Your answer is great.

And it touches on the disturbing thing about punk’s radical individualism: How quickly and harmlessly it can be assimilated into any system willing to pandering to its desires.

Now what subcultural movement does Millhouse embody?

But, in the interests of good-natured discussion:

Perhaps Bart’s adoration of Krusty is the show’s demonstrative gag of why he is (at least in the Simpson universe) absolutely *right* to detest and distrust authority – Krusty is a lousy role model, he never retains any gratitude for any of the selfless and heroic feats Bart endeavours on his (Krusty’s) behalf, and he doesn’t give two shits about children, or anything that isn’t money or himself. He is, in many respects, the spitting character image of Mayor Quimby, a figure for whom Bart has no respect or interest because he’s a politician, not a clown. Bart is, in many cases, foiled by his own inescapable pre-pubescent nature (much the same, as you say, with Lisa and Malibu Stacy).

I would argue that the military school stint and Bart’s own adherence to “the rules of the schoolyard” are examples of how his drive to do destructive things (the source of his Punk Icon status) trumps all ideology – in most cases, it is more destructive to fuck authority and institutions off than to obey them, but in the case of the military (”my killing teacher says I’m a natural”) and the schoolyard rules (”Hey Bart, do you have a best friend yet? Cuz I’ve been looking for someone to boss me around”), social institutions are *encouraging* this behavior, so he has no problem with them. Again, Bart is a ten-year old, helplessly lacking the strength of his convictions.

…How’d I do?

There’s also the weird way he can completely throw himself into highly anti-indivivdualistic groups or philosophies (such as his time in military school or his brief flirtation with self-negating Zen or even his keen sense of the “rules of the school yard”) only to pop out on the other side completely unchanged.

Is Bart more Sid Vicious or Zelig?

Or is that just his weakness the way Stacey is the ideological soft spot of Lisa?