Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery
William Irwin
Language: English
Pages: 260
ISBN: 1405163488
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Hit the lights and jump in the fire, you’re about to enter the School of Rock! Today’s lecture will be a crash course in brain surgery. This hard and fast lesson is taught by instructors who graduated from the old school—they actually paid $5.98 for The $5.98 EP. But back before these philosophy professors cut their hair, they were lieutenants in the Metal Militia.
- A provocative study of the ‘thinking man’s’ metal band
- Maps out the connections between Aristotle, Nietzsche, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Metallica, to demonstrate the band’s philosophical significance
- Uses themes in Metallica’s work to illuminate topics such as freedom, truth, identity, existentialism, questions of life and death, metaphysics, epistemology, the mind-body problem, morality, justice, and what we owe one another
- Draws on Metallica’s lyrical content, Lars Ulrich’s relationship with Napster, as well as the documentary Some Kind of Monster
- Serves as a guide for thinking through the work of one of the greatest rock bands of all time
- Compiled by the editor of Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer
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how pleasurable it would be, would not be real. It would be a farce, even though the victim herself would be entirely convinced of her feelings. Somehow, we want to remain in touch with reality; we want to be active rather than passive, in control rather than under the sway of some external force or device (and that is why Neo chooses the red pill instead of the blue in The Matrix). 4 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. by Mary Warnock (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, 188). 5 Robert Nozick, Anarchy,
“eternal morality” that 61 MAP_C05.qxd 26/1/07 4:46 PM Page 62 J. Jeremy Wisnewski can guide us in our actions. There is only choice. If our choice is an honest one— if we make it authentically—there is little that can (objectively) be said against it. The persona behind the song (perhaps Hetfield, perhaps an imaginary narrator) seems to acknowledge precisely this: “Honesty is my only excuse / Try to rob us of it, but it’s no use / Steamroller action crushing all / Victim is your name and you
1991 interview, James Hetfield talks about writing “Fade to Black.” I wrote the song at a friend’s house in New Jersey. I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear had just been stolen, and we had been thrown out of our manager’s house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor cabinet dry. It’s a suicide song, and we got a lot of flack for it; kids were killing themselves because of the song. But we 1 Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays, trans. by Justin O’Brien (New
only do I know that I am, that I exist, because of my thinking, but in fact thinking is what I am. If thinking defines the human being, then all we need are minds, not bodies. Our essence is immaterial. “I am not that structure of limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapor which permeates the limbs” (Discourse, 52–3). Ultimately, “it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it” (Meditations, 54). But is our essence really just thinking? Joe
own albums by the same band? Both albums are by Metallica, so the answer should be obvious: yes, Bill and Ted own albums by the same band. But, unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. Things Not What They Used To Be The mere fact that the covers of both CDs state that they are by Metallica is not enough to prove that the CDs are by the same band. Band names are neither necessary nor sufficient for a band’s identity.1 They are not necessary because a band can change its name and still be the
