more complex and functional forms of life, which are on this perversion better fit to survive. Christianity holds precisely the opposite, that "we give greater honor to the less honorable parts," as Paul taught the Corinthians. Death is not natural, though it is inevitable. Yet as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.
Resurrection is JUST as inevitable for those with saving faith in Jesus as is their death. The first forms a supernaturally imposed (divine) curse on all men for their sin in Adam, and for their own confirmation of Adam's lawlessness. Christ died not for His sin, for He had none, but for those of others to undo the guilt, power and penalty of Adam's own transgression and our ratification thereof. We die because we deserve it. Christ died so that we might not get what we deserve, to undo the power of sin, and thus the power of death.
So they could be wrong you know. Our civilization may be headed straight for repentance, reformation, and resurrection. Mercy triumphs over justice, no matter how just the complaints one may have against any civilization. This is a biblical convention which God has ordained. Christians call it "Postmillenialism."
The future is bright, not dark, all gothism aside. And the contrary is impossible.
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