Carl Sagan was a Punk...

 "Science and religion are not mutually exclusive
In fact for better understanding we take the facts of science and apply them"

-Screeching Weasel "Science of Myth"

#hailsagan means more to me than some dumb hashtag, I have embraced it as a way of life. Along with NULLIUS IN VERBA (roughly translated to "on the word of no one" or "take nobody's word for it") these have become the ethos or mantra by which I live. It means never taking anyone's word for it unless they can back it up, don't give in, don't give up.

As a punk and a human being I am constantly met with contention and confrontation, of the mind or the person. The world we live in today is a weird and messy place and one will go completely insane if you dont find a way to survive and live in it. One person that I have looked to for encouragement and advice ever since I saw him on the Charles Kuralt show when I was a small child, is Carl Sagan.

If you're not familiar, Carl Sagan was an astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist and communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. Sagan assembled the first physical messages that were sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.(wikipedia)

To me, he is the closest thing to a spiritual being that ever existed on our planet, a person who truly wanted to understand life and make it better and surprisingly a fucking PUNK. Sagan butted heads with everyone from politicians, religious leaders, communists, democrats, republicans, Christians, Jews, his wives, his children, his family, other scientists, NASA, believers, non-believers and more.  His "punk" ways can be summed up in this quote  from his interview with Charlie Rose.

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.”

Here is a video excerpt:

If you dont think those are the words of a true punk, maybe you need to reanalyze what kind of punk you really are. Well..being a punk can have a ton of meanings, so I don't wanna get ahead of myself but you get the idea. He stood up for what he believed no matter who he had to fight, he had original ideas and made sure as many people heard about them as possible, he wasn't afraid to take a stand no matter how unpopular it might have been.

In my opinion, being a punk means finding absolute meaning in everything around you and leaving out or kicking out everything else that is against what you believe or that has no place in your life. Its very zen if you feel like thinking about it(most people don't). We as punks have a duty to QUESTION EVERYTHING, we must use our voices and our passions to show the world how truly fucked up it is and hold a mirror to everyone that doesn't have their head on straight. Yes, we are also inclusive and provide a shelter for those that have no place or haven't found their place yet but we also have a civic duty to help our fellow man. Carl Sagan had the same beliefs.

"Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism."

 - Carl Sagan

Sagan was always thought of as a free thinker or a skeptic; one of his most famous quotes, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence^" (called the "Sagan Standard").  This is something that I have always lived by in my own life and encouraged those around me to live by, as well. Show me respect and you will get respect (something I learned a lot from my Bosnian friends too), show me proof and I will believe in what it is you are trying to tell me, "knuck up or buck up" Crime Mob(not the punkest, I know, but WHAT IS PUNK, really?:) )

The punk subculture, which centres on punk rock music, includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashions and forms of expression, including visual art, dance, literature and film. The subculture is largely characterized by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom.(wikipedia)

Putting definitions on things is lame and never encapsulates the whole of a situation. Punk doesn't have to revolve around music. I wish it would... but it can't. You don't have to be a spiky jacket to be a punk, you don't have to love Rancid to be a punk, some of the punkest people I know get up every morning and work hard and go to their shitty job to make money to put out records, or drive a shitty van to play their songs, or build bicycles or pour beer. It doesn't matter what you look like, listen to, smell like, as long as you FEEL the same, have the same ideas, convictions, concern and awareness for change. You need an attitude, you need morals, you need thoughts, you need anger, you need suspicion, you need all of these things to FEEL like a human being AND a punk.

I don't intend to lecture here, but rather show what a great man and a great punk Carl Sagan was on this, the 17th anniversary of his death. He had thoughts that at the time were mostly ignored or cast aside as kookoo. His beliefs and thinking on animal rights, marijuana rights, race relations, climate change, religion, extraterrestrials, time travel, and more are things that we are still fighting for and dont entirely understand as a society today. If Sagan were still around he would no doubt be on the front lines fighting for all of this. It is my belief that he would have hopefully found his way into the government side of things in order to make REAL change and not give in to the almighty dollar and not give up on his fight for what is REAL and right. He had scientific proof in the 1970's that is still applied to arguments today, he had more information than a lot of congress has now forty years later. Sagan truly fought for what was right and didn't give a fuck who his opposition was because he knew in his back pocket he had the truth, he had facts, he had honesty, he had fire, he had never ending spirit, he would get kicked down and get right back up. Carl Sagan was a punk.

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." 
- Carl Sagan

this article originally appeared in my column "Let's Start A Fire" in the NO FRIENDS (maga)ZINE Issue 1