"Straight Edge" - Opinions? - Page 2

I fucking hate the straight-edge scene. I mean, I've no problem with somebody opting out of activities like Alex Augustine here - that's cool - (you've been branded now!) - but having witnessed many straight-edge shows myself - the kids reminded me more of the police (not the band) than anything else. The subculture that scolds itself! And not only that, they are SOBER, PREACH ABSINTENCE, ARE AGAINST DRUGS and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER! It's laughable.

All they do is whine about "jocks" and "frat boys", who frankly, don't give a shit. Somebody made fun of them in high school for not getting any, and they tried to feel good about themselves by putting themselves on a higher pedestal (instead of the proper reaction of telling agitators to fuck themselves).

Anyone who disagrees with them is being "mainstream" - ha, funny to be told this while tripping on shrooms and dressed like Mark Ronson or something while some New Age~y girl is reading my palms and relating myself to some dead fuck, at a Halloween party they also attended.

Straight-edgers may need psychoanalysts, not more people to feed into their immense feelings of inadequacy and misplaced rage.

What a closed-minded bunch. Pleasures like intercourse are a weakness? Seeking pleasure is what separates us from being animals. Ever notice how many damn problems people have when they try to moralize everything?

EDIT: I should note that, locally at least, there are a fair bit of Christians among them (as advertised on their gig posters)

Sounds like the beginning of Side 2 of The Wall.

Your entire post is a blanket statement. Your take on the sex part is completely wrong, but maybe you have the second hand Canadian version.

Sour Grapes - The Religion!

Straight Edgers and Juggalos should all be forced to fight each other. At sea. On a burning boat.

I was just going to post something along those lines Phil. Kudos.

Not Alex Augustine, though. He can stay. And if he's not drinking or doing drugs, he should be in pretty good shape and could make some extra cash doing yardwork at my house. Say hello to my pal Andrew Jackson...

By yeardwork he means some kind of kinky sex. Watch out now.

I thought Alex was a girl (avatar), and from the info in this thread, a lesbian. Hm.

Now that we've finally settled this whose turn is it to start the Krishnacore thread.?

I think we can all agree those bastards are just silly.

that's an ignorant post man. that's like me judging all muslims based on terrorists.

Nope thats my wife.

So you don't drink or smoke or have unconventional sex but you married a lesbian?

Nice.

Pfft, don't listen to Schwartz. His avatar is his father.

Don't listen to Kimbell. His avatar is my mother.

Krishnacore, wow, it's been a long time. That doesn't exist at all anymore, not even a small sect, completely dead.

I never understood this need to raise a banner proclaiming your beliefs, especially for something as minor as not drinking or doing drugs. It's not like people who don't drink are some persecuted minority and you're acting this way to show solidarity. And in my 35 years of life, with 20 of them drinking heavily I have never seen anyone turning down a drink and getting trouble for it.

It's part of an underground music scene. If you hadn't heard it here, you probably would of never heard of it.

I'm well aware of the existence of both hardcore and Straight Edge. My post just expressed my general misgivings towards belonging in these exclusionary groups especially once you leave high school.

The level of anti-edge vitriol that's come up so far (I only got to your comment before deciding to reply, Alex) is pretty amazing to me. This is based purely on the understanding of the term straight edge that I encountered growing up. Any of the punk or vaguely "punky" kids I knew when I was in my teens had the utmost respect for straight edge people. This doubtless had something to do with the minuscule number of non-drinking/drug-taking kids here (yay for stereotypical yet true humour!) Amongst them, there seemed to be an unspoken appreciation that the choice to be "straight edge" (or, if you already shared lifestyle similarities), "adopt" the mantle was one not to be slagged off for. In its own way, it was a conversation piece. "That's some going/I could never do what you do, fair play", etc.

In a lot of the comments above, there seems to be a curious undercurrent of contempt for both the straight-edge concept and the people who employ it. Seems to me like people have taken it way too far. Why not just leave 'em be. Not everyone to ever be associated with the term is the angry, hypocritical mongoloid suggested at times here.

These are not exclusionary groups. it's just a belief a part of the population that makes up the hardcore scene believes in. Since 2000 at least, you are edge or you aren't and you won't be looked down for being edge or not. I don't know what it's like in Greece but the majority of the hardcore scene doesn't work like a sect in regards to edge.

*High 5s Alex*






Wait... does your wife know that you're avatar "cross-dressing". You're not wearing her angora sweaters while you post, are you?

Still waiting to hear why preferring not to drink or do drugs rises to the level of a "belief" system. There are tons of sober people around for whom it is not their defining characteristic.

Would you buy "lifestyle"?

It's all in how you approach it, really - how integral you consider it to your personality and notion of self. It's not all that different from vegetarianism, really. Some vegetarians consider their eating habits a hugely important part of who they are in that they're an expression of a highly-personalized and mulled-over system of ethics; some just don't like eating steak. Some proselytize, most don't.

Personally, I don't like mushrooms on my pizza and have been known to go on at length about not getting people who do (realizing, still, that it's just a matter of taste); people tend to not get offended. If a vegetarian were to make the exact same complaints about pepperoni, I suspect that some meat-eaters in the room would automatically feel like they're being judged by the "militant vegetarian".

My point, I guess, is that people who indulge in what are seen as "normal" appetites are a little too quick to assume that they're being judged in any serious way.

Its not my defining characteristic. Its a youth subculture that I was involved in. (like skinheads, mods, punks, etc.) Just being drug free alone doesn't really qualify one as straight edge. Being part of that youth subculture does. As an adult looking back, parts of it are probably silly, but I had great times.

Not really. Stripped of the spiritual/religious aspects (of which no one has really espoused in relation to Straight Edge), I still don't see why one would base so much of their identity around not doing things. While I understand that refraining can be as powerful a statement as doing something, sobriety or some kind of qualified semi-abstinence don't strike me as being that bold. Being vegetarian strikes me as a bit more out of the mainstream.
Proselytizing is a big part of it. I don't know why you'd do it over mushrooms. But if you did go on at length about it while I was trying to eat some, or started adorning yourself with symbols to indicate your distaste for them, then yeah, I'd think you were a dick. Vegans I get. I might find them obnoxious, but there's a moral underpinning to their stance that I can respect more than just not enjoying meat products. I feel roughly the same way about the pro-life crowd; I don't agree, but I can understand the belief that makes them behave that way.

The underpinnings are what I'm trying to understand with SE. I've seen a lot of "it's a personal choice" type statements, which it certainly is, but I don't understand why it's so important to make it unless you invoke spirituality, which no one really has. The talk of "weakness" or "abuse" indicates it's more than personal taste, but the underlying philosophy still eludes me.

Bill Maher would like a word.

"I've seen a lot of "it's a personal choice" type statements, which it certainly is, but I don't understand why it's so important to make it unless you invoke spirituality, which no one really has."

Whatever it may have morphed into over the years, SE grew out of a conscious effort for punks to distance themselves from the nihilism, anarchy, and self-destruction found in a lot of punk music at the time. It must have felt important enough to enough people to make this distinction that it grew into its own subculture. I can't find much spirituality in the decision aside from wanting a more postive form of punk rock.

Maher's a dick. I agree with him more often than not, and he's pretty funny, but is still a prick. See also: Devin Faraci.

Also, its a matter of degree, but as far as bucking the "mainstream" by not doing something: sobriety < vegetarianism < atheism.

I'm SE, atheist, and was vegetarian for many years. I don't know if I bucked the mainstream, but I lived according to what make sense to me.

And you're fine by me. It seems that at some point as you decided you could be just as sober, atheist, and vegetarian without marking yourself with Xs or following whatever band around. All of that makes perfect sense to me, as does having a certain loyalty to the places/people/scenes that shaped who you are, even if you've moved on to a degree.

What I want is for someone in the scene to give me the pitch. I've said that I don't view my body as a temple, but a grimy yet amusing state fair. Why is it important that I stop abusing myself?

So they wanted to remove the very things that made punk punk? Okay.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Straight_Edge
Anything you have ever wanted to know about this stuff.



FAIL

It's not abstinence if you don't have a choice.

Zing!

Or that they were so enamored with the fact they were sober that they needed a subculture to fall under. I never touched a drop of booze until I was in my 20s, or did more than smoke weed, and was by and large extremely sober. I was the guy that got invited to go out solely because friends knew they had a sober person to get them home. I never will understand why sober kids need to identify themselves so readily as such. You don't drink or do drugs, who gives a fuck? The majority of your high school doesn't. Wipe the goddamn X off your hand and go about your business. But hey, if it works for them, and they don't shove it down your throat, more power to you.

Depends on your environment/social circle. I know more vegetarians than teetotalers.

It's more faux-proselytizing - I'm just fucking around. You've never had argument over food even when you know it's completely subjective?

My point is that meat-eaters are often touchy around vegetarians, smokers are often touchy around non-smokers, drinkers are often touchy around non-drinkers. We tend to think we're being judged even when we're not. I'm not sure if it's because abstainers tend to be judgmental or because non-abstainers just assume they'll be. But my wife's vegetarianism clearly makes people more uncomfortable than my non-mushroom eating. And maybe it's more a Wisconsin thing because there's just so much drinking here, but non-drinkers are certainly regarded as pretty weird.

What's not to respect about not eating something if you don't like it? I get why you might respect vegans for holding to a principle, but I'm not sure why you think people should eat things that they don't enjoy. You can't make me eat capers, you son of a bitch!

Yeah, I've got a problem with those words, too, but I'm not sure that abstinence (in the general sense) has to be approached that way. As you mentioned further up, there are certainly health considerations, too. If you want to be in tip-top shape, alcohol might not be the best thing for you (although we've all heard the opposite is true about a sensible glass of wine with dinner), and cigarettes certainly aren't.

But then some just don't like drinking. As for the Xes and such? Well, I suppose it's an easy social identifier in terms of making friends and dating. You know what you're getting into.

You seem to have an utter misunderstanding of what "made punk punk" if anything can truly be said to have "made punk punk."

I know, it's just that I was saying how I didn't think some things were worth proselytizing, and you gave an even more arbitrary example. It seemed to be supporting what I was saying, but read like a counterpoint.

And no, I've never really argued over food, beyond what kind of pizza to order. I don't have any desire to talk people out of eating foods I don't enjoy. And absent some underlying philosophy, the SE abstinence stance doesn't seem any more significant than not enjoying mushrooms or garlic.



I will make you eat capers and those words, you fungus-loving whoreson.

I don't respect people for following their tastes; it seems like the default position to do what you like. I do have respect for people who subvert their tastes to principles, even if I don't share those principles. I'm trying to figure out what the SE principles are, so that I can find a way to respect them. Because so far it seems like a bunch of people who don't like to party needing to turn not-partying into some grand gesture of independence instead of a matter of personal taste.

But, as a Chicago man, you're surely familiar with one of the classic examples of placing importance on a silly food question. If not, just buy a hotdog and ask for some ketchup.

I haven't been here long enough to develop the peculiar food hang ups of Da Chicagoans. There's one battle I've totally given up on, though. I don't even order hot peppers on sandwiches anymore, although I love them, because no matter how hard I try, I cannot convince anyone not to put on so many that it becomes a giardinera burger.

3 Xs make me think of porn, moonshine, and/or Vin Diesel... for the record.

Sometimes all three if you're feeling really peppy, huh?

"What I want is for someone in the scene to give me the pitch. I've said that I don't view my body as a temple, but a grimy yet amusing state fair. Why is it important that I stop abusing myself?"

But that's just it. There never was a pitch. I've never met someone who became SE due to any convincing nor met anyone who had converted another. Anyone who claimed otherwise would be considered somewhat of a poser. It's something that you find or fall into all on your own. Proselytizing doesn't jive. Please believe there's a difference between the packaged hot topic version that most people are exposed to and the genuine thing.

you won't get it unless you've been a part of the scene or heard the bands. it just won't make sense to you, just like breakdancing doesn't make sense to people who don't like hip hop.

No, it was a counterculture against the counterculture. The music was harder, faster, the dudes tougher than the snotty typical dudes in punk rock. Remember this came from hardcore punk, an evolution of sorts which really since the mid 80's has become it's own scene. The protest, political aspects remained, in fact were maybe amplified.

This kind of shows how much people don't get it in this thread, it's part of a subculture of music. It isn't just some random ideal that people latch on to. Just because you don't drink, or do drugs doesn't make you straight edge. The difference between the people you're talking about is that they aren't in the scene or come from the scene or come from the music. And most edge kids don't X up anyway. This thread is pretty hilarious in how much people bathe in assumption.

it's not a gesture, it's an underground thing and most edge kids couldn't give a fuck if the mainstream knows or not. And the people and bands that these kids go see know what it is anyway. And where did you get this thing about it being kids that don't like to party suddenly needing some gesture. You do realize this is part of music, where the shows themselves are pretty much parties. Many Edge band dudes pretty much live a life of partying, except they don't drink.

Doesn't this thread make you realize how different dudes are, how much harder it is to explain such a thing to someone who has no clue about punk rock or hardcore. Just weird is all. Such a different culture. And i'm not even in the scene anymore. Kind of hard to explain the edge to dudes who aren't remotely related to it, then I realized, most edge kids don't, they don't need to.

I'm not into the hip-hop scene at all, but I get breakdancing fine. It's fun, challenging, and looks cool. What I don't understand is the connection is between edge music and abstention from drink/drugs/sex.