Straight edge

[[File:Hose-straight-edge-xxx.jpg|thumb|right|upright|I'll just have some 'erbal tea, thanks.]]
{{music}}
In addition to being a tool for doing [[engineering]] and [[Modern art and architecture|architecture]] designs and what not, '''straight edge''' is also a subculture within the hardcore [[punk]] music scene, defined by its adherents' refusal to use [[drug]]s including [[alcohol]]. Abstinence from [[nicotine]] is also a prerequisite for "claiming edge" according to all but the loosest definitions. Those straight edgers who end up partaking of drugs and/or alcohol anyways are referred to as having "broken edge".<ref group=notes>E.g. "Can you believe that Bob broke edge last night?" Cynics in the punk scene would describe this as more or less inevitable.</ref>

==History and beliefs==
[[File:Minor-threat-malcolm-riviera.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Minor Threat in 1981: Ian MacKaye is the baldy.]]
{{cquote|"I'm a person just like you / But I've got better things to do / Than sit around and fuck my head / Hang out with the living dead / Snort [[Cocaine|white shit]] up my nose / Pass out at the shows / I don't even think about [[speed]] / That's something I just don't need / I've got the straight edge.|||Minor Threat, "Straight Edge"<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypkmp6D90KU "Straight Edge" by Minor Threat]</ref>}}
The movement started in the early 1980s as a reaction against the drug and alcohol use prevalent in the punk scene, often by people who had turned to punk in the first place as a reaction against the drug and alcohol use prevalent among their Van Halen-addled high school peers and were not at all pleased to find the same self-destructive behaviors in the punk scene. The name comes from the 1981 song "Straight Edge" by the [[Washington, D.C.]]-based hardcore band Minor Threat, which denounces drug use. It inevitably produced a backlash in the form of the "bent edge" or "curved edge" scene, which saw straight edgers as rigid and intolerant and openly embraced the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" lifestyle. Ian MacKaye, the frontman of Minor Threat and essentially the founding father of straight edge, remarked that his learning about bent edge was the moment that he realized that straight edge had become a movement.<ref>Kuhn, Gabriel (2010). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Rp_tVcHOV0oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sober+Living+for+the+Revolution:+Hardcore+Punk,+Straight+Edge,+and+Radical+Politics&hl=en&ei=wTzxTP3oJoT58AbBsM3nDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q=bent%20edge&f=false Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics.]'' PM Press. p. 37. ISBN 1-60486-051-0.</ref>

Straight edge took off nationally in the mid-late '80s on the back of the "youth crew" movement, a New York- and California-based hardcore punk scene characterized by optimism and moralism that embraced straight edge. In the '90s, [[veganism]], [[animal rights]], and [[social justice]] also emerged as pillars of large swaths of the straight edge movement, while others also added sexual [[abstinence]] and the avoidance of [[coffee]] and prescription drugs to the list of requirements. The movement is no longer as big as it was in the '90s, but it continues to chug along with a diehard core of followers, experiencing periodic waves of revival and decline in the underground punk scene.

==Symbols==
[[File:Flex Your Head.jpg|thumb|right|165px|The cover of a sampler album that included straight edge, and other hardcore bands]]
The letter X became a symbol of straight edge. The origin of this was clubs which marked the hands of those who were underage with the letter X, indicating they were too young to be served alcohol. The tradition started in 1980, when the Washington, D.C.-based band The Teen Idles did a tour on the West Coast only to find themselves barred from entering the Mabuhay Gardens in [[San Francisco]] due to all the band's members being under 21; as a compromise, the club management marked their hands with X's, an idea that Ian MacKaye (then a member of the band) brought back to the East Coast. Straight edgers began showing up at clubs with the letter X already on their hands, indicating that they too didn't want any alcohol.  A variant on this is sXe (se for straight edge), which does ''not'' mean "sexy". Another variant is XXX, which is, ironically, also a well-known symbol of [[pornography]] and alcohol (especially moonshine).

==Radicalism==
Starting in the '90s, there were notable instances of straight edgers taking it upon themselves to take "[[direct action]]" against drugs, alcohol, and other social ills within the punk scene, to the point where [[law enforcement]] in a number of cities came to treat straight edge as a [[gang]].<ref name="subcultures">Subcultures List: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200207083633/http://subcultureslist.com/straight-edge/militant-straight-edge/ "Militant Straight Edge"]</ref> The FSUs (for "Friends Stand United" or, alternatively, "Fuck Shit Up") emerged in the late '80s as a group dedicated to driving neo-Nazis and drug dealers out of Boston's punk scene, before falling victim to [[Godwin's Law]] and declaring that those categories included everybody they didn't like; unsurprisingly, some of their members wound up in the Outlaws and Mongols motorcycle gangs.<ref>Binelli, Mark. [https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/punk-rock-fight-club-190267/ "Punk Rock Fight Club."] ''Rolling Stone'', 23 August 2007 (recovered 20 February 2021).</ref><ref>Lefty Hooligan. [https://leftyhooligan.wordpress.com/tag/friends-stand-united/ "Friends Stand United."] ''What's Left?'', March 2019 (recovered 20 February 2021).</ref> Salt Lake City was also a hotbed of the militant wing, where it became a gateway to [[ecoterrorism]] as some straight edgers expressed avowed support for groups like the [[Animal Liberation Front]] and the [[Earth Liberation Front]].<ref name="cbs">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_FXTgNcUTI CBS News' Eye on America] covers straight edge and hardline radicalism in Salt Lake City, including an interview with a man who burned down a [[McDonald's]] out of sympathy with the ALF.</ref> Somebody with a sense of irony might see it as the anti-drug message of [[Crime woo#D.A.R.E.|D.A.R.E.]] taken to its logical conclusion, with even the police and parents' groups who had been pushing it horrified at what emerged from it. Oddly, straight edgers are probably the only youth in Utah (Mormons included) who actually follow the [[Mormonism|Mormon]] "word of wisdom" concerning alcohol, tobacco, and coffee. You can't win, I guess.<ref name="subcultures"></ref><ref name="cbs"></ref>

There also exists a subset of [[Neo-Nazism|neo-Nazis]] (mainly in [[Russia]], eastern Europe, and [[Germany]]) who have latched onto straight edge, viewing "racial purity" as another component of "[[clean living movement|clean living]]" and a healthy, drug-free body as important for fighting the [[race war]]. In Slavic countries (Russia, [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], and [[Serbia]] especially), they have been involved in attacks against [[Roma]] camps and LGBT people. Many have also embraced pan-Slavism, albeit a brand of such distinct from that promoted by the Russian government, especially in Ukraine, where such groups are often fervently anti-Russian due to the war in the Donbass.<ref>Kuzmenko, Oleksiy. [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/06/26/straight-edge-neo-nazi-group-attacked-ukrainian-roma-camp/ "The Straight-Edge Neo-Nazi Group that Attacked a Ukrainian Roma Camp."] ''Bellingcat'', 26 June 2018 (recovered 22 July 2018).</ref> Needless to say, unlike many other straight edgers, they staunchly reject any identification with the left, the only left-wing ideas they'll associate with being of the [[Third positionism|third positionist]] sort.<ref>How's Your Edge: [https://web.archive.org/web/20141105080039/http://howsyouredge.com/v2/feature/nazi-punks-fuck-off "Nazi Punks... FUCK OFF!"]</ref>

===Hardline===

{{hatnote|Not to be confused with the Danish far-right party [[Stram Kurs]], whose name translates in English to "Hard Line".}}

Hardline was a particularly strange offshoot of the vegan branch of straight edge, which tacked on all of the following simultaneously: [[hard green]] biocentric views, [[animal rights]], [[pacifism]], a [[consistent life ethic]], and opposition to [[Pro-life|abortion]], [[Homophobia|homosexuality]], [[cigarette smoking]], and any [[sexual intercourse]] outside of [[marriage]].  Some of them also opposed [[masturbation]], [[pornography]], and [[Western medicine]], shunned chocolate, coffee, [[sugar]], and tropical fruits due to both opposition to [[Third World]] agricultural labor practices and (in the case of chocolate and coffee) their [[caffeine]] content,<ref group=notes>This is also why the [[Mormonism|Mormons]] [http://www.dummies.com/religion/christianity/mormonism/whats-not-on-the-mormon-menu/ abstain from coffee and tea], though chocolate usually gets a pass (Marie Osmond even referred to it as "Mormon medication"). Caffeinated soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, et cetera) are in a gray area, having been invented after the Word of Wisdom came into effect, and as such, they are the subject of [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/mormon-caffeine-policy-cl_n_1848098.html often-fierce debate] both within and outside the LDS Church.</ref> and expressed their across-the-board militancy on everything by wearing camouflage clothing. Hardline claimed both an [[Abrahamic religion|Abrahamic]] foundation and syncretic influences from Eastern spiritual disciplines, such as [[Zen Buddhism]] and [[Taoism]]. In effect, hardline synthesized the left-wing [[social justice]] politics, environmentalism, and "clean living" mainfesto of "mainline" vegan straight edge with a [[religious right]] sexual morality and forays into [[deep ecology]] as part of a broader [[appeal to nature]]. Some of them took [[direct action]] against people they saw drinking, smoking, eating meat, or using drugs at hardcore shows, feeding into negative stereotypes of straight edgers.<ref name="cbs"></ref><ref>[http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/sxethic/hlmanifest.html The Hardline Manifesto]</ref>

Hardline had its origins with Sean Muttaqi<ref>Sanneh, Kelefa. [http://bidoun.org/issues/16-kids#vegan-jihad-a-conversation-with-sean-muttaqi "Vegan Jihad: A Conversation with Sean Muttaqi."] ''Bidoun'': issue 16.</ref>, the frontman of a hardcore punk band called Vegan Reich<ref group=notes>[http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/v/veganreich17318/thewayitis482918.html Here are some Vegan Reich lyrics], for more stupid than you ever thought imaginable.</ref> — a name that pretty much [[Godwin's Law|sums it up]]. Vegan Reich were occasionally suspected of being a parody of straight edge along the lines of Crucial Youth<ref>http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2011/06/slimelight-campaigns-some.html</ref>, but they were quite serious, and were in fact [[Poe's Law|espousing views ''more'' extreme]] than Crucial Youth in their heyday.<ref>http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2005/02/punk-comics-3/</ref> In the 1990s, [[Tennessee]] (particularly Memphis) and [[Massachusetts]] became the centers of gravity for hardline, the former mainly due to the influence of the Tennessee-based hardline band Raid, and in 1994 Muttaqi founded the record label Uprising Records to support hardline bands.

Muttaqi eventually converted to [[Sufism]] after years of interest in the [[Islam]]ic faith, causing him to leave the movement while leaving his 'zine ''Vanguard'' (the main outlet promoting hardline) in the hands of his followers. Soon after, the movement fell into a purity spiral familiar to any observer of radical politics, and began to spurn the hardcore punk and straight edge scenes for being insufficiently activist. An attempt by a hardline group to establish a commune in [[Hawaii]] fell apart when they got into a dispute over whether or not [[Raw foodism|cooking food was in line with the natural order]]. The movement's growing radicalization culminated in the formation of the "Hardline Central Committee" in 1998 to enforce ideological purity — a move that backfired when those who rejected its more extreme tenets realized that the movement had gone full-blown [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] and turned into a [[Cult#Political groups|political cult]], and abandoned hardline altogether for vegan straight edge and other, more moderate environmental and progressive activist movements. This left only a tiny core of hardliners (pun very much intended) who faded into irrelevance soon after; the Central Committee only lasted a year before it decided to vote itself out of existence.

In short, they were pretty much an unintentional parody of contemporary moral guardians and cultural critics on both ends of the spectrum, albeit born from the counterculture rather than railing against it from the outside. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that many of the leaders of the hardline movement eventually left the hardcore punk scene. Most other straight edgers considered "hardline" to be a huge embarrassment.

==Religion==
In the mid-'80s, Larry Pugliese, a member of the [[International Society for Krishna Consciousness]], sponsored a number of concerts in New York aimed at the city's punks and [[skinheads]]. As a result, the Hare Krishnas made inroads into the New York straight edge scene (albeit remaining very much a minority), producing an offshoot known as Krishnacore that eventually spread into the broader straight edge culture. (And you thought [[Christian rock]] could get insufferable...)<ref>Helb, Colin. [http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/hare-krishnacore-an-introduction-to-the-most-improbable-punk-subculture-ever/ "Hare Krishnacore — An introduction to the most improbable punk subculture ever."] ''The Vinyl Factory'', 26 June 2015 (recovered 8 July 2016).</ref>

Speaking of, a Christian straight edge scene unsurprisingly emerged alongside the secular one. While many leading lights in the straight edge movement held organized religion in disdain (it's the [[Communism#Communism and religion|"opiate of the masses"]], after all), the straight edge ethos concerning drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex meshed well with Christian morality, albeit rooted in a secular basis. As such, straight edge provided an outlet for many Christian teens in the '80s and '90s to take part in the punk counterculture and rebel against their parents' aesthetic tastes while still upholding their moral values. Straight edge has also become popular among Muslim youth in the US and Europe in the 2000s and '10s for similar reasons, as a way to engage in the counterculture and challenge both [[Islamophobia]] and the conservatism of their fellow Muslims without compromising religious morality. This Islamic offshoot of straight edge is known as "taqwacore" (''taqwa'' being the Arabic term for piety).<ref>Krueger, David M. [http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/straight-edge-religion-hardcore-punk-and-the-sober-revolution-by-david-m-krueger/ "Straight Edge Religion: Hardcore Punk and the Sober Revolution."] ''Marginalia'', 17 March 2015 (recovered 8 July 2016).</ref>

==Don't miss==
* Crucial Youth, a [[Fun:New Jersey|New Jersey]]-based band from the late '80s and early '90s that served to spoof straight edge music, taking the fusion of hardcore punk and Boy Scout ethics deep into [[Poe's Law]] territory with such songs as "Positive Dental Outlook"<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALpSNACkmWw Crucial Youth: "Positive Dental Outlook"]</ref> (promoting brushing and flossing), "Put Litter In Its Place"<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVZqlWd624o Crucial Youth: "Put Litter In Its Place"]</ref>, and "Be Kind, Rewind"<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wndOHAC69A4 Crucial Youth: "Be Kind, Rewind"]</ref> (promoting ethical returning of rental videotapes).  [http://www.goodbadmusic.com/2007/09/09/crucial-youth-straight-and-loud-7ep-faith-records-usa-1987/ Scroll to the middle] for lyric sheet, complete with illustration of Mr. T saying no to PCP, and mp3 files, or go [https://web.archive.org/web/20160511192016/http://www.newredarchives.com/bands/crucialyouth/comix.htm here for Crucial Youth comix], featuring safe moshing tips from Safety Squirrel.

==See also==
* [[Clean living movement]]
* [[Teetotalism]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=notes}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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Categories: Booze, Drugs, Music, Philosophy, Punk