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Fundamentally, British punk was for kids.

Julien Temple’s punk mockumentary The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle features a number of animated segments telling the story of the Sex Pistols. An act of necessity since John Lyndon refused to participate in the film’s production. These segments are by far the most compelling parts of the film because, let’s be real here, the Sex Pistols were already cartoon characters. As much of a manufactured creation as The Monkees or Deathlok.

Whichever way you looked at them, they were absolute catnip for kids. On the one hand, they were bright, colourful characters with archetypes you could tell just by looking at them. John Lydon, the provocateur. Sid Vicious, the wild man. Steve Jones, the lad. Paul Cook is the sensible one. On the other hand, they were clearly edgy, dangerous, and your parents fucking hated them. That’s a powerful combination for a kid finding out their own tastes.

The downside of all that is that it didn’t mean very much. Everything about them was cultivated to have as much shock value as possible, but that was it. It’s all very surface. This wouldn’t be an issue in most cases. The Ramones were also proudly all surface, and they’re one of the greatest bands of their generation. The issue comes when one of the most enduring images of British punk is of the Pistols being interviewed by Bill Grundy, swearing up a storm and seemingly covered from head to toe in swastikas.

Which is really the moment the parents start having a point, right.., I know, I know, no one wants that, but it’s the truth, it’s one thing to wear a safety pin through your nose or strut around London with a shirt saying ” I hate Pink Floyd” on it, but a literal swastika, the symbol of a regime that committed some of the most horrific atrocities humanity has ever seen? Surely, that’s the moment that you go too far? Except in the eyes of the people sporting them, that’s the point.

Shock tactics only work if they, y’know, shock people. Thus, you begin a cycle that we recently saw an extreme, horrific version of with Kanye West. Person wants to shock, invokes Naziism to shock people and succeeds. Person proceeds to double down so hard on shouting about how great the Nazis are that you’re no longer sure they’re not just doing it to shock people or whether they’ve actually begun believing in it. The answer is that it really doesn’t matter, they’re both as bad as each other.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the likes of Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux were wearing these swastikas barely three decades after the end of the Second World War – this wasn’t history they were invoking, it was the lived experience of many people around them… Of many people who’d lost loved ones in the name of the very symbol they now sported on their arm in the name of “shocking people”. Nice one, lads, job’s a good ‘un, I hope you’re proud of yourselves.

In the name of objectivity, the argument made at the time was that English culture in particular was still using its victory in the Second World War to justify its actions. Thus, by donning a symbol of their enemies, you were expressing adversity to them rather than any kind of agreement with the worldview of that actual enemy. This argument, in the words of some of the great philosophers of the time, is dumb as a bag of hammers. It turns out that when you wear a literal symbol of fascism, people think you’re a fascist. That’s more, they’re right to.

Siouxsie Sioux herself found this out the hard way when she decided to sport a swastika while on tour with the Sex Pistols in France and got the shit kicked out of her for it. Far be it from me to celebrate an icon like Siouxsie Sioux being beaten up when she was a teenager, no less, but it did stop her from wearing swastikas and to this day, she regrets that she ever wore one in the name of fashion.

So no. Punk rockers shouldn’t get away with wearing Nazi shit in the name of shock tactics. The problem is it’s a fight that will never stop. The song remains the same, and the fight always continues. Hopefully, more people can eventually reach the level of maturity about it that Siouxsie has today.