"Hail Satan?" (2019)

[Belacqua]

Anton LaVey was the first person to codify a philosophy known as "Satanism." there was no such thing as "Satanism" as a codified philosophy before LaVey.

Well, that may be, depending on how we define "codify a philosophy." I mean, French Satanists had a pretty thoroughly thought-out philosophy, with (arguably) far better informed roots than your average American. And most of them agreed on the essentials. 

Whether that qualifies as "codified" or not I can't say. 

Then there's the question of whether it is compatible with the Lord of Chaos and the Left-Hand Path to codify anything. If it's a matter of competing codes, then we need to specify why one code is superior to the other. But if Satanism is truly a philosophy of freedom and opposition to the codification of modern society, why would a Satanist exchange one codification for another? Does freedom want codification? 

I want to be sure that modern American Satanists aren't exchanging one codification for another. And if they are accepting a codified view which is in fact modern and liberal, in favor of equal rights and all those good things, then how does a modern American Satanist differ from a modern American NPR listener? 

Are they truly rebels, or are they only rebels against a certain kind of Christian backwardness, who would be perfectly at home in an American college town like Lawrence, Kansas or Madison, Wisconsin?

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I'm still looking to figure out why modern American Satanists are interested in Satan, as opposed to some other literary symbol of rebellion.

Maybe for the same reason one of my friends named his dog "Loki." Not because my friend was interested in Norse mythology did he sympathize with/idolize Loki, but because he was something of a nefarious shit. Sometimes it's as simple as that.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. 

All on the surface. A rebellion against society consisting of naming your dog something different than your local Baptist minister names his dog. 

Naming your dog after a character in one of capitalist Hollywood's most profitable movie franchises. 

That's the opposite of rebellion.