Metal Anarchy

During an interview with The Arizona Republic, Maynard James Keenan (Tool, Puscifer, A Perfect Circle) shared his thoughts on the current state of the world. According to him, “when you have people that are choosing violent oppressions, it doesn’t last.”

Keenan said the following when asked how we arrived at this dark point in history:

“Uh, well, I mean, that’s. … That’s a long conversation, right? But you could see, historically, and of course, the whole point of education is for you to understand historically what that means. And so having been the son of an educator and his whole family are teachers as well, I watched in the ’80s, ’90s where the education system was undermined and, you know, you weren’t allowed to fail kids.

And so I feel like that just kind of lowers the education bar. That’s definitely historically where regimes start is to make sure that the people are kind of dumb and then they can just kind of tell them whatever they want and they don’t have the frame of reference or the tools to debunk what they’re being told, to critically think, to reason out puzzles, and then you end up here.”

He continued when asked if there is a path back to some sense of normalcy:

“I think it will just have to come to a head. You know, right now, artistically, you have a lot of people kind of flipping out about AI. There’s a million arguments from many angles, but one of the ones is that it’s going to somehow replace actors, artists and all that. And of course, we heard that when drum machines were invented, and we heard that when the cameras were invented.

I think there’s other considerations of why AI is a bad idea. But as far as being replaced, I don’t feel like that’s legitimate. I guess my point is that it’s somehow. … This has to find a balance. It has to be a breaking point when you have religious fundamentalists calling all the shots. True believers are scary. It doesn’t sustain, right?

Historically, when you have people that are choosing violent oppressions, it doesn’t last. It lasts long enough to hurt and do damage, like generational damage, but it doesn’t last. So I don’t know. I don’t know where that breaking point is in this crashing wave. I’m hoping it’s soon, but I don’t know, man. It’s gonna get darker before it gets better.”

He also stressed the importance of maintaining a separation between church and state:

“The separation of church and state, I absolutely believe that, because when it comes to state, it’s like … it’s a mechanism. It’s a car, it’s an engine, it’s mechanics. There’s no faith involved. There’s a mechanics to this thing. You can have your faith, but it shouldn’t affect how your car runs. It shouldn’t affect any of that.

That’s why separating church and state is important to me, ‘cause the government should not be an emotional being. It should be a mechanism. It’s a machinery. No faith involved.”

He went on to discuss manipulation, cultural wars and one-sided algorithms:

“It’s just constant. And, you know, it’s, of course, a rabbit hole of conspiracy theory here, but there are entire bots and chat rooms that all their job was is to drive wedges between us online, just start fights that were not fights and then get people to join the fight, and then they just step back and let you guys fight over everything. Over anything. Litter boxes in classrooms. F*ck off.

Right down to like, you know, I think pronouns are important, but I don’t think that it’s a die on this hill fight. I respect whatever you want to call yourself. That’s completely fine. I don’t think you need to have a fistfight with a stranger in a parking lot that you met 30 seconds ago because they didn’t acknowledge your pronouns. That’s absurd.

I just feel like that algorithm and those bots have been feeding that over the last 10, 15 years. Just cultivating and just feeding that division and those just absolute silly fights.”

He also agreed that people would rather fight than have proper discussions:

“Yeah! Absolutely. Everything I just said, someone’s gonna take a piece of what I just said out of context, and there’s gonna be a fight online over five words instead of 200 words.”

He also added the following about exploring modern times on Puscifer’s latest album “Normal Isn’t”:

“It just grabbed me. You know, you go in a certain direction with a song and then something comes up and it just changes the direction, especially nowadays. It’s an endless barrage of madness and inhumane behavior toward each other.”