Quote:
Originally Posted by speedyn32
You can't group all SxE people with the gang/violent sect of them. I have been straight edge for 5 years, and only do it for myself, the music, and the point I am trying to get across. I am not an extremist. I see nothing wrong with someone drinking every once in a while, but it is something I choose to abstain from because for every person who casually drinks, there is one who drinks way too heavily or is even an alcoholic. There needs to be more people on the oposite side of the spectrum to show kids that conforming to the 'Well I'm in highschoo/college now, so that means i need to get wasted every weekend to fit in and be normal' mentality is not the only thing out there
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Well, that's why I said "Straight-edge takes a sinister turn when you replace sex and drugs with violence."
You talk about impressionable kids falling into the weekend routine of excessive drinking, but groups like SxE, or whatever the proper denotation is, offer the same sense of belonging, the motives are the only difference. Any time you're dealing with groups that tend to be very clandish, like straight-edge, you run the risk of dealing with potential fanatic, moronic automatons.
Some of the hardcore groups, primarily those in 1980's Boston, SSD is the one that springs to mind immediately, definitely belong to this group I'm talking about. Not only would Jaime Sciarappa pontificate, but he would kick your teeth in if you were drinking a beer at a hardcore show. Jello Biafra talked, almost endlessly, about how hardcore groups, like the Suicidal Tendencies, had really become very gang-like. This is where the problem sets in. If you get a group of people together, I don't care how good natured or well intentioned they are, somebody is going to take their own radical interpretation and contort the idea into something dangerous. It's just how people are. Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said "I wouldn't want to be a part of any group that would have me as a member"?
I applaud you, my friend, and I actually wish that I had the desire to quit drinking entirely, but what I'm driving at is that you don't need to belong to a group in order to make the right decissions. You're right--we need more positive role models, but all this SxE stuff is just as potentially dangerous as any college party.