Straight edge
Related: music - subculture
Aricle by Courtney Centner on straight edge subcultures:
Despite the previously discussed disparity, straight edge hardcore is generally meant to be inspirational and insurgent. In Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century Greil Marcus distinguishes what makes punk rock so enduring is ‘…its desire to change the world’ (Marcus, 1989: 5). Straight edge philosophy aligned with its hardcore attempts to establish a lifestyle that does not utilise drugs or casual sex. Not only does it position itself against these practices, but straight edge attempts to change them, ‘[i]ncreasingly disenchanted with societal ills, young men and women adopt the straight-edge doctrine as a blueprint to better first themselves, and then the world in which they live’ (http://www.straight-edge.com, my italics). Involvement in such political activities as animal rights, anti-racist campaigns, and the awareness of feminist issues is an indication of straight edge’s revolutionary desires; at shows there are often tables filled with pamphlets regarding various issues. The activist nature of the subculture leads me to disagree with Dick Hebdige’s claim that, ‘[s]ubculture is… an insubordination. And at thesame time, it is also a confirmation of the fact of powerlessness, a celebration of impotence (Hebdige, 1983, Gelder and Thornton, eds., 1997: 404). Straight edge is empowering to its members, not paralysing. Simply by attending a show, or singing along to lyrics in their bedrooms, the kids secure a notion of a group unified against common enemies, empowering the individuals by certifying their beliefs. At a show the intensity of emotion, insurrection and contentment as a result of the denial of specific societal practices and recognition that "you are not alone", is obviously a powerful energy: fists adorned with Xs(28) are thrown into the air, gaping mouths scream lyrics, and the movement on the floor is that of an unstoppable tempest. These kids are not howling themselves into submission, but saluting their dissidence.
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