h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quite like smoking, quite enjoyed my booze-bag teeneage years. What a strange idea...

But very worthy if you've got the moral stamina, I'm sure.

The problem, of course, is the amount of small-minded people qho have been attracted to straight-edge. This is more prevalent than this article would have one believe. Reading the lyrics to some Earth Crisis albums is an enlightening experience. Where Minor Threat talked of how they chose to avoid drugs and srinking to keep themselves straight and focused and to help keep whatever pressures they felt as teenagers from destroying them, Earth Crisis and their ilk preach of destroying those not like them, like many other large hate groups.

To not want to drink or use drugs is, in itself, not a bad thing. But like many other groups of people, some have fostered an unhealthy "us vs. them" attitude, which is the cause of the violence associated with the scene. I've heard tale of groups of straight-edgers beating up drunks, ala Alex and his gang in A Clockwork Orange. I've also seen, in a nice example of hypocrisy, very pushy, verbal straight-edgers who preach against those of us who enjoy a bit of drink and then later "lose the edge" and not only start drinking, but go completely overboard on various drugs and become junkies.

This is an interesting article, but I believe it to be a bit one-sided.

I thought the article was fairly well-balanced, but it seemed like an oddly opinionated statement to say, "after all, there is nothing inherently wrong with drinking." Wouldn't most straight-edgers directly disagree with that?

Sorry to digress, but what is up with some of these cheesy, off-topic "BBC related links"??? "You'll need the straight edge of a ruler for these Blue Peter presents..." I can't quite tell if Blue Peter is a frightening European hybrid of Martha Stewart and Blue's Clues, nor do I want to know. It's a cute one-line joke, the kind researchers are warned not to use in their Guide Entries if they want to get accepted. In fact, any researcher who had included this kind of irrelevant link in a rough draft Guide Entry would surely have been told to get rid of it by everyone in Peer Review, if not the Editors as well.

Is this the final bottom-line reason that BBC bought h2g2 -- so that each Guide Entry can have gratuitous links to unrelated BBC info, mandatory publicity with no concern for transitions or continuity? A Guide Entry on Jimi Hendrix will have "BBC Related Links" to some BBC page about castles, related only by the song "All Along the Watchtower"??

Hi Nigel, I know what you mean about groups such as Earth Crisis - their lyrics scare me, but if you do a little more searching on the 'net you can find some VERY worrying attitudes held by straight edgers... but those are issues about straight edge individuals, not the philosophy itself. It certainly doesn't promote violence in itself.

You refer to tales of gangs of sXer's beating up people who drink... I was talking about this in the 'media' section. Of course you're gonna hear about the groups who are violent and hateful - the papers are hardly going to report on some people who just don't do drugs, smoke or drink... I mean, that's hardly news, is it! I also think it comes down to personal experience. I can't speak for you, you may have witnessed these gangs in action - but where I live, I only know a few other sXers who MOST DEFINATELY are not like this and certainly wouldn't be my friends if they were.

So I hope you don't find the entry too once sided, as long as you remember that it's talking about the ideals behind the philosophy, not the idiots who use it as an excuse to hate.

*waves to Subcom* I expect there'd be a few straight edgers to disagree with the drinking statement... but I don't think there IS anything 'wrong' with drinking in itself. However, I think there is something wrong with doing it for the 'wrong' reasons (such as peer pressure), with using as an excuse for irresponsibility, with becoming dependant on it, and acting as though alchohol is a requirement.

that did sound like a bit of a preach there, please don't take it as such. That's what happens when you get me started!

Finally, I must say I did cringe when I found those cheesy links at the bottom of the page. I felt slightly that what I'd written had been devalued... I've written a piece on a punk movement from the 80s, so that other people can gain some understanding from my knowledge, not an advert for fupping Blue Peter! I put the link to the sXe documentary on the page before h2g2 had even been bought by the BBC, so I'm glad that was there. I'm all for relevant ones, but those extra links, you're right, have nothing to do with my entry.

Link removed

Thanks for the feed back guys

Excellent - thanks Ashley!

Hey T, no I didn't find your article too one-sided, just a little. Having said that, I acknowledge the difficulty of writing a completely unbiased article. It is nigh impossible. Really, my only concern was the statement in the media section, while mentioning the violence sometimes associated with the scene, seemed to kind of dismiss it as media hype. Other than that, I thought it was rather well-written and evenly balanced. For whatever my opinion is worth.

I'm from upstate NY, from a town about 90 miles southwest of Syracuse, so Earth Crisis were a regional band in my area, and a lot of people in the region don't think too highly of straight-edge groups (note the groups part), nor of the PC punks, either. This is because of the troubles that both groups have caused at shows or in other elements of the scene in general.

The whole argument seems to me to echo that of discussions of religious groups, where speaking out against a particular religious group is seen as bashing all of its individual members as well, when often that is not the intent.

Oh, and for the record, Blue Peter is a children's television show, but I can't think of anything comparable in the US. It's like the Today show for kids or something.

It´s not like that where I live, but i can understand why some sXe people get very defensive and hostile, and in turn angry and violent. remember you are in a minority, and ...

1.most of society do things you find profoundly immoral.
2.There is very little understanding for your position.
3. it´s seen as "a stage", childish, something one grows out of ("It is likely that straight edgers will 'lose the edge' when they are adult - after all, there is nothing inherently wrong with drinking.")
4. You actually give up a lot of privileges, because large parts of society focus on drinking. Would you like it if you had to attend animal sacrifices (or something YOU find immoral) in order to have a regular social life?

there was a case in the media up here where one employee in a computer firm was fired because she refused to go to all the parties. So it´s real, you won´t see all the (insert suitable word) from the outside.

earth crisis are not straight edge they are hardline, this is a very different ideological movement, i'm sure you knew this i just wanted to point it out really
Hardline and hate edge are too things completely against my ethics how you can beleive love is a distraction is beyond me plus i find them violent and homophobic i'm not krishna or christian edge either but i find i have more in common with these branches of sxe than with hardline and hate edge. maybe there should be subsection on these movements so they can be seperated from mainstream liberal minded and peaceful sxe.

just some thoughts
xjohnx

Cheers John.

I'm afraid I'm not really a fan of Earth Crisis so I didn't put much thought into what I said about them... I think they should be in the article as they have long been associated with sXe...

I'm not hardline or hate edge either! Far from it. Looking back I wish I had included info on them, but they're quite tough to research properly. Hardliners have a manifesto of sorts, but as for hate edgers I just don't know enough at this stage...

Welcome to h2g2 by the way!

I never learnt that much about hardline, and i never heard of hate-edge until i read this stuff.
I shall have to look at it

Almost 20 years ago, I hung around with quite a lot of straight-edgers... they didn't blame me for drinking, smoking, having sex, but: it always seemed to me a bit too much of a religion, and I can't cope with anything which is too close to fundamentalism. There were some blokes among them who were taking too many drugs before and were drinking too much, so it may have been a way of therapy for *them* - I never lost control, so why stopping? For me, it always was kind of narrow-minded, too many principles.

I think it's important to remember that there is no one typical "type" of straight edger. It's a very subjective thing. To be straight edge means you don't drink, smoke or sleep around... but people add to this, and of course interpret it in their own ways. Debates rage about "what it is to be straightedge" rage 24/7 on sXe messageboards.

But I don't see straight edge as a set of principles to measure up to. I had already made these decisions before becoming sXe. I was simply amazed when I heard Minor Threat that a band felt the same way that I did, and had given a name to it. When I found that there was a movement of people who felt the same, it was very reassuring.

Some sXers are very narrow-minded, but luckily we're not all like that.

But I don't get why drinking is immoral. I don't choose to drink because I don't like wooziness but as far as I'm concerned the only way you can be immoral is by imposing on or hurting other people, so things that you do to damage yourself are foolish but not immoral. I can see the moral case for vegetarianism, but not teetotalism. Could you explain it to me?

I don't think drinking is immoral.

There's a big difference between vegetarianism and teetotalism, even though they are often associated through sXe (I'm not a vegetarian by the way, although I'm not ruling it out). However, as we all know drunkeness can affect others around you, especially if it leads to violence or unwanted sex.

Personally I don't want to act like an idiot at parties.

No, not you, my question was directed at Vintermann. These threads can be a bit confusing.

Ah yes - should have paid more attention to the subject title.

Hello elmsyrup, lucky thing I saw your post (I'm not on very often regrettably)
I really don't know much about the sXe movement, so I can only speak for myself, but then again we all must do in moral issues.

I believe there is a fundamental difference from enjoying something through the senses and enjoing confusing those senses.

(OT: is this what they call a split infinitive?)

When you deliberately mess with your perception, you reduce your ability to correctly make all those other moral choices. I believe it is our supreme duty to make right moral choices, and drinking alcohol or using drugs would be sleeping on guard duty, to put it like that. I _suppose_ that is why I find it wrong.

But with right and wrong you know, you only know what your conscience tells you. I know it tells me it's wrong, I don't _really_ know why, any more than I know why it tells me it's wrong to kill.

So you compare drinking to killing? That alarms me a bit. Some morals are socially defined and vary depending on the time and place in which you live. So how do you find an absolute? It has almost always been agreed that you should not hurt others, but apart from that, what are the reasons for different codes of behaviour- should it not be analysed very closely? I feel that some teetotals are scared of themselves and of losing control. My BF was teetotal for a while because he actually believed he might hurt someone when drunk. He had some therapy to get over his innate feeling that he was a dangerous person, which came from low self esteem- actually he is a gentle and kind man, and drunkenness doesn't change that unless you actually have repressed rage inside you.

I don't compare them like that ... I'm just stating the fact (first stated by Hume, perhaps) that a moral position is inherently in-arguable. Killing someone would make that persons relatives unhappy, but if that is the reason why killing is wrong, why is it wrong to make people unhappy? One could go on like that forever.
I am a pacifist because I know in my heart it is wrong to kill people, no other reason is needed, in fact no other reason is possible.
I don't use alcohol or dope because I know in my heart it is wrong to do that, no other reason is needed, no other reason is possible.

That's all they have in common.