Abstract
The punk movement, seen through its “riddle-like” texts, appears as a thoroughly singular and eminently political moment. Acting as an echo-chamber for a certain number of former cultural events such as Dadaism, or more contemporary ones such as Anglo-American psychoanalysis, this movement, closely attuned to post-war mutations, invented a number of minimalist formal means that managed to enact the collapse of ideals without succumbing to nihilism. Turning their backs on ideology of every stripe, the punks radicalized cultural criticism and held out a mirror to British (and European) society in considering the key political question of the post-war era: do states still possess some kind of legitimacy? How are we to cope with institutional nihilism? And with the contradictory injunctions of the post-Nazi era?
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