Mizar

so, so many well-meaning people going “well, if feeling punk is what makes people be nice and do nice things, let them say they’re punk!” to which, yeah, i can’t stop them

my objection isn't "being nice isn't punk, therefore don't be nice”

my objection is that we've reached a point where every positive human behavior gets reframed as an aesthetic identity instead of just being a positive human behavior

if you think helping people is good, then help people because it's good!

if you think kindness is good, be kind because it's good!

i don't understand the need to run every moral action through a "but is it punk?" filter first, especially when a lot of the people doing this have no actual interest in punk as a culture, music scene, history, or political tradition (for better or for worse)

at a certain point "punk" just becomes shorthand for "thing i personally approve of," and then the word stops meaning anything at all

One would think that hearing a very distinct, clearly audible, reasonably loud and rapidly approaching sound of any kind would make any reasonable mammal turn to look at the direction of the sound, just purely by instinct?? If a deer heard something nearby go DING DING DING DING DING DING at its general direction, it would at least look up to see whether the source of the sound is a threat or not? Just a quick "is that something I need to be concerned about?" type of glance.