But... Nothing against RATM or anything, but they're all super rich rockstars who've never been in jail for being in a gang...

Whether you're a thug or a rioter or a billionnaire musician you're just trying to make a living.

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And the point is that, if you can't make a living coz the status quo doesn't work for you, you have no future... except taking what you can illegally...

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Obviously its not that cut and dried, because they had lives before they before they became rock stars, let alone super rich rock stars. And nihilism of the kind described is hardly a novel claim of theirs, plenty of evidence for people so alienated from orthodox society that they defect from it, find a home in a new, parallel society in the form of a gang, with a sort of warrior-cult ethos. All the bombastic gangster styling gold chains and bikini babes maps exactly onto, for example, the Celtic warrior class. And Cuchulain, of courses, famously took up his weapons even when it was prophesied that his life would be short but his legend long.

If life is hopeless then you might as well risk it in pursuit of wealth and glory.

People from all classes do that.

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Really? I don't think so. I'm not saying wealthier people don't ever do risky things, but I don't think they do so out of the same motives or to other people with the same viciousness.

Got to agree with Contra there. Risking getting a diploma isn't the same thing as risking attacking a bank...

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Posh kids sign up for wars and gamble their money away. In the past they'd fight in duels. I dare say that few of them went into it thinking they personally would die and that's it would be a relief, but then few people join a gang thinking that either.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

Posh kids sign up for wars and gamble their money away.

I don't think the scale is the same. And, in general, even if they have self-destructive behaviours, it's not expressed as against the status quo.

I mean, I agree when you challenged the "they got no future"... The implied assumption is "no legal/legitimate future"... Hence the turn to crime and/or looting. This is a future. Just one that the rest of society has a problem with...

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But joining a gang isn't against the status quo either. It would be against the status quo if hoes were the ruling class...

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Within the counter culture of criminal gangs? Sure.

But this is about mainstream society.

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