Vegan straight edge

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Vegan Straight Edge , also called xVx , or VSxE , was a scene within the punk / hardcore scene . The guiding principles of the scene were “no alcohol, no drugs, no animal products”. It developed out of the straight-edge scene in the late 1980s / early 1990s , when the latter increasingly propagated vegan nutrition and became politically committed to animal rights. Vegan Straight Edge became the smaller but more political and militant hardline movement.

Vegan Straight Edge as a delimitable movement existed from around 1991 to 1999. Vegan Straight Edge existed as an independent, delimited movement mainly in the USA. In Europe, on the other hand, the straight edge movement was generally more political; veganism was a trend there that ran through the entire scene.

music

Vegan Straight Edge ultimately developed out of punk and thus music always had a prominent position. Musically, the bands played the metal-influenced hardcore punk of the time. They differed from the hardcore bands in other scenes mainly in their attitude to life, which was mostly presented demonstratively. Early bands were Youth of Today or Cro Mags from New York City, who in their songs No More and Cats and Dogs addressed meat consumption for the first time and called for meat to be avoided. Over time the most important band with the greatest influence on the scene was Earth Crisis from Syracuse , New York.

In Europe, the Swedish band Refused was particularly powerful, which explicitly saw itself as politically left-wing and strongly influenced the entire European scene in this direction. In Sweden in particular, and especially in the north, a large vegan straight edge scene emerged that dominated punk culture. In contrast to the movement in the USA, where Straight Edge and Vegan Straight Edge were considered fundamental principles for lifestyle, Refused and the majority of her supporters saw themselves from the beginning as political people who also led a vegan, drug-free lifestyle. Dennis Lyxzén, co-founder and co-singer of the band, for example, was surprised in an interview years later that he had painted the Straight Edge X on his hand at the Refused farewell concert. While the American vegan straight edge scene developed more and more towards metal, Refused introduced a much more experimental style in Europe.

style

  • Two people with a black X on their hands at an Earth Crisis 1996 concert in Indianapolis

  • Three band members of Earth Crisis with a black X on their hand, baggy pants and hoodies at a concert in Indianapolis in 1996

Like every subculture, Vegan Straight Edge was defined by a certain style of clothing. While the older New York Hardcore was still oriented towards punk with leather jackets, undershirts and heavy boots, bands like Youth of Today in particular brought a new style: hoodies , sneakers, trousers in camouflage colors now dominated clothing, which also had a sportier, fitter lifestyle should symbolize. In the Vegan Straight Edge this clothing was of course completely free of leather, wool or other animal products. Later in the 1990s, the importance of baggy pants also increased, presumably under the influence of hip hop .

Typical for Straight Edge and Vegan Straight Edge was the symbol of the black X or XXX, which was painted on the hand, printed on clothes and later also tattooed. Originally, this went back to the practice in Washington clubs of drawing a black X on young people's hands so that alcohol would not be sold to them. Vegan Straight Edge expanded the symbol to include the V for Vegan, which then became xVx.

Political Aspects

The delimitation from when someone called themselves a vegan straight edge was fluid. Large parts of the straight edge scene in the 1990s were vegetarian or vegan. For members of the scene, the decision to go vegetarian was almost logical because they had a strong focus on what they were eating. From the ethics of not poisoning one's own body or doing bad things to it, for example the decision not to do anything to other living beings followed. For many, however, this was primarily a personal decision that they did not discuss in public. For example, all members of the bands Minor Threat and Fugazi - the forefathers of the Straight Edge - were vegetarians or vegans. Nonetheless, they were attacked within the scene for not addressing this in their songs.

Within the political left, to which the Vegan Straight Edge movement mostly belonged, as well as from the mostly left-wing hardcore scene, Vegan Straight Edge was often criticized for a political approach that was often limited to animal rights, combined with a tendency towards militancy and a moral fundamentalism that reminded many of the critics of religious fundamentalism. They also saw the scene as being marked by an extreme overemphasis on masculinity and a tendency towards militant violence.

There were also clear differences between Europe and North America. While in Europe the punk scene has always had close ties with the squatter scene, with many punk centers located in squats or left-wing youth centers, the scene in the USA was mainly focused on commercial clubs. The punk scene in Europe always had strong political overtones and connections, and veganism was just one more aspect of it. In the US, the vegan / vegetarian decision was made on a largely apolitical scene. The decision for / against meat consumption was seen in the scene more as a question of personal ethics and determination, with a strong moral condemnation of the non-vegans that was often received.

Personal aspects

In addition to the political thrust, followers of the Vegan Straight Edge also pursued goals that can be described as control over one's own personality. The thrust already laid out in the Straight Edge to ban all toxins from the body is also extended here to animal products that have a negative impact on the body. Popular T-shirt slogans of the movement were, for example, “Purification - Vegan straight edge”. The ideology thus also serves to develop a counterbalance to the social expectations that encourage young men to consume drugs and meat.

development

Straight Edge emerged from the punk hardcore scene in the early 1980s. Individual actors had the feeling that drugs and violence were flooding the scene and wanted to set an example against it, initially only through their own lifestyle. It was triggered by the song "Straight Edge" by the Washington band Minor Threat from 1981, in which the singer proclaimed that he had better things to do than pull up white cloth or sniff glue. He is "straight edge" (Eng. Straight edge). In 1988, the songs No More and Cats and Dogs by the New York bands Youth of Today and Cro Mags appeared in quick succession , in which they address meat avoidance and call for vegetarianism. In particular, the video from No More, in which many excerpts from slaughterhouses were cut, had a broad impact and many hardcore fans and straight edglers became vegetarians.

Remarks

  1. ^ A b Gabriel Kuhn: Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics . PM Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60486-051-1 , pp. 13-14 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Ross Haenfler: Straight Edge: Clean-living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change . Rutgers University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8135-3852-5 , pp. 5-7 .
  3. ^ Gabriel Kuhn: Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics . PM Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60486-051-1 , pp. 17-18 .
  4. ^ Gabriel Kuhn: Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics . PM Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60486-051-1 , pp. 53 ff .
  5. ↑ Ross Haenfler: Straight Edge: Clean-living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change . Rutgers University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8135-3852-5 , pp. 16 .
  6. ^ A b Ross Haenfler: Rethinking Subcultural Resistance: Core Values ​​of the Straight Edge Movement . In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography . tape 33 , 2004, pp. 406 ff ., doi : 10.1177 / 0891241603259809 ( psu.edu [PDF]).
  7. ^ Gabriel Kuhn: Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics . PM Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60486-051-1 , pp. 40-42 .
  8. ^ Gabriel Kuhn: Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics . PM Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60486-051-1 , pp. 75 .
  9. ↑ Ross Haenfler: Straight Edge: Clean-living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change . Rutgers University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8135-3852-5 , pp. 37 .