Punk, Praxis and the Quest for Spirituality in Krishnacore
By Mike Dines, originally published in Religions 2023, 14(10).
Krishnacore came to prominence primarily through the work of two bands, Shelter and 108, with the subgenre forging a ‘new, conscious aesthetic’, where participants ‘began to sing of reincarnation, the concept of the “paramatma” (or the supersoul) and “saranagati” (surrender to Krishna)’ (Dines 2014, p. 150). Importantly, by drawing upon an array of traditional Indian texts—including the Puranas, Upanishads, the Bhagavad-gitā and the Śrimad-Bhagavatam—Krishnacore also became a medium in which to study and practice a spiritual lifestyle. As such, ‘lyrical references were not mere empty references or shallow gestures towards subcultural values and membership; nor were they simply the expression of an ethereal anger aimed at others’ (Dines 2014, p. 150). Instead, with ‘close references to Vedic texts [and] obvious allusions towards Indian philosophical ideals’, individuals began to ‘articulate a relationship with Krishna, bhakti-rasa, through musical expression, using the punk idiom as a means of cultivating and executing devotional service to Krishna’ (Dines 2014, p. 150).
This work aims to build upon earlier research (see Dines 2014, 2021), unpacking the complex relationship between punk and Krishna Consciousness, in this instance through the lens of Paulo Freire’s notion of praxis. This work therefore seeks to further interrogate subcultural participation (in this case the intersection between punk and the Hare Krishna Movement) and the relationship between auto-didacticism and spirituality. I would contend that firstly, Freire’s work is useful in unpacking the hegemonic dominance of the anti-religious sentiment within punk. Surprisingly, and in an extraordinary twist of fate, punk, previously a ‘radical’ movement ‘nourished by a critical spirit’, turned towards what Freire calls ‘sectarianism’, where ‘because it is mythicizing and irrational, turns reality into a false (and therefore unchangeable) “reality”’ (Freire 1996, p. 19). As noted, to be ‘punk’ (and I realise the clumsiness of my nomenclature, the over-generalization of the individual) is to often express atheistic and often misotheistic sentiments. Therefore, to use punk as a means of expressing the spiritual raises the question of what was (and perhaps still is) the epitome of the punk ‘ethos’. In other words, how more ‘punk’ could you get in rebelling against the authority of punk itself: the apotheosis of disobedience.1
Second, I believe that Freire’s work can be seen through the lens of the transcendental. As Freire notes, the ‘mechanistic concept of consciousness’ (Freire 1996, p. 60), one that sees an ‘empty vessel’ to be filled via the ‘banking method of domination’, stands in direct contrast to ‘authentic liberation’ (Freire 1996, p. 60), and where ‘knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other’ (Freire 1996, p. 53). Here, whilst the banking system sets forth the construction of a ‘narrative’-led pedagogy, for Freire, ‘libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation’ (Freire 1996, p. 53, my emphasis), a process that reconciles the dialecticism between student and teacher.
As such, Freire’s notion of the ‘restless’, the ‘impatient’ and the ‘continuing’ process of pedagogy illuminates and assists in framing the inquisitiveness of the individual as they begin the process of engaging with Krishna Consciousness and spirituality; or, as Freire notes, the continual strive for the ‘emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality’ (Freire 1996, p. 62, emphasis in original). Here, the importance lies in the learning process being in a state of flux whereby the continual re-creation of knowledge and inquiry becomes a means of consolidating the dialectical relationship between the self and the world around it. As Freire notes, the everyday ‘consists of action and reflection’ and a ‘transformation of the world’ (Freire 1996, p. 106). Here, punk becomes a valuable space in which to discover new ideas, a means of developing an aesthetic and subcultural/religious/spiritual membership within a framework of auto-didacticism: of illuminating the dialectical, hermeneutic relationship between consciousness and the world around us, central to Freire’s concept of praxis.
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