As many of you have said, metal is generally anti-religious, as a subculture. Many claim (falsely?) that religion aids in the search for meaning. In classic philosophy, the search for purpose and meaning can lead one to the highest truth - which some would call God. This falls under an area of classical philosophy called Metaphysics.
Some brief questions:
1) Does metal, in denying religion (for those of you who follow this trend) abandon its search for meaning?
2) Is there meaning? Or is the search a waste of energy better spent enjoying the pleasures of life?
Lastly,
3) Does abandonment of the search for meaning and purpose free us?
Or is it the search that frees us from our desire for knowledge?
Those are relevant questions:
1) Many metal fans may abandon in any meaning by indulging in pleasure and entertainment like everybody else. Some of them pathetically enough think they're special by rejecting purpose to sit around do nothing but be "entertained". Then whine about the "system", than really facing life. "Yeah man, forget god, or society dude, I'm a rebel, I buy into this cool, special little lifestyle". True motive for metal is not just to dump meaning all together but to oppose Christianity to pose a new question. "Chrisitianity is dead and empty, and our realities mean nothing, so lets find new meaning". This is why, they make songs centered around the themes on darkly tinged emotion and fantasy, partly on that desire to express disorder and pain behind everyday life. It is a way to face darker truths.
2) There is meaning. I think its living, struggling, growing and learning. Funny how some young people are dumb enough to think authority forces are just there to "bore" you and make you suffer. The following facts are what make Generation X and Y related. They grew up with that very authority (parents and schools) sanitizing unpleasant facts and real suffering from them. So, they complain of petty pains which are nothing compared to say, the World Wars or The Great Depression that your parents and grandparents had to face. Interesting to note, in some wealthy democratic countries like Japan, Canada and the States, its youth is increasingly becoming more alienated and directionless. Even, cowardly. Many of them dont work towards anything. If they fail or don't go anywhere and the golden excuse is "well, not my fault, I never tried".
One must accept the ugly fact that life has suffering and we have to fight to live. You can not expect to be pleasured all the time. Think of pleasure like a state of mind. An uplifting one, yes but it cant be sustained forever. The more you run to pleasure just means the void gets bigger, so you close your eyes to the low. Making you rather unable to handle real pain when it comes. Young people nowadays, want everything from respectability to freedom to money because lets face it. We have been pampered. You can not have everything, you must sacrifice something or another to gain anything.
3) Some abandon meaning because its hip to join synthetic scenes and have a cheap sense of security/identity. Some I believe throw it all away togather because whatever that was important to them earlier seemed to rot away.
In conclusion, abandoning meaning goes nowhere. Abandoning previous values and attempting new ones, at least is an honest attempt at life, and you will get somewhere at least. When I mean seeking new values, it doesnt have to be done in the field of philosophy but it can be applied to other areas. One should contribute to culture or have some sense of duty to society at least.
