The Rolling Stones were once a threat. Their music was chaos, sex, destruction—something your parents feared, something that could get you arrested, banned, or worse. They weren’t just a band; they were a danger to polite society. Their concerts were unpredictable, their songs were defiant, and they embodied the spirit of Baudelaire—decadent, rebellious, drowning in excess and beauty at the same time.
But what happens when rebellion wins? What happens when the outlaws become the aristocracy? They stop being dangerous. They become decoration.
Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal was banned for being too raw, too sexual, too real. The Rolling Stones, at their peak, were the musical equivalent of Baudelaire’s poetry—corrupting, intoxicating, and impossible to ignore. But today? Their songs sell cars and insurance. They perform in stadiums filled with old bankers who want to feel young again. What was once dangerous has been repackaged into something comfortable.
Baudelaire wrote, “You gave me your filth, and I turned it into gold.” The Rolling Stones gave us gold, and they turned it into merchandise.
Rebellion was never meant to be a business model. The greatest artists never aged gracefully because true art is not meant to be eternal—it’s meant to be intense. Baudelaire died poor. Van Gogh died unknown. Jim Morrison died exiled. Because real art is not built to last—it’s built to burn. The Rolling Stones found a way to make rebellion last forever, but only by draining it of all its meaning. They turned their own chaos into a predictable, safe product. They became the system they once fought.
If Les Fleurs du mal had been written today, it wouldn’t be banned—it would be a coffee table book sold at Urban Outfitters. If the Rolling Stones had started today, they wouldn’t be arrested for obscenity—they’d have a Netflix documentary deal.
The problem isn’t that they got old. The problem is that they became part of the machine they once fought.
And it’s not just the Rolling Stones. It’s everything. Everything that was once raw, dirty, unpredictable, dangerous, and real has been stripped, sterilized, and repackaged for mass consumption. Rock and punk are now curated nostalgia, not rebellion. Art that once got banned now gets printed on tote bags. Philosophy that once challenged the world now sits safely in university syllabi, never applied, never lived. Subcultures that once terrified the mainstream are now brands owned by fashion labels.
Everything that was once born in the gutter, in passion, in desperation, in defiance—is now dead. Not because it naturally faded, but because they killed it.
They take the danger out of music. They take the substance out of philosophy. They take the risk out of art.
Everything is polished, monetized, flattened into something safe. Nothing is allowed to be too ugly, too intense, too real.
If Baudelaire was alive today, they wouldn’t ban him—they’d put him on a TED Talk panel about “edgy literature.” If Jim Morrison would be around today, he would be the face of Gucci.
They have turned the world into a graveyard of ghosts that once had fire. And we walk among them, mistaking the echoes for something still alive.
The Rolling Stones were just the first to go. Now it’s everything.
And even philosophy, the last refuge of truth, hasn’t been spared. Once, it stood outside the system, a thorn in the side of kings and empires. Now philosophy, is just another branch of the corporate-state machine. Ethics committees no longer challenge power—they justify it. Bioethicists sit on boards that defend pharmaceutical giants, not the public. University philosophy departments are filled with careerists who debate abstractions while ignoring real-world corruption. The same thinkers who once questioned the nature of power now write essays explaining why it is “necessary.”
Take the German ethics councils during the pandemic—the ones that were supposed to challenge government overreach but ended up rubber-stamping it instead. Or the philosophers who once debated oppression and resistance but now provide moral justifications for the powerful.
The greatest betrayal is not just that art and music have been bought. The greatest betrayal is that even philosophy—once the sanctuary of the outsider—has been co-opted.
Philosophy has stopped challenging the system. Now it works for it.
They have turned philosophy into a service industry for the elite—polishing their image, rationalizing their greed, making oppression sound intellectual.
Once, philosophers were persecuted, exiled, poisoned. Now, they are invited to corporate conferences and paid to be useful.
And that is how everything dies.
Not in flames. Not in defiance.
But in a slow, comfortable betrayal.