Part of this problem is this desire to construct linear narratives to begin with. All music, to me, is hybrid, backwards-looking, etc. Linear narratives play to the temporal constructions of the ‘past,’ ‘present’, and the ‘future’, and of the more ideological constructions of ‘the original’ and ‘the new’ and ‘the authentic,’ etc, which makes it all the more fuzzy. And either way, HP clearly has no political agenda, which doesn’t entirely wipe it of its political potential for listeners, but it’s definitely where I get off board. I’m not into the idea of renewal through a vague recollected memory with a stress on apolitical decontextualizaiton and appropriation.

It’s also worth pointing out that, while many of the mid-decade “noise” fans have indeed embraced HP, it often seems to be for the same superficial reasons — like, constructing narratives through the music and/or as a conduit for “transcendence.” I do think there are benefits to this pseudo-spirtiual construct that’s so often intertwined with escapism and fantasy, and also think this approach to music listening can be political in its own way, but my point is that a lot of “noise,” even of the harshest kind, wasn’t very political and I don’t think a lot of its listeners listened politically either. Wasn’t it Wolf Eyes who dismissed the intellectualization of noise and who would rather eat pizza?

So the two models we get are the basic social science models of political change: one attempts to destroy the old and construct an entirely new form of life, while the other takes parts of the old in order to construct a hybrid form of life. The first works from outside and against history, while the second works from the inside by resurrecting and reinstating the positive values of the old.

The political goals of hypnagogic pop seems to be to take elements of the old, shuffle them around, and use them as building blocks for a more liberated possible future. Keenan claims that HP gains its power from 80s pop culture. But, I don’t see anything radical about 80s pop culture. Rather, it seems to be grounded on values of escapism, hyper-consumption, hyper-individualism, and passive nihilism. In order to present the utopian promise of HP, though, it seems like he pushes these more negative aspects to the side to emphasize the spiritual, New Age aspects that offer a glimpse at some form of liberation.

But even here I don’t see anything radical, and I think that by focusing on the spiritual would be to simply promote escapism. To me, the language of “accessing altered states,” revealing subaltern truths, uncovering the secret remnants of authentic material, and so on, mean nothing. Unless someone does some serious philosophical work to flesh out what this language means, this is just New Age gibberish. Though, Keenan does say some specifically politically meaningful things about the New Age dimension of HP.

First, he claims that it has provided a space for unrestricted creativity since nobody (i.e. academic thinkers) pay any attention to it. It has not undergone the sort of ruthless critical assaults that are commonplace within Western academia. In much the same way they treat Ayn Rand, serious thinkers look at New Age shit and say “fucking idiots.” So the New Age provides some sort of space for hyper-creativity to take place that is immune from restrictions and criticism. To me, this sounds like pure fantasy. There is no such space that is immune to restrictions or power and, even if there were, such a space that has never felt criticism sounds awfully dangerous: the unrestricted id, the child who has never been told ‘no’.

Ultimately, I can’t see how the talk of this power-neutral space, an authentic aura, a return to 80s pop culture, altered states, leaps of faith, and New Age-ism can result in a radical political project. As Kennan himself says, HP has no critical agenda. At best, I think it is more in line with a traditional liberal political project. It borrows from the past and builds a new future out of those pieces, and so long as those pieces are simply pieces of 80s pop culture, I’d be terrified to see what that would look like politically.

Other thoughts: The radical model of complete historical renewal is problematic. I’m not sure this is even possible or more desirable than the alternative since it seems to imply vast amounts of violence and destruction. The reformist model seems more pragmatic, but the picking of the historical pieces that are used is critical. By focusing on some mysterious transcendental authentic aura that historically emerged through 80s pop culture, I think, blurs the political more than it articulates it. If pushed to define itself, I think all this language would collapse. The political needs to be empirically grounded; if it’s not, we end up with Plato’s Republic, the myth of the volk, and so on.

Finally: As someone who has spent a good amount of time studying Leo Strauss, I think there is another interpretation (actually, there are infinite others). HP snags its power from 80s pop culture. To the public, this presented itself as eternal fun, carefree consumption, and so on. But this cultural picture was really used to blind the many from the horror and injustice taking place nationally and internationally. 80s pop culture was powerful in that it distracted the many from the facts, and smoothly reproduced the ideology and values and hyper-capitalism. 80s pop culture was able to present one thing, and conceal another. If HP taps into this dimension of 80s pop culture, maybe there’s a different result. HP can present itself as carefree, nostalgic, and New Age, but ultimately be promoting an entirely different (more politically focused) agenda. Perhaps HP is the aesthetic that can be used by political radicals to cloak their ideas. But the inverse is always true: HP can be the apparently radical cloak that conceals conservative ideals. Who knows.